In Afghanistan’s western province of Herat, a woman has established a successful sewing workshop, employing eight other female workers. VOA Afghan Service brings us her story, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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Surrounded by orchard trees and flowers, a newly renovated house in Surkhandarya, Uzbekistan, boasts a large courtyard and barn. Sipping green tea in the sweltering summer heat, a group of local women of different ages and backgrounds tell VOA that life near the Afghan border has never been easy, but they now worry more about their neighbors.

Cross-border traffic has fallen since the Taliban takeover in 2021, but dozens of Afghans still enter Uzbekistan daily, and cargo movement at the border crossing is visibly dynamic.

“We see Afghanistan every time we go out. It’s right there,” says Guljamila Hayitova, 72, pointing to the cotton field that ends at the borderline fence.

“Having lived here all my life and still farming in this area, we trust our border forces. We rely on our government, which I know is committed to ensure security. Yet any smoke we see in Hayraton [Afghan border town], any gun shot or blast we hear, does alarm us,” she adds.

With around 3 million people, this southern region of Uzbekistan also borders Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Nearly 200,000 of its people reside, work and study in Termez, the city on the Afghan border. The Friendship Bridge over the Amu Darya River connects Termez with Hayraton, the northern town of Afghanistan’s Balkh province.

Tashkent’s special representative on Afghanistan, Ismatulla Irgashev, argues that the Taliban, with all their complexities and challenges, “are a reality the neighbors and the international community must accept and deal with, based on mutual interests.”

In recent regional talks that also included U.S. and European envoys, Irgashev and other Uzbek diplomats stressed the “need to provide humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, while also engaging the leadership in Kabul.”

Tashkent has been pushing for infrastructure projects through Afghanistan so their double-landlocked republic can finally gain access to seaports in South Asia. While experts in Tashkent and elsewhere, including Washington, debate the feasibility of Uzbekistan’s strategic goals regarding the Taliban, who Irgashev describes as “steadily evolving,” people in Termez want more trade and exchange.

Shaman Jumayev’s house and farm overlook the Friendship Bridge. The railway into Afghanistan runs by his property where he lives with his joint family.

“The Taliban takeover has not and will not change the way we live,” Jumayev emphasizes, showing off his teenage grandchildren, who are getting their education in Termez.

“I don’t separate Afghans. Taliban or not, they are all the same for me. We are all quite used to our neighbor, whose conflicts I have watched from here for the last 45 years.”

Jumayev highlights a typical point made by locals in around 70 neighborhoods adjacent to the border: Uzbeks, Afghans and others have lived alongside each other forever, and no politics can ever separate them.

“We can’t wait to see the trade center the Uzbek government aims to open near the crossing point,” said Nasibakhon Abdunazarova, chief of Ayritom, the closest border neighborhood.

“We already benefit from the Termez Cargo Center, where dozens of our men work. Our youth need opportunities and are eager to be employed by new businesses that pay better,” she said.

But the salary at the Termez Cargo Center is modest, Hayitova points out, discussing the impact of the giant terminal that opened in 2016. “But it is still better than having nothing here,” which was the situation until recently.

Located near the border, the cargo center has the capacity to serve up to 50 trucks at a time, offering customs clearance, storage of import-export cargo, and transit of rail and auto-delivered products to and from Afghanistan. It also runs the Karvonsaroy hotel complex.

Jumayev and others interviewed by VOA in Surkhandarya worry about the new channel the Taliban is building off the Amu Darya River.

“We cannot underestimate the need for water. I don’t sense any panic here over this project, but we definitely don’t want to suffer from any scarcity because of it,” Abdunazarova says.

Jumayev, whose farm relies on the Amu Darya, is happy with how Tashkent is handling the issue.

“The Taliban knows our position, because the Uzbek government has laid out our concerns,” he says.

Confident about security

For Surkhandarya Governor Ulugbek Qosimov, “Trade, education and cultural ties with the Afghan people have continued even during the most unstable times on the other side of the Amu Darya.”

“Our people are accustomed to stability and peace, despite what happens in Afghanistan. We have not had any crisis in the area since the Taliban took over,” he said.

Uzbekistan does not accept refugees from Afghanistan. Officials tell VOA that those who entered before the Taliban came to power have mostly been allowed to stay. Many Afghan traders have been able to extend residential permits, while some have been waiting for a long time.

“I feel much safer now with my family here than I did two years ago when the leadership changed in Kabul,” says Nadim, an Afghan citizen who faced deportation in 2021 and asked to withhold his last name for safety reasons.

The Afghan consulate in Termez has renewed its office — a Taliban official now represents Kabul. But since his government is not recognized, the old flag still flies outside the compound.

Termez hosts a special school for Afghan citizens, educating 535 so far. More than half have gotten undergraduate degrees.

“Six years ago, there were about 40 Afghan businesses in Termez. Now, we have more than 300 engaged in construction, agriculture, services and manufacturing,” Qosimov says.

Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev set Afghanistan as a foreign policy priority, focusing on security, development and partnership.

Guided by that strategy, Qosimov says, “All we want is prosperity, here and across the border. We have been assisting our neighbors with food, clothing and other critical necessities. We have also been increasing incentives for Afghan entrepreneurs.”

C5+1

In a July 27 meeting, under the auspices of the C5+1 regional diplomatic platform, special envoys for Afghanistan from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the United States emphasized a precondition to the Taliban: “An inclusive, united, sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Afghanistan that is free of terrorism, respects the rights of its population, including women and girls, and is at peace with itself and its neighbors.”

The group underlined that the Afghan territory should not be “used as a base for hosting, financing, or exporting terrorism and violent extremism to other countries,” agreeing that countries must strengthen cooperation against trafficking in people, arms and illegal drugs.

A stable and prosperous Afghanistan “is only attainable if all Afghans, including women and girls, and persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, can fully, equally, and meaningfully participate in — and contribute to — the country’s future,” the joint statement said.

Reaffirming the importance of regional connectivity through the construction of energy infrastructure and transportation networks connecting Central Asia to South Asia via Afghanistan, C5+1 is supporting United Nations efforts and presence in Afghanistan, urging for responsible and inclusive governance.
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After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, many artists fled the country. Young artist Mariam Kawsari says that the return of the Taliban made it difficult for her to express herself.  Muska Safi has the story from Islamabad, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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Thousands of furious protesters chanting anti-government slogans marched Monday in Bangladesh hours after a powerful jailed Islamist opposition leader died of a heart attack aged 83, officials said.

Delwar Hossain Sayedee, vice president of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party, died in a prison hospital early Monday evening, just over a decade since his conviction by a controversial war crimes court triggered the deadliest political violence in the country’s history.

Thousands of mourners and supporters of Sayedee rallied outside the hospital after his death, chanting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” with large numbers of police deployed.

“We won’t let the blood of Sayedee go in vain,” supporters shouted, with many blaming the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which is preparing for key general elections slated for January.

Hospital authorities said Sayedee was admitted to the health facility after suffering a heart attack Sunday in Kashimpur Prison outside the capital Dhaka.

“He faced another heart attack today [Monday] at 6:45 p.m. [12:45 GMT] and died at 8:40 p.m.,” hospital director Brigadier General Rezaur Rahman told AFP, adding he had had five stents inserted into his arteries.

Jamaat-e-Islami announced Sayedee’s death on its Facebook page, where it accused the authorities of “slowly turning him into a martyr without treatment in the prison.”

Sayedee was sentenced to death in 2013 by a war-crimes tribunal on eight charges of murder, rape and persecution of Hindus, triggering deadly protests by thousands of supporters nationwide, leaving more than 100 people dead.

The party said tens of thousands of its supporters were arrested in a subsequent crackdown, and the party was only this year able to hold public protests again.

In 2014, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court said Sayedee should spend “the rest of his natural life” in jail for crimes during the 1971 liberation war with Pakistan.

Sayedee shot to prominence in the 1980s after he started preaching in some of the Muslim-majority nation’s top mosques.

In his heyday he would draw hundreds of thousands to his sessions and CDs of his speeches were top sellers.

Even people who were not supporters of Jamaat attended his Koranic preachings.

Jamaat-e-Islami was banned for much of the 1970s for its support of Pakistan during the war, but by the 1990s it had become the country’s third largest party and the biggest Islamist outfit.

Political analysts credit Sayedee’s preaching for transforming the party into a major force.
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Afghanistan’s Taliban have declared August 15 the day of “victory” against the United States and announced a public holiday for Tuesday to mark the second anniversary of their return to power in Kabul. 

The then-insurgent Taliban captured the capital on August 15, 2021, after overrunning the rest of the war-torn South Asian nation as the last remaining U.S.-led NATO troops withdrew, ending their two decades of involvement in the Afghan war. 

“Tuesday is the victory day of the jihad [holy war] of the people of Afghanistan under the leadership of Islamic Emirate against the United States and its allies,” stated an announcement by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs on the eve of the anniversary. 

The Taliban government, the Islamic Emirate, relies on its strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, to rule the poverty-stricken South Asian nation. 

No foreign country has yet granted legitimacy to the de facto Afghan authorities, citing restrictions on most women’s access to work, and a ban on girls’ education, and other human rights concerns. 

“It is time for the United States and others to formally recognize our government because it is the right of the people of Afghanistan, and withholding it is not a positive step,” Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s celebrations. 

“Women’s education and work is not the issue. These are mere excuses,” Mujahid asserted, speaking from his office in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. “Unfortunately, accepting an Islamic government is difficult for the Western world or countries defeated in Afghanistan, so they are not ready to recognize us.” 

The United Nations has indefinitely postponed international recognition of the Taliban government. 

Mujahid said their Islamic Emirate had met all the requirements over the past two years to become part of the global community. 

He recounted the Taliban had established nationwide peace and security, stabilized the economy, ended illegal opium poppy cultivation as well as its trafficking, ensured women’s rights to inheritance, and engaged in commercial activities in line with Sharia. 

“We maintain formal ties with several countries. Our visits to and cooperation with them through diplomacy are all formal. We have opened Afghan embassies in many countries, and their embassies operate in Kabul. Our official business, trade, and exchange of delegations take place with them,” Mujahid said. 

“We consider it a formal acceptance of the Islamic Emirate, and we are no longer concerned about this issue.” He renewed the demand for Western nations to unfreeze nearly $9 billion in Afghan central bank assets, mostly held in the U.S., and to lift travel restrictions on top Taliban leaders. 

Mujahid alleged that American drones still occasionally violate Afghan airspace. He demanded an end to the alleged violations. 

Taliban forces have ended terrorism, and they are determined to prevent anyone, including Afghans, from threatening the United States or any other country from Afghanistan, he said. 

“Those found guilty of indulging in such activities will be brought to justice and punished in line with our legal system.” 

Mujahid claimed that sustained Taliban counterterrorism operations had almost “decimated Daesh and its bases” in the country. He used the local name for the regional affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group, known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province. 

In a recent round of talks with Taliban representatives, U.S. delegates urged them to reverse policies responsible for the deteriorating Afghan human rights situation, particularly for women and girls. The dialogue occurred in Doha, Qatar, from July 30-31. 

“U.S. officials took note of the Taliban’s continuing commitment to not allow the territory of Afghanistan to be used by anyone to threaten the United States and its allies, and the two sides discussed Taliban efforts to fulfill security commitments,” the State Department said after the meeting. 

It noted reports indicating that the Taliban’s ban on opium poppy cultivation resulted in a significant decrease in cultivation during the most recent growing season. 

Taliban have banned girls from attending schools beyond the sixth grade, blocked female students from accessing university classes, and banned Afghan women from working for the U.N. and other aid groups in a country where two-thirds of the population need humanitarian aid. 

While the hard-line leaders have touted their gains since reclaiming power two years ago, the United Nations and other global monitors have consistently decried worsening human rights conditions in Afghanistan. 

CIVICUS, a South Africa-based global alliance of civil society organizations and activists, in its report on the two-year Taliban rule, criticized them for unleashing a “systematic assault on civic space.” 

“The Taliban have continued to crackdown on protests over the last year, especially by women’s rights activists around their right to education and employment with some arbitrarily arrested and ill-treated,” the report said. 

“Activists have been arbitrarily arrested and detained for their criticism of the Taliban,” the global alliance said. “Others have faced harassment, intimidation, and violence, and some have been killed.” 

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Taliban to stop their “relentless campaign of media intimidation” and abide by its promise to protect journalists in the country. 

“Two years after the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s once vibrant free press is a ghost of its former self,” Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, said Monday. 

“Worsening media repression is isolating Afghanistan from the rest of the world at a time when the country is grappling with one of the world’s largest humanitarian emergencies.” 

She stressed that access to reliable and trustworthy information could help save lives and livelihoods in a crisis, “but the Taliban’s escalating crackdown on media is doing the opposite.” 

Press freedom monitors say about a dozen journalists are imprisoned in Afghanistan for their work. Most were rounded up over the past two weeks, including three Sunday. 

The Taliban’s spy agency, the General Directorate of Intelligence, is allegedly the driving force behind the crackdown. Government media spokespersons rarely comment on the agency’s crackdown. 

Despite initially promising to allow press freedom after taking power two years ago, the Taliban have shut down dozens of local media outlets, banned some international broadcasters, and denied visas to foreign correspondents, the CPJ noted in its statement. 

“In the last two years, hundreds of Afghan journalists have fled to neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran, and many are now stuck in legal limbo without clear prospects of resettlement to a third country,” the U.S.-based media freedom monitor said.
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Pakistani authorities are investigating the shooting death Sunday of a prominent local journalist in the southern Sindh province.

Jan Mohammad Mahar, bureau chief of the Sindhi-language cable television network KTN News, was shot at least four times at close range by unidentified assailants, according to local reports.

He was attacked as he drove through a busy commercial area in the city of Sukkur on his way home from work. Mahar, who was in his 40s, was taken to a hospital where he died.

As of Monday, Mahar’s family had not filed a police report, although a person familiar with the case told VOA that a few suspects were already being investigated. So far, no clear motive has emerged, the source said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

VOA called police officials involved in the investigation but received no response.

Global press freedom watchdogs consider Pakistan unsafe for journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 97 media workers and journalists have been killed in the country since 1992, with many targeted for their work. The rate of conviction, however, is almost negligible.

Kiran Mirza, a member of the Sukkur Press Club, told VOA that a senior police officer who visited the hospital that treated Mahar told journalists that in a recent meeting, Mahar did not mention he was facing any threats.

Mirza said her colleagues were “extremely angry and sad” over the incident. 

The Sukkur Press Club has called on media groups from across the province to protest in front of the police superintendent’s office Tuesday morning if culprits are not arrested by then.

Mahar’s killing comes a week after unknown assailants shot and killed another journalist, Ghulam Asghar Khand, near his home in the town of Ahmedpur in Sindh.

Freedom Network, a Pakistan-based media watchdog, recorded at least 140 cases of threats and attacks against journalists, media professionals and media organizations between May 2022 and March 2023.  
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Officials in India said Monday that heavy rains in the Himalayas have killed at least 22 people over the past two days. 

The torrential rains have triggered landslides that have flattened buildings in Himachal Pradesh state, including a temple thronged with worshipers.

School has been canceled in many locations. Some residents have been evacuated to shelters. 

“Again, tragedy has befallen Himachal Pradesh, with continuous rainfall over the past 48 hours,” Sukhvinder Singh, the state’s chief minister, posted on the messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
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Anwaarul Haq Kakar is Pakistan’s new caretaker prime minister.  

He was sworn in Monday by President Arif Alvi in Islamabad in a ceremony at the presidential palace, attended by outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.  

Sharif and opposition leader Raja Riaz Ahmad agreed on Alvi’s installment after talks Saturday.  

Kakar’s resignation from the Senate was accepted Monday, ahead of his swearing-in. 

The interim prime minister is a 52-year-old ethnic Pashtun from Balochistan. He is a member of the Balochistan Awami Party.  

In the caretaker position, he is responsible for ensuring that the coming elections are free and fair.  Kakar also decided that he needed to resign from his party, which he founded, to maintain neutrality in the elections.  

Outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz said Kakar was the “most suitable person” for the caretaker role.  

A caretaker prime minister is a temporary position that is held until elections take place and a regular prime minister can be installed. A caretaker politician maintains the status quo and does not govern. It is not an elected position.  
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Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) separatists attacked a convoy carrying Chinese engineers to the Beijing-financed Gwadar Port in Pakistan’s southwest on Sunday, the group said.

Various Baloch militant groups have claimed attacks on projects linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project in the past, with thousands of security personnel deployed to counter threats against Beijing’s interests.

“BLA Majeed Brigade today targeted a convoy of Chinese engineers in Gwadar. The attack is still ongoing,” the separatist group said in a statement.

Security sources confirmed an attack, but there was no immediate official response.

However, Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti, a senator and former provincial interior minister, said on Twitter, now rebranded as X, that no Chinese nationals were killed in the attack.

“I strongly condemn the heinous terror attack on Chinese workers convoy in Gwadar,” he posted.

“Thankfully, no loss of life happened, but there are reports that the ambush has been repulsed and the attackers have been killed.” 

State Radio Pakistan, citing the military’s public relations wing, said the situation was under control.

“One terrorist was killed and three others injured in exchange of fire between security forces and terrorists in Gwadar,” it said. 

Baloch separatists frequently exaggerate their battlefield successes, while the Pakistan military’s public relations department also plays down attacks, or delays reporting them.

Three Chinese academics and their Pakistani driver were killed when a woman suicide bomber detonated her device as they were driving into the University of Karachi’s Confucius Institute in April 2022.

The BLA claimed responsibility for that attack.

A year earlier, five people were killed in an attack claimed by Pakistan’s Taliban at a luxury hotel hosting the Chinese ambassador in Quetta.

Also in 2021, 12 people — including nine Chinese workers — were killed by a blast aboard a bus carrying staff to the Dasu dam site.

Islamabad blamed that explosion on a “gas leak” but Beijing insisted it was a bomb attack.

Balochistan is Pakistan’s least populous province but rich in mineral resources.

Baloch people have long complained they do not get a fair share of the province’s profits, giving rise to more than a dozen separatist groups.

The CPEC project is the cornerstone of Beijing’s massive Belt and Road Initiative and seeks to link China’s western Xinjiang province to Gwadar port in the southwest. 

Since its initiation, CPEC has seen tens of billions of dollars funneled into massive transport, energy and infrastructure projects. 

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng was in the Pakistan capital last month to mark the 10th anniversary of the project.
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What happens when you take Quechua, the most widely spoken Indigenous language in the Americas, and fuse it with K-pop, the global musical sensation with roots in South Korea? 

Ask Lenin Tamayo, who has become a social media phenomenon with “Q-pop” and this week released his first digital album. 

Tamayo grew up listening to his mother, a Peruvian folk artist who sings in Spanish and Quechua, a language shared by 10 million speakers in countries including Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. As a teenager, K-pop became his passion and helped him find a group of like-minded female classmates who helped fight the bullying he says he faced at school for his Indigenous looks. 

Now a musician, Tamayo, 23, has fused those chapters, mixing Spanish and Quechua lyrics with K-pop beats to create Q-pop (in which the “Q” stands for “Quechua”). He’s amassed more than 4.4 million likes on his TikTok account and released five digital singles online. 

Making music in his native language “helps embrace the roots but, without being oblivious to modernity and globalization,” he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. 

For Tamayo, the K-pop aesthetic helped influence a personal style where he mixes his own choreography and a way of acting that helps reinforce a key message: Love and freedom. 

“Love to unite people and the freedom to be oneself, because it’s all about embracing existence and seeking a full, full, real life, with depth,” he said. 

Mixing passions

After completing his psychology studies at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Tamayo could not picture himself practicing in that profession. He wanted to be a singer, and he wanted his music to mix his passions. 

“Why can’t I transfer this K-pop experience to Andean music?” Tamayo asked while practicing dance steps at his home in a Lima suburb. 

Tamayo is the only child of Yolanda Pinares, a contemporary Andean music singer who taught him the importance of showing his Quechua identity in a country where racism “is covered up,” he said. When he was a child, he says he was bullied at school for being shy and for Indigenous complexion, eyes, hair, and cheekbones. 

These traits, he believes, are somewhat similar between Andean youths and South Korean singers, something that has helped K-pop become popular even in remote villages and on the outskirts of Lima, where millions of people with Indigenous roots live. 

“Art is a vehicle to move consciences and generate change,” Tamayo said. 

A new release

This week, Tamayo released “Amaru,” his debut album in digital format. “Amaru” means snake in Quechua, a word that is tied to the history, lyrics, music, mythology of the Incas and modern sounds. 

In a preview video for “Amaru,” policemen are seen beating protesters carrying a Peruvian flag and then chasing a woman who escapes through an Andean forest. The scene evokes the recent citizen protests demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte that have left 67 dead, the majority of whom are of Indigenous origin. 

Like thousands of Peruvians, Tamayo participated in the protests at the beginning of the year in the capital. 

“It’s very important to make this type of music because it allows you to generate change and generate hope in young people,” he said. 
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Hundreds of young Afghans are choosing to make the treacherous journey to Iran, hoping to reach Europe. They say they are fleeing Afghanistan because there are no job opportunities for them. VOA’s Afghan Service has the story, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
Camera: VOA Afghan
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An investigation has been launched into the death of a Pakistani porter near the peak of the world’s most treacherous mountain, a Pakistani mountaineer said Saturday.  

The investigation was prompted by allegations that dozens of climbers eager to reach the summit walked past the porter after he was gravely injured in a fall. 

The accusations surrounding events on July 27 on K2, the world’s second-highest peak, overshadowed a record established by Norwegian climber Kristin Harila and her Sherpa guide Tenjin. By climbing K2 that day, they became the world’s fastest climbers, scaling the world’s 14 highest mountains in 92 days. 

Harila rejected any responsibility for the death of the porter, Mohammed Hassan, a 27-year-old father of three who slipped and fell off a narrow trail in a particularly dangerous area of K2 known as the bottleneck.  

In an Instagram post Friday, she wrote that no one was at fault in the tragic death. 

Two other climbers on K2 that day, Austrian Wilhelm Steindl and German Philip Flaemig, aborted their climb because of weather, but they said they reconstructed the events later by reviewing drone footage. 

The footage showed dozens of climbers passing a gravely injured Hassan instead of coming to his rescue, Steindl told The Associated Press on Saturday. He alleged the porter could have been saved if the other climbers, including Harila and her team, had given up attempts to reach the summit. 

Steindl added that the footage shows “a man trying to rub (Hassan’s) chest, trying to keep him warm, to keep him alive somehow. You can see that the man is desperate.” 

“There is a double standard here,” Steindl said. “If I or any other Westerner had been lying there, everything would have been done to save them. Everyone would have had to turn back to bring the injured person back down to the valley.” 

Steindl said July 27 was the only day in this season on which conditions were good enough for mountaineers to reach the summit of K2, which explains why there were so many climbers who were so eager to get to the top. 

“I don’t want to kind of directly blame anybody,” Steindl said. “I’m just saying there was no rescue operation initiated and that’s really very, very tragic because that’s actually the most normal thing one would do in a situation like that.” 

Harila told Sky News that Hassan had been dangling from a rope, head down, after his fall at the bottleneck, which she described as “probably the most dangerous part of K2.” She said that after about an hour, her team was able to pull him back onto the trail. 

At some point, she and another person from her team decided to continue to the top while another team member stayed with Hassan, giving him warm water and oxygen from his own mask, the climber said. 

Harila said she decided to continue moving toward the summit because her forward fixing team also had run into difficulties, which she did not further detail in the interview. 

An investigation has been launched into Hassan’s death, said Karrar Haidri, the secretary of the Pakistan Alpine Club, a sports organization that also serves as the governing body for mountaineering in Pakistan. The investigation is being conducted by officials in the Gilgit-Baltistan region that has jurisdiction over K2, Haidri said. 

Anwar Syed, the head of Lela Peak Expedition, the company that Hassan was working for, said he died about 150 meters (490 feet) below the summit. He said several people tried to help, providing oxygen and warmth, to no avail. 

Syed said that because of the bottleneck’s dangerous conditions, it would not be possible to retrieve Hassan’s body for his family. He said his company had given money to Hassan’s family and would continue to help but did not elaborate. 

Steindl visited Hassan’s family and set up a crowd-funding campaign. After three days, donations reached more than $125,000 Saturday. 

“I saw the suffering of the family,” Steindl told AP. “The widow told me that her husband did all this so that his children would have a chance in life, so that they could go to school.” 
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Pakistan appointed Anwaar-ul-haq Kakar as the caretaker prime minister Saturday to run the country and steer it toward national elections, which are to be held within 90 days.

Kakar, a member of the Pakistani Senate, represents the impoverished southwestern Baluchistan province in the lower house of Parliament and is said to be an ally of the powerful military.

The 52-year-old prime minister-designate is primarily mandated to oversee “free and transparent” elections until a new government is elected.

Outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office said Saturday that he nominated Kakar to be his successor in consultations with Raja Riaz, the opposition leader in the National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament.

The nomination was later signed into effect by Pakistani President Arif Alvi, a formality in line with the Constitution.

Sharif dissolved the National Assembly last week as its five-year tenure ended, making it the third consecutive elected house in Pakistan’s 76-year turbulent democratic history to complete its term.

The Constitution requires the Election Commission of Pakistan, or ECP, to hold federal and provincial elections by mid-November after the dissolution, but it is being widely speculated the vote could be moved to next year.

The uncertainty stems from Sharif’s decision earlier this month that elections should be based on new census data, binding the ECP to redraw hundreds of electoral boundaries nationwide before setting a date for the ballot.

Legal experts have warned that holding elections beyond the 90-day deadline on any pretext would violate the Constitution and could prompt the Supreme Court to intervene.

Elections in the nuclear-armed South Asian nation of about 241 million people invariably are mired in allegations of widespread vote-rigging and other controversies, with the military often blamed for manipulating results in favor of its candidate.

Kakar, a member of the pro-military Baluchistan Awami Party, served as the chief spokesperson of the provincial government until his election to the Senate in 2018.

The elections in Pakistan likely will be held without former Prime Minister Imran Khan on the ballot. He is rated by all opinion polls as the country’s most popular politician.

Last week, he was sentenced to three years in prison for alleged embezzlement of official gifts while in office and was subsequently banned from running for office for five years.

Khan has denied the graft charges as politically motivated, saying the Pakistani military is behind it to block his way to return to power. The military has denied the allegation.

Pakistan has experienced severe economic and political crises since April 2022, when Khan was removed from office by a parliamentary no-confidence vote less than four years after his party won the 2018 elections and enabled the cricket star-turned-politician to become the prime minister.

Sharif, a bitter political rival who led the vote against Khan, became the prime minister and formed a coalition government of about a dozen political parties.

Khan rejected the vote and Sharif’s ascension to power as illegal, saying the military plotted it at the behest of the United States to punish him for his neutrality in the Ukraine conflict, charges Washington and Islamabad dismissed as false.

Military generals have staged four coups in Pakistan since it gained independence from Britain in 1947, leading to several decades of dictatorial rule. The powerful institution influences political and foreign policy matters even when it is not in power, which critics blame for the country’s fragile democracy.
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Media freedom defenders have called on Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities to immediately release at least nine journalists currently in prison for their work and stop their “brutal” crackdown on national press members.

Operatives of the Taliban’s spy agency, the General Directorate of Intelligence, or GDI, arrested five journalists during this week’s raids on offices of independent radio and television news networks in eastern and northern parts of the country, accusing them of reporting for self-exiled Afghan news outlets.

The most recent GDI raids took place Thursday in eastern Jalalabad and in northeastern Kunduz province, targeting a radio station and a TV channel.

The Afghanistan Journalists Center, an independent media freedom monitor, denounced the arrests on X, formerly known as Twitter, as a “serious violation of journalists’ rights” and demanded the Taliban “release the nine journalists currently in prison.”

Taliban government officials do not publicly discuss the GDI’s operations and reject allegations they are stifling media freedom in the country.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, said Friday that the latest detentions just before the second anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power showed they are “determined to continue their brutal crackdown on the media.”

Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, demanded the Taliban “immediately and unconditionally” release the journalists and “stop muzzling reporting, whether it is conducted for local media or the exiled press.”

The U.S.-based watchdog group noted that since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, the country’s media have been in crisis, with arrests, raids on offices and beatings.

“The Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence has emerged as a key threat to journalists in the country. Some journalists who fled the country have established media outlets to continue reporting on Afghanistan in exile,” the CPJ said.

Reporters Without Borders, an international media freedom advocacy group known by its French acronym RSF, released a report this week documenting efforts by Afghan male and female journalists, within the country and abroad, to keep journalism alive despite the Taliban’s crackdown.

“The media have been decimated in the past two years,” the RSF noted in its report. It said that more than half of the 547 media outlets that were registered in 2021 have since disappeared.

Of the 150 Afghan TV channels, fewer than 70 remain, and only 170 radio stations of the 307 are still broadcasting, while the number of news agencies has declined to 18 from 31.

The RSF report finds that over 80% of women journalists have had to stop working since the hardline Taliban seized power and imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, to govern the conflict-torn South Asian nation.

“And of the roughly 12,000 journalists – male and female – that Afghanistan had in 2021, more than two-thirds have abandoned the profession.”

The RSF quoted journalists working in Afghanistan, saying they face “huge” challenges.

A female TV reporter in Kabul, the Afghan capital, told the media watchdog that the situation is getting worse daily. “I have repeatedly been denied the right to cover events simply because I am a woman,” she said, requesting anonymity.

A Kabul-based male TV journalist said that his colleagues who reported objectively and accurately were imprisoned, forced to quit their jobs or had to flee Afghanistan.

“Every journalist is now terrified, crushed, and despondent as a result of all the arrests and the harassment to which we have been subjected, and therefore all self-censor their work,” the journalist told RSF. He also asked not to be identified, fearing retaliation by the Taliban.
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It was born in the break, all those decades ago — that moment when a song’s vocals dropped, instruments quieted down and the beat took the stage. It was then that hip-hop came into the world, taking the moment and reinventing it. Something new, coming out of something familiar.

At the hands of the DJs playing the albums, that break moment became something more: a composition in itself, repeated in an endless loop, back and forth between the turntables. The MCs got in on it, speaking their own clever rhymes and wordplay over it. So did the dancers, the b-boys and b-girls who hit the floor to breakdance. It took on its own visual style, with graffiti artists bringing it to the streets and subways of New York City.

It didn’t stay there, of course. A musical form, a culture, with reinvention as its very DNA would never, could never. Hip-hop spread, from the parties to the parks, through New York City’s boroughs and then the region, around the country and the world.

And at each step: change, adaptation, as new, different voices came in and made it their own, in sound, in lyric, in purpose, in style. Its foundations steeped in the Black communities where it first made itself known and also spreading out and expanding, like ripples in water, until there’s no corner of the world that hasn’t been touched by it.

Not only being reinvented, but reinventing. Art, culture, fashion, community, social justice, politics, sports, business: Hip-hop has impacted them all, transforming even as it has been transformed.

In hip-hop, “when someone does it, then that’s how it’s done. When someone does something different, then that’s a new way,” said Babatunde Akinboboye, a Nigerian-American opera singer and longtime hip-hop fan in Los Angeles who creates content on social media using both musical styles.

Hip-hop “connects to what is true. And what is true, lasts.”

How it all began

Those looking for a hip-hop starting point have landed on one, turning this year into a 50th-birthday celebration. Aug. 11, 1973, was the date a young Clive Campbell, known as DJ Kool Herc around his Bronx stomping grounds, deejayed a back-to-school party for his younger sister in the community room of an apartment building on Sedgwick Avenue.

Campbell, who was born and spent his early years in Jamaica before his family moved to the Bronx, was still a teen himself at that time, just 18, when he began extending the musical breaks of the records he was playing to create a different kind of dancing opportunity. He’d started speaking over the beat, reminiscent of the “toasting” style heard in Jamaica.

It wasn’t long before the style could be heard all over the city — and began to spread around the New York City metro region.

Among those who started to hear about it were some young men across the river in Englewood, New Jersey, who started making up rhymes to go along with the beats. In 1979, they auditioned as rappers for Sylvia Robinson, a singer-turned-music producer who co-founded Sugar Hill Records.

As the Sugarhill Gang, they put out “Rapper’s Delight” and introduced the country to a record that would reach as high as 36 on Billboard’s Top 100 chart list and even make it to No. 1 in some European countries.

“Now what you hear is not a test: I’m rappin’ to the beat/And me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet,” Michael “Wonder Mike” Wright said in one of the song’s stanzas.

Wright said he had no doubt the song — and, by extension, hip-hop — was “going to be big.”

“I knew it was going to blow up and play all over the world because it was a new genre of music,” he told The Associated Press. “You had classical jazz, bebop, rock, pop, and here comes a new form of music that didn’t exist.”

And it was one based in self-expression, said Guy “Master Gee” O’Brien. “If you couldn’t sing or you couldn’t play an instrument, you could recite poetry and speak your mind. And so it became accessible to the everyman.”

And everywomen, too. Female voices took their chances on the microphone and dance floors as well, artists like Roxanne Shante, a native of New York City’s Queens borough who was only 14 years old in 1984. That was the year she became one of the first female MCs, those rhyming over the beat, to gain a wider audience — and was part of what was likely the first well-known instance of rappers using their song tracks to take sonic shots at other rappers, in a back-and-forth song battle known as the Roxanne Wars.

“When I look at my female rappers of today, I see hope and inspiration,” Shante said. “When you look at some of your female rappers today and you see the businesses that they own and the barriers that they were able to break it down, it’s amazing to me and it’s an honor for me to even be a part of that from the beginning.”

Plenty of other women have joined her over the intervening decades, from Queen Latifah to Lil’ Kim to Nicki Minaj to Megan Thee Stallion and more, speaking on their experiences as women in hip-hop and the larger world. That doesn’t even begin to touch the list of women rappers hailing from other countries.

They’re women like Tkay Maidza, born in Zimbabwe and raised in Australia, a songwriter and rapper in the early part of her career. She’s thrilled with the diverse female company she’s keeping in hip-hop, and with the variety of subjects they’re talking about.

“There’s so many different pockets … so many ways to exist,” she said. “It’s not about what other people have done. … You can always recreate the blueprint.”

Speaking out about injustice

The emphasis on self-expression has also meant that over the years, hip-hop has been used as a medium for just about everything.

Want to talk about a party or how awesome and rich you are? Go for it. A cute guy or beautiful girl catch your eye? Say it in a verse. Looking to take that sound coming out of New York City and adapt it to a West Coast vibe, or a Chicago beat, a New Orleans groove, or an Atlanta rhythm, or these days, sounds in Egypt, India, Australia, Nigeria? It’s all you, and it’s all hip-hop. (Now whether anyone listening thought it was actually any good? That was a different story.)

Mainstream America hasn’t always been ready for it. The sexually explicit content from Miami’s 2 Live Crew made their 1989 album “As Nasty As They Want To Be” the subject of a legal battle over obscenity and freedom of expression; a later album, “Banned in the USA,” became the first to get an official record industry label about explicit content.

Coming from America’s Black communities, that has also meant hip-hop has been a tool to speak out against injustice, like in 1982 when Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five told the world in “The Message” that the stresses of poverty in their city neighborhoods made it feel “like a jungle sometimes/It makes me wonder how I keep from goin’ under.”

Other figures like Common and Kendrick Lamar have also turned to a conscious lyricism in their hip-hop, with perhaps none better known than Public Enemy, whose “Fight the Power” became an anthem when it was created for filmmaker Spike Lee’s 1989 classic “Do the Right Thing,” which chronicled racial tension in a Brooklyn neighborhood.

Some in hip-hop pulled no punches, using the art form and the culture as a no-holds-barred way of showcasing the troubles of their lives. Often those messages have been met with fear or disdain in the mainstream. When N.W.A. came “Straight Outta Compton” in 1988 with loud, brash tales of police abuse and gang life, radio stations recoiled.

Hip-hop (mainly that done by Black artists) and law enforcement have had a contentious relationship over the years, each eyeing the other with suspicion. There’s been cause for some of it. In some forms of hip-hop, the ties between rappers and criminal figures were real, and the violence that spiraled out, as in high-profile deaths like that of Tupac Shakur in 1996 and the Notorious B.I.G. in 1997, sometimes got very bloody. But in a country where Black people are often looked at with suspicion by authority, there have also been plenty of stereotypes about hip-hop and criminality.

As hip-hop spread over the years, a host of voices have used it to speak out on the issues that are dear to them. Look at Bobby Sanchez, a Peruvian-American transgender, two-spirit poet and rapper who has released a song in Quechua, the language of the Wari people that her father came from. “Quechua 101 Land Back Please” references the killing of Indigenous peoples and calls for land restoration.

“I think it’s very special and cool when artists use it to reflect society because it makes it bigger than just them,” Sanchez said. “To me, it’s always political, really, no matter what you’re talking about, because hip-hop, in a way, is a form of resistance.”

A worldwide phenomenon

Yes, it’s an American creation. And yes, it’s still heavily influenced by what’s happening in the United States. But hip-hop has found homes all over the planet, turned to by people in every community under the sun to express what matters to them.

When hip-hop first started being absorbed outside of the United States, it was often with a mimicking of American styles and messages, said P. Khalil Saucier, who has studied the spread of hip-hop across the countries of Africa.

That’s not the case these days. Homegrown hip-hop can be found everywhere, a prime example of the genre’s penchant for staying relevant and vital by being reinvented by the people doing it.

“The culture as a whole has kind of really rooted itself because it’s been able to now transform itself from simply an importation, if you will, to now really being local in its multiple manifestations, regardless of what country you’re looking at,” said Saucier, a professor of critical Black studies at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.

That’s to everyone’s benefit, said Rishma Dhaliwal, founder of London’s I Am Hip-Hop magazine.

“Hip-hop is … allowing you in someone’s world. It’s allowing you into someone’s struggles,” she said. “It’s a big microphone to say, `Well, the streets say this is what is going on here and this is what you might not know about us. This is how we feel, and this is who we are.’ ”

The impact hasn’t just been in one direction. Hip-hop hasn’t just been changed; it has made change. It has gone into other spaces and made them different. It strutted through the fashion world as it brought its own sensibility to streetwear. It has revitalized companies; just ask Timberland what sales were like before its workboots became de rigueur hip-hop wear.

Or look at perhaps the perfect example: “Hamilton,” Lin Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking musical about a distant white historical figure that came to life in the rhythms of its hip-hop soundtrack, bringing a different energy and audience to the theater world.

Hip-hop “has done a very good job at making culture more accessible. It has broken into spaces that we’re traditionally not allowed to break into,” Dhaliwal said.

For Usha Jey, freestyling hip-hop was the perfect thing to mix with the classical, formal South Asian dance style of Bharatnatyam. The 26-year-old choreographer, born in France to Tamil immigrant parents, created a series of social media videos last year showing the two styles interacting with each other. It was her training in hip-hop that gave her the confidence and spirit to do something different.

Hip-hop culture “pushes you to be you,” Jey said. “I feel like in the pursuit of finding yourself, hip-hop helps me because that culture says, you’ve got to be you.”

Hip-hop is, simply, “a magical art form,” said Nile Rodgers, legendary musician, composer and record producer. He would know. It was his song “Good Times,” with the band Chic, that was recreated to form the basis for “Rapper’s Delight” all those years ago.

“The impact that it’s had on the world, it really can’t be quantified,” Rodgers said. “You can find someone in a village that you’ve never been to, a country that you’ve never been to, and all of a sudden you hear its own local hip-hop. And you don’t even know who these people are, but they’ve adopted it and have made it their own.”
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Monsoon season can exacerbate the outbreak as infected people overwhelm hospitals
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Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir are facing criticism over their response to a stunning increase in the number of women reported missing in recent years.

Data provided by the federal government on July 26 in response to an inquiry by an opposition member of India’s Parliament disclosed that 9,765 women and girls were reported missing from their residences in the union territory between the years 2019 and 2021.

That marks an almost three-fold increase over the 3,300 women and girls reported missing in Jammu and Kashmir during the previous three years, according to a 2019 report from the National Crime Records Bureau.

Even within the earlier timeframe, the number of reported disappearances rose steadily from 943 in 2016, to 1,044 cases in 2017, and 1,335 cases in 2018.

The problem of disappearing women is not confined to Jammu and Kashmir. Data provided by from National Crime Records Bureau in response to the same parliamentary query showed that more than 1.31 million females were reported missing nationwide during the years 2019 to 2021.

In response, the federal government has introduced a range of measures to strengthen women’s safety. These include the establishment of specialized investigative units to address offenses such as rape, dowry death, abduction, human trafficking and domestic violence.

Not all the stories of disappearances have unhappy endings. The parents of 18-year-old Hina, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, suffered through three days of anguish after their daughter failed to return home from school one day in October 2021. She was finally located at the home of a relative.

But for other families, the search ends in tragedy, as it did for Rouf Amin Najar, the brother of 14-year-old Milad Najar, who went missing from her Srinagar neighborhood last year. Her lifeless body was pulled from the Jhelum River a week after she disappeared.

Similarly, the family of 27-year-old Ruksana Ali underwent a month of anguish when Ruksana disappeared January 18, 2021. The family tirelessly searched for her until her body was retrieved from the Jhelum River about 30 days later.

As is often the case in Jammu and Kashmir, at the requests of the families no autopsy was performed on either of the bodies pulled from the river, leaving the causes of both deaths uncertain.

In a demonstration last week, scores of supporters from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) gathered in Srinagar to highlight the issue of missing women and girls, demanding action from authorities.

“We have gathered here to seek answers about the missing women from all districts of Jammu and Kashmir Valley. Where are they? Who has abducted them?” asked AAP Youth President Hakim Rizwan Illahi.

Illahi contrasted the federal government’s well publicized campaign in support of young women, which bears the slogan “Educate the Girl Child, Save the Girl Child,” with the reality of missing women. The government “may talk about empowering and safeguarding girls everywhere, but we demand to know where our mothers and sisters have disappeared,” Illahi said.

Another organizer of the protest was Shamima Firdous, a former chairperson of the State Women’s Commission and a member of the women’s wing of the regional opposition party National Conference.

Firdous raised disturbing possibilities about the fates of the missing women, including concerns about trafficking, violence or forced marriages. She urged the government to conduct an impartial investigation into the disappearances and hold the perpetrators accountable.

Iltija Mufti, daughter of Mehbooba Mufti who served as the last chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir from 2016 to 2018, also criticized the government for failing to trace more of the women.

“It is a huge number, this is worrying,” she said in an interview.

Mufti said the number of disappearances reflects a failure on the part of the current regional government to address the issue effectively, arguing that the data suggests minimal efforts have been made to locate the missing women.

VOA approached three regional government departments seeking a statement about their efforts to account for the missing women but received no replies.

While the authorities have offered no clear reason for the rising number of disappearances, some possible explanations have been put forward by Qurat ul Ain Masoodi, chair of an NGO dedicated to women’s empowerment and other social issues known as AASH – Hope of Kashmir.

“One of the contributing factors to this phenomenon is the significant influx of migrant workers into Kashmir over the years,” she said. “Many girls are eloping with these migrant workers, but a considerable number of cases go unreported, concealed by families.”

Masoodi also identified poverty as a factor driving the rise in some of the cases.

“Economic constraints push some women to leave their families without informing them, seeking earning opportunities elsewhere,” she said.
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With the Taliban maintaining their hold on power and media jobs becoming more scarce, some reporters in Afghanistan are turning to other work, such as taxi driving, to support their families. For VOA’s Afghan service, Bezhan Hamdard has the story.
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Fans of an Indian movie star with a cult following thronged movie theaters and celebrated with dancing and prayers as his latest film hit screens on Thursday.

Hundreds of avid supporters of Rajinikanth, one of India’s biggest movie superstars, carried photo cutouts and flower garlands as they made their way to a theater in Mumbai to watch his latest film, Jailer. The first screening began at 6 a.m. local time.

When Rajinikanth appeared on screen, the theater stopped the movie for a minute as fans danced and cheered, rejoicing in his return after a period of two years.

Popular movie stars are treated like gods in India, often worshipped like deities by their fans.

Rajinikanth is one of Asia’s highest-paid actors, known for his superhero stunts. He enjoys a devoted fan base that cuts across generations and even continents. His films have broken box-office records in India and in countries like Malaysia and the United Kingdom, both of which have large Tamil-speaking populations.

Born Shivaji Rao Gaekwad, the actor today uses only one name. He once worked as a bus conductor for three years before attending acting school. He started in small roles as villains in Tamil cinema and worked his way up, before landing roles in Bollywood, the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai.

Some offices in the southern cities of Chennai and Bengaluru declared Thursday a holiday so his fans could watch the movie.

“Scientists say that time machines are not possible, but Rajinikanth has the power to take us back to childhood,” said one fan named Arun, who watched the movie on opening day in Mumbai.

In Jailer, Rajinikanth plays a prison warden who learns that a criminal gang is trying to rescue its leader from the prison, and he sets out to stop them.

Rajinikanth, 72, has acted in more than 160 movies spanning more than five decades in several Indian languages, including Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali and Malayalam.
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Millions of people in Afghanistan are likely to have no food, healthcare or shelter this winter because of critical funding gaps, according to various experts who spoke with VOA.

“What is at stake in Afghanistan this winter is the lives of millions of starving women and children,” Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told VOA by email August 9.

Of Afghanistan’s estimated 38 million people, at least 15 million are in dire need of food assistance. But the World Food Program is able to assist only 5 million people in August with the possibility the food-aid lifeline could be terminated in coming months.

Funding shortfalls, Egeland said, also threaten essential healthcare services because aid agencies donate medicine and other critical resources to hospitals across the country.

More than 260 clinics reportedly went out of service in June, depriving 2 million people of healthcare.

If current funding needs remain unmet, 3.7 million people would lose access to essential and lifesaving health assistance, the United Nations has warned.

The U.N. has appealed for $3.26 billion in humanitarian funding for Afghanistan this year, but donors have given only about $800 million (less than 25% of the appeal) as of August 8.

The United States this year contributed $335.7 million to the appeal — the largest contribution in 2023 — but even this amount falls far below the $1.2 billion Washington contributed to the appeal last year.

The United Kingdom, Germany and Canada have also slashed their contributions to the appeal from $454 million, $444 million and $106 million last year to $23 million, $34 million and $28 million thus far this year, according to the United Nations.

Politics or fatigue?

Behind the decline in funding lies a complex interplay of politics, fatigue, and concerns about the Taliban’s repressive policies, chiefly the denial of education and work rights for Afghan women.

The Taliban’s restrictions on aid operations and their perceived diversion of funds for their own benefit have raised calls for greater transparency and even potential termination of aid for a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Denying interference in humanitarian activities, Taliban officials accuse Western donors of politicizing humanitarian aid.

“We have never interfered in aid programs, but as a responsible authority we have advised that aid be delivered to the most deserving and needy communities,” said Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesperson.

The politically isolated Taliban leadership faces international sanctions and many donor countries fund only the programs and activities that completely bypass Taliban authorities and regulations.

“The expected decline in humanitarian aid does not reflect Western donors’ political agendas, but rather aid fatigue after two years of extraordinary efforts to respond to the humanitarian crisis, as well as a global trend of declining aid worldwide,” said William Byrd, a senior researcher at the United States Institute of Peace.

Of the 43 humanitarian appeals the U.N. has launched this year asking for $55.2 billion in response to emergencies in different parts of the world, donors have given nearly $14 billion (25%) as of August.

Syria’s $5.4 billion appeal, Yemen’s $4.3 billion, Ethiopia’s $4 billion, and Ukraine’s $3.9 billion — the largest appeals — are respectively funded at 23%, 31%, 26% and 31%, according to U.N. figures.

‘Cold war’

As humanitarian funding and operations are added to the long list of differences between de facto Taliban authorities and donor countries, aid workers say they feel caught in the crossfire.

“We are stuck in the middle of this cold war as we attempt to stay true to principled humanitarian service provision,” said Egeland, adding that the Taliban and the foreign donors “have different criteria for how they define appropriate humanitarian programming.”

Despite facing sanctions and failing to earn formal recognition from any country as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, the Taliban have refused to give in to widespread domestic and international calls for respect for women’s rights and the formation of an inclusive government.

Cutting off aid, experts say, is unlikely to change things.

“I have never seen well-fed men with guns and power change their ways because we starve women and children,” said Egeland.

Extreme poverty, isolationism and unmitigated humanitarian crises could “create an environment ripe for radicalization and insurgency, potentially enabling extremist groups to exploit the situation,” said Samir Gawhary of Aseel, a tech startup that offers a humanitarian funding platform for Afghanistan.

“This could have implications for regional and global security,” Gawhary said.
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The World Health Organization says traditional medicine plays a pivotal role in the health and well-being of people and the planet and should be seen as complementary to modern medicine and be integrated into national health systems.

Traditional healers have used their knowledge of plants and potions for centuries to treat people with multiple ailments. Much traditional indigenous and ancestral knowledge of traditional medicine is frequently used in health care across the world.

“We are seeing a lot of increasing demand and increasing interest in traditional medicine at the moment,” said Rudi Eggers, WHO director for integrated health services. “Traditional medicine has become a global phenomenon.”

He said 170 out of 194 countries have reported to WHO “that they used traditional medicine in some form, such as acupuncture, herbal medicine, yoga, and indigenous medicine in their countries. In fact, for millions of people, of course, it is the first choice for health care. In some cases, the only choice for health care.”

The WHO says that around 40 percent of modern pharmaceutical products have roots in traditional medicine.

“Many traditional medicines were the basis for some of the classic scientific and medical technologies that have led to some of the major medical breakthroughs, including drugs like aspirin or artemisinin for malaria, and even smallpox inoculation,” said Shyama Kuruvilla, the WHO lead for the Global Center for Traditional Medicine.

Next week, WHO is convening the Traditional Medicine Global Summit in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. The two-day high-level meeting will explore the role of “traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine in addressing pressing global health challenges.”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the “important and catalytic role” traditional medicine can play in achieving the goal of universal health coverage and in meeting global health-related targets that were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said, “Bringing traditional medicine into the mainstream of health care…can help bridge access gaps for millions of people around the world” and would be an important step toward people-centered and holistic approaches to health and well-being.

Kuruvilla agreed that holistic well-being is at the core of all traditional medicine systems, adding that there are existing legal measures and commitments aimed at achieving this goal.

“For example, at the United Nations, the heads of states and governments in 2019 committed to looking at evidence-based ways to integrate traditional medicine into national health systems,” she said. “There are many existing commitments and frameworks that now needed to be implemented.”

Evidence essential, say experts

WHO officials say traditional medicine has contributed to breakthrough discoveries and continues to hold out great promise of other game-changing achievements.

They caution, however, that recommendations on any new therapy or treatment must be based on solid scientific evidence.

“Advancing science on traditional medicine should be held to the same rigorous standards as in other fields of health,” said John Reeder, WHO director of both the department of research for health and the special program for research and training in tropical diseases.

“We need to treat traditional interventions with the same respect we give to other more Western medical interventions and that means examining them closely and critically and scientifically in the same way,” he said.

Summit will highlight best practices

WHO reports next week’s summit will explore research and evaluation of traditional medicine. It also will be an opportunity to showcase countries’ experiences, explore regional trends and discuss best practices.

While traditional medicine has proven its value over many centuries, WHO officials say it cannot replace modern medical care.

Kim Sungchol, head of WHO’s traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine unit, observed that traditional and modern medicines have two different but complementary approaches to health.

“There is a certain advantage of each system,” he said. “For example, modern medicine is quite good and good in emergency care, in communicable disease management, and antibiotics.

“On traditional medicine, one of the unique characteristics that it has is the more holistic approach. It is much advanced in the promotion and prevention, particularly linked to non-communicable diseases,” he said. “So, we have to see the two things differently. We have to identify the strengths of each system to work together to best serve the well-being of the people and planet. That is our purpose.”
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Pakistan’s parliament dissolved Wednesday, three days before its tenure was officially to end. It was the third consecutive parliament in the country’s 76-year history to complete its term, but some say the military continues to be the center of power. Voice of America’s Sarah Zaman reports.
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The United States said Wednesday it had objected privately and publicly to last year’s visit to Russia by Pakistan’s then-prime minister, Imran Khan, but rejected allegations that Washington had played a role in his removal from power weeks later.

State Department spokesman Mathew Miller made the comments in response to an alleged Pakistani diplomatic cable, known internally as a cipher, documenting a March 7, 2022, meeting between two American officials and Islamabad’s then-ambassador to the U.S., Asad Majeed Khan.

An American news outlet, The Intercept, published for the first time Wednesday what it said is the text of the cipher, which Imran Khan has long held up as evidence of his claim that his defeat in a parliamentary no-confidence motion was engineered by Washington.

According to Ambassador Khan’s purported cable, the State Department officials at the meeting encouraged him 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.

Miller was asked Wednesday at his regular news briefing whether he would know the veracity of the leaked Pakistan cable or offer a reaction to the reported U.S. comments.

“I can’t speak to whether it’s an actual Pakistani document. … With respect to the comments that were reported, I am not going to speak to private diplomatic exchanges,” he said.

Miller added that even if the comments in the purported cable were accurate as reported, they show the United States is expressing concern about Khan’s “policy choices” rather than expressing its “preference” on who the leadership of Pakistan ought to be.

“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.”

In his reported cipher, the ambassador said that the State Department officials warned him that if Khan were not ousted, Pakistan would face economic and political isolation.

The leaked cipher identified the U.S. official leading the conversation as Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs.

“I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. … Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead,” the document quoted Lu as telling the Pakistani ambassador.

On March 8, a day after the reported meeting in Washington, an alliance of Pakistani opposition parties moved a no-confidence vote against Khan, seeking his removal from office over alleged misrule and mismanagement of the economy.

Khan summoned a meeting of his national security committee, which comprises the country’s top political and military leadership, where participants discussed the content of the cipher.

The post-meeting statement condemned U.S. “interference” in Pakistan’s internal affairs. Subsequently, the foreign ministry summoned Washington’s ambassador to Islamabad to formally protest over it.

Miller reiterated Wednesday that allegations that the United States had interfered in internal decisions about the leadership of Pakistan “are false, they have always been false, and they remain false.”

The no-confidence vote removed the cricket-star-turned-prime-minister from office a month later, which Khan denounced as illegal and accused the United States of plotting. His staunch political rival, Shehbaz Sharif, swiftly replaced him as Pakistan’s new prime minister.

Khan for months organized massive nationwide rallies, during which the cipher and the alleged U.S. conspiracy against his government would dominate his speeches to cheering crowds of tens of thousands of supporters.

“Well, the cipher is a reality. It was an official meeting [that] initiated [conversation on] both sides, between Donald Lu, the undersecretary of state for South Asia, and the Pakistan ambassador, and this was brought to the National Security Committee and Cabinet,” Khan told VOA in an interview earlier this year.

“Having said that, it’s in the past; we have to move on. It’s in the interest of Pakistan to have good relations with the U.S., and that’s what we intend to do,” he said.

Khan has consistently accused former military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who stepped down last November, of colluding with Sharif and the U.S. to topple his government. He alleges the current army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, is carrying forward Bajwa’s mission to eliminate Khan, who remains the most popular national politician, and his party, the country’s largest political force. The military denies the charges.

Last week, Khan was sentenced to three years in prison and subsequently banned from national politics for five years for alleged embezzlement of official gifts. He has rejected the charges as politically motivated and orchestrated by the military.

The U.S. State Department on Monday said that the arrest of Khan, a harsh critic of Washington, was an “internal matter” and declined to take a position on legal troubles facing the former prime minister.

Pakistani authorities have imprisoned thousands of PTI workers since last May for allegedly ransacking public and military property during protests sparked by Khan’s brief arrest in a separate case. The detainees have been languishing in jails, and defense attorneys allege judges are delaying hearings under pressure from the military.

Pakistani news channels are banned from airing Khan’s name, images and statements.

Pakistan’s military has ruled the South Asian nation of about 240 million people for nearly half its 76-year history by staging coups against elected governments. Critics say generals have meddled in political affairs even when they are not in power and orchestrated the toppling of prime ministers because they had fallen out with the military.

 Meanwhile, Sharif dissolved the legislative National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, late on Wednesday, setting the stage for a national election by November in line with the country’s constitution.

VOA Islamabad Bureau Chief Sarah Zaman and State Department correspondent Cindy Saine contributed to this report.
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De facto Taliban authorities in Afghanistan are presenting an impressive list of achievements in the fight against narcotics about a year after their reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, outlawed drug production. 

To implement Akhundzada’s edict, Taliban forces have conducted 5,799 counter-narcotics operations, apprehended 6,781 drug traffickers, seized 1,799 tons of drugs, and dismantled of 585 heroin production labs, according to Taliban officials. 

The regime’s claims are substantiated by independent observers. 

“As they also accomplished during 2000-2001, when they were previously in power, the Taliban have effectively banned opium poppy cultivation, resulting in an enormous drop in the opium cultivated area in 2023,” said William Byrd, a senior researcher at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), in written answers to VOA. 

Satellite imagery used by a British organization confirms significant across Afghanistan this year.

In Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where more than half of the country’s illicit drugs were produced, cultivation reportedly has dropped from 129,000 hectares in 2022 to only 740 hectares in 2023. 

For nearly two decades after the Taliban were ousted from power, poppy cultivation and opiate production soared in Afghanistan, making the landlocked country the world’s largest heroin producer, according to the United Nations. 

Concerned that the illicit drug economy was fueling the Taliban insurgency and organized crime and corruption in the Afghan government bodies, the United States was among several donors that poured in several billion dollars to tackle the problem. 

It did not work. 

At the height of the problem — when poppy cultivation reached upwards of 330,000 hectares in 2017-2018 — the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reported, “No counterdrug program undertaken by the United States, its coalition partners, or the Afghan government resulted in lasting reductions in poppy cultivation or opium production.” 

Untenable situation 

“The world wanted Afghanistan to do this [counter-narcotics] and here we have done it,” Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen told VOA from his office in Doha, Qatar. “We are doing it until we completely eradicate it.” 

The Taliban are notorious for brutally enforcing their agendas, from banning schools for girls to banning farmers from cultivating the lucrative opium poppy crops. 

The school ban has earned the Islamist regime universal condemnation, and experts say the opium poppy ban could result in serious domestic problems. 

“By enforcing a drug ban and pressing crop destruction deep into some of the most remote areas, while offering no alternatives, the Taliban leadership risks provoking rural unrest, as well as growing dissent within its own ranks, particularly Taliban members from these areas who must answer to their families, neighbors, and rural constituencies,” wrote David Mansfield, a British observer and author on narcotics in Afghanistan, in a recent analysis for Alcis.

Dire consequences

Isolated, under international sanctions, and facing myriad security, governance and economic challenges, the Taliban are unlikely to permanently wean Afghanistan off its longstanding dependence on the drug economy.

“The opium ban is imposing around a $1 billion per year economic shock [to the Afghan economy],” said Byrd of the USIP. 

Strict enforcement of the opium poppy ban will yield dire consequences for the already weak Afghan economy, forcing people to migrate abroad in search of jobs and income, Byrd said. 

“We have appealed for international assistance,” said Shaheen, the Taliban spokesperson whose designation to Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations has failed, while the former Afghan government appointee remains accredited. 

Such calls remain unanswered as donor countries condemn the Taliban’s so-called gender-apartheid regime in Afghanistan, where human rights groups say women are being erased from all public spheres. 

As donors weigh the dilemma of whether to aid the Taliban in its drug war or continue pressing them to improve governance, “some may well decide that a continued flow of drugs from Afghanistan may be the least worst outcome,” according to Mansfield. 

While 95% of the drugs produced in Afghanistan end up in Europe’s black markets — nearly all of the illicit drugs consumed in the United States come through Mexico — the U.S. has been the largest donor for counter-narcotics programs in Afghanistan, with $9 billion in appropriations until December 2021. 

Over the last two years, the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs has continued funding counter-narcotics messaging, monitoring of the production, and alternative livelihood projects through the United Nations and other international organizations. 

 
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