Pakistan and China are celebrating as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the centerpiece of Beijing’s global Belt and Road initiative, completes 10 years. The investment project has grown to over $60 billion and provided Pakistan with crucial infrastructure, but it also has added to the country’s ballooning debt. VOA’s Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman reports. (Produced by Malik Waqar Ahmed, Jon Spier)
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In India’s remote state of Manipur, three months of unrest has led to a deep ethnic divide. As questions are raised about why Manipur continues to remain a conflict zone, the issue has also become a political flashpoint. Anjana Pasricha has this report.
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Unknown gunmen killed two police officers in southwestern Pakistan in an attack Tuesday on polio vaccinators.

The deadly shooting occurred during a national immunization campaign in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

Area police officer Asif Marwat said that health workers were administering polio doses to children in the Nawa Killi area when two men riding a motorcycle opened fire on them and fled the scene.

The shooting left two police guards dead, but the polio vaccinators escaped unhurt, Marwat said. He added that the polio campaign in the area had been suspended.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the deadly shooting, but militant attacks against polio teams are not uncommon in Pakistan. The violence has killed scores of health workers and security forces escorting them.

Pakistan launched the latest polio vaccination drive Tuesday to eradicate the highly contagious virus in the country.

A polio program spokesperson told VOA the weeklong campaign aims to immunize nearly 8 million children under five across 61 districts, including those in Baluchistan. He said the government had deployed around 65,000 “front-line workers” to administer polio drops to the targeted population.

In conservative Pakistani rural areas, hardline religious groups have long opposed and viewed polio inoculation campaigns as a ploy to leave Muslim children infertile. Anti-state militants operating in Baluchistan and elsewhere in the country view polio vaccinators as government spies.

The propaganda against the vaccine and the deadly militant attacks have set back Pakistan’s efforts to eradicate the crippling disease.

The South Asian country of about 230 million people has detected only one case of polio paralysis in a child so far in 2023 compared to 20 victims last year.

The highly contagious virus used to paralyze thousands of children annually in Pakistan until the 1990s when authorities launched internationally supported nationwide vaccination campaigns.
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Officials in Pakistan say the death toll from Sunday’s suicide bombing at a political rally in the northwestern part of the country has risen to 46. One more person died in hospital overnight. 

Authorities VOA has spoken to are denying the figure of 54 deaths reported by some media. 

The blast happened during a workers’ convention of a religious political party, Jamiat Ulema Islam , in the town of Khar in the tribal area of Bajaur near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. 

Mourners began holding funerals Monday for the victims. 

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in a message Monday. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Across the scenic Himalayan slopes in India, tourism is booming, bringing economic prosperity to many. But it also has brought tons of trash, prompting scores of volunteers to organize clean-up drives. Anjana Pasricha speaks to a group in the northern hill town of Dharamshala that hopes to raise awareness about preserving the environment while cleaning it up. Camera: Rakesh Kumar.
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The United States said Monday that it had urged Afghanistan’s Taliban in the latest round of bilateral talks to reverse policies responsible for the deteriorating human rights situation in the country, particularly for women, girls and vulnerable communities, while praising economic and counternarcotics gains the country has made under the de facto rulers.

The two-day discussions between the former battlefield adversaries occurred in Doha, Qatar, with U.S. special Afghan representative Tom West and Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi leading their respective delegations.

The United States “expressed grave concern regarding detentions, media crackdowns and limits on religious practice” since the Taliban seized power in Kabul, said a post-meeting U.S. statement. The U.S. side backed the Afghan people’s demands for their rights to be respected and for their voices to shape the future of Afghanistan.

The statement said, without elaborating, that the U.S. side “identified areas for confidence building in support of the Afghan people.”

The American delegation also met with leaders from Afghanistan’s central bank, known as Da Afghanistan Bank, or DAB, and finance ministry representatives to discuss the state of the economy and the challenges facing the country’s banking sector.

The U.S. officials noted “recent data indicating declining inflation, growth of merchandise exports and imports in Afghanistan in 2023, and voiced openness to a technical dialogue regarding economic stabilization issues soon.”

Taliban efforts to fulfill security commitments also figured in the discussions, with the U.S. side noting the de facto Afghan leaders’ “continuing commitment” to prevent the use of Afghan territory by anyone to threaten the United States and its allies.

“The American delegation acknowledged that there has been a decrease in large-scale terrorist attacks against Afghan civilians,” the statement said. U.S. officials pressed Taliban delegates for the immediate and unconditional release of detained American citizens, warning that the detentions were a “significant obstacle to positive engagement.”

The U.S. officials voiced “openness” to continue dialogue with the Taliban on counternarcotics and “took note of reporting indicating that the Taliban’s ban on opium poppy cultivation resulted in a significant decrease in cultivation during the most recent growing season.”

Earlier, the Taliban-led Afghan foreign ministry, in a statement, said that Muttaqi and his team had stressed the need for Washington to remove travel restrictions on Taliban leaders, end economic sanctions against the strife-torn country and unfreeze Afghan central bank foreign funds. It added that human rights issues also came under discussion.

“IEA reiterated that it was crucial for confidence building that blacklists and reward lists be removed and [the central bank] reserves be unfrozen so that Afghans can establish an economy unreliant on foreign aid,” the English-language Taliban statement asserted.

The Taliban calls its male-only government in Kabul the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, or IEA. The group waged a deadly insurgency for almost 20 years against U.S.-led NATO troops and the now-defunct Afghan government before seizing power in August 2021.

Bounties on dozen-plus

More than a dozen key Taliban leaders remain on a U.S. list of most-wanted men and carry millions of dollars of bounties on their heads for their roles in directing attacks against American troops.

The U.S. and other Western nations collectively froze more than $9 billion in Afghan central bank foreign reserves immediately after the Taliban takeover to block their access to the funds. They also imposed financial and banking sector sanctions on the country.

Washington has since transferred half of the $7 billion in frozen resources held in the U.S. to a trust fund in Switzerland to be used strictly for Afghan humanitarian efforts.

The Taliban have rejected the fund, demanding the entire amount be returned to the DAB. The U.S. has since eased some of the banking sector curbs to support humanitarian operations in war-ravaged Afghanistan and enable private citizens to receive salaries to support their families.

“Removal of most of the restrictions on Afghan banks leading to easy transactions was considered a positive development,” the Taliban statement said Monday.

The fundamentalist leaders have imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, to govern impoverished Afghanistan, banning women and girls from education beyond about a sixth-grade level. They have barred women from most employment and visiting public places such as parks, gyms and bathhouses.

The U.N. and other aid agencies also have been banned from hiring female Afghan staff, undermining humanitarian operations in a country where more than 28 million people need food aid.

No foreign government has recognized the Taliban administration over human rights concerns.

Washington and the world have denounced restrictions on Afghan women, demanding the Taliban reverse them if they want their government to be formally recognized and sanctions be lifted.
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An Afghan branch of Islamic State claimed responsibility Monday for a suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed at least 54 people at a pro-Taliban party’s election rally, in one of the region’s worst attacks in recent years. 

Islamic State in Khorasan Province made the claim in a statement posted on its Amaq website. It said the attacker detonated an explosive vest, and that the bombing Sunday in the northwestern town of Bajaur was part of the group’s continuing war against forms of democracy it deems to be against Islam. 

Hours earlier, hundreds of mourners in Bajaur carried caskets draped in colorful cloths to burial sites following the previous day’s attack at the election rally for the Jamiat Ulema Islam party. Officials said the bombing killed 54 people, including at least five children, and wounded nearly 200. 

The attack appeared to reflect divisions between Islamist groups, which have a strong presence in the district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan. The Jamiat Ulema Islam party has ties to the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. 

At least 1,000 people were crowded into a tent near a market for the rally ahead of fall elections, according to police. 

“People were chanting God is Great as the leaders arrived,” said Khan Mohammad, a resident who said he was standing outside the tent, “and that was when I heard the deafening sound of the bomb.” 

Mohammad said he heard people crying for help, and minutes later ambulances arrived and began taking the wounded away. 

Police had suggested in their initial investigation that Islamic State in Khorasan Province was a suspect. The group is based in neighboring Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida. 

Pakistan security analyst Mahmood Shah also previously had said that breakaway factions of the Pakistani Taliban could be possible suspects, though the group distanced itself from the attack. 

The Pakistani military spent years fighting the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, in Bajaur before declaring the district clear of militants in 2016. But the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, headed by hard-line cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman, has remained a potent political force. 

On Monday, police recorded statements from some of the wounded at a hospital in Khar, the district’s principal town. 

Female relatives and children wailed and beat their chests at family homes Monday as the dead were taken for funerals, following local customs. Hundreds of men followed the caskets to mosques and open areas for special funeral prayers and then into the hills for burial. 

As condolences continued to pour in from across the country, dozens of people who had lesser injuries were discharged from hospital, while the critically wounded were taken to the provincial capital of Peshawar by army helicopters. The death toll continued to rise as some critically wounded people died in hospital, physician Gul Naseeb said. 

Gul Akbar, the father of an 11-year-old boy who was wounded in the attack, told The Associated Press that his entire family was in a state of shock after hearing about the bombing Sunday. He said he first went to the scene of the attack, and later found his son Taslim Khan being treated in a hospital in Khar. 

“What would I have done if he had also been martyred? Five children died in this barbaric attack, and we want to know what our children did wrong,” he said. 

Rehman’s party is preparing to contest elections, which are expected in October or November. Abdul Rasheed, one of the party’s senior leaders, said the bombing was aimed at weakening the party but that “such attacks cannot deter our resolve.” 

Rehman’s party is part of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s coalition government, which came to power in April 2022 by ousting former Prime Minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence vote in the legislature. 

Sharif called Rehman to express his condolences and assure the cleric that those who orchestrated the attack would be punished. Khan condemned the bombing Sunday, as did the U.S. and Russian embassies in Islamabad. 

The Pakistani Taliban also distanced themselves from the bombing, saying that it was intended to set Islamists against each other. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Afghan Taliban, wrote in a tweet that “such crimes cannot be justified in any way.” 

The bombing came hours before Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng arrived in Islamabad, where he signed new agreements to boost trade and economic ties to mark a decade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a sprawling package under which China has invested $10 billion in Pakistan over 10 years, according to Sharif. 

“We will not tolerate any obstacles in the way of friendship with China,” Sharif said, as he stood by He. 

But the government canceled a cultural event that had been arranged in honor of He, according to Sharif, while the nation mourns. 

Some Chinese nationals have also been targeted by militants in northwestern Pakistan and elsewhere. 

Rehman, who has long supported Afghanistan’s Taliban government, survived at least two known bomb attacks in 2011 and 2014, when bombings damaged his car at rallies. 

Sunday’s bombing was one of the worst in northwestern Pakistan in the last decade. In 2014, 147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar. 

In January, 74 people were killed in a bombing at a mosque in Peshawar. And in February, more than 100 people, mostly policemen, died in a bombing at a mosque inside a high-security compound housing Peshawar police headquarters. 
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Security authorities in eastern Libya freed at least 385 Pakistani migrants who were held in trafficking warehouses in an overnight raid, a migrant rights group said Monday. 

Al-Abreen, a group which helps migrants in Libya, said the Pakistani nationals were released early Monday from smugglers’ warehouses in the al-Khueir area, roughly 8 kilometers south of the eastern Libyan city of Tobruk. The migrants — among them children — were later transferred to a nearby police headquarters, it said in a post on its official Facebook page. 

Esreiwa Salah, an activist with al-Abreen, told The Associated Press the Pakistani migrants had arrived in Libya intending to travel to Europe but were detained by smugglers who demanded a ransom for their release. No further details were given. 

Several pictures posted on al-Abreen’s Facebook page showed dozens of purportedly freed Pakistani migrants sitting outside of a warehouse. 

Libya is the dominant transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to make it to Europe. The country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Oil-rich Libya has been ruled for most of the past decade by rival governments in eastern and western Libya, each backed by an array of militias and foreign governments. 

Human traffickers have benefited from the decade of instability, smuggling migrants across borders from six nations, including Egypt, Algeria and Sudan. They then pack desperate migrants seeking a better life in Europe into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels for risky voyages on the perilous Central Mediterranean Sea route. 

A vessel that departed from Libya carrying an estimated 700 migrants, including about 350 Pakistanis, sank off the Greek coast in June. Only 104 people, including 12 Pakistanis, were rescued. 

Pakistan is experiencing an economic crisis that is driving thousands of mostly young men to seek work abroad. Many travel to Libya with the hope of eventually reaching European shores.
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Afghanistan and Pakistan have reported a very small number of polio infections in their region this year, fueling expectations the neighboring countries could be just months away from interrupting the endemic transmission of the crippling virus.

Pakistani authorities have reported a three-year-old child with paralytic polio, the only case in the country in the first seven months of 2023 compared to 20 cases last year.

Afghan health officials have confirmed five cases of polio paralysis in children, which is an increase from two reported infections in 2022.

“Pakistan and Afghanistan have never been this close to reaching the goal of eradicating wild poliovirus (WPV1) concurrently,” said Dr. Hamid Jafari, the World Health Organization’s director of polio eradication for the eastern Mediterranean region.

“And both countries need to reach this goal together – with the full support of the political, administrative, and security apparatus — if we are to finally eradicate wild poliovirus from the world,” Jafari told VOA in written comments.

Out of the 34 Afghan provinces, poliovirus transmission is limited to two eastern provinces, Nangarhar and Kunar, bordering Pakistan. According to official data, all five WPV1 cases detected this year are in Nangarhar.

“Immunity gaps, resulting from significant disruption of immunization campaigns during 2021 and 2022, have left children in the region at risk of polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases,” Jafari said.

Before the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, Islamist militants routinely attacked health volunteers who fanned out across the country to administer vaccines. In October 2021, the Taliban backed a WHO vaccination campaign in Afghanistan, enabling the polio program to resume nationwide immunizations later that year.

It has since reached millions of children in the south and other regions of the country who had not received immunizations for at least four years, Jafari noted. He added that the Afghan vaccination program has also increased the number of site testing for poliovirus in wastewater, allowing timely detection and response, Jafari said.

“The quality of vaccination campaigns has improved remarkably since late 2022 in the east region of Afghanistan, and if such quality campaigns are sustained, endemic transmission in the region will be interrupted in the coming months,” said the senior WHO official.

“Cross-border coordination with Pakistan will continue to be essential throughout 2023 given the circulation of WPV1 on both sides of the border and the large population movement between the two countries,” Jafari stated.

He said that the “last mile” had always proven to be the most challenging phase of any national effort to interrupt polio transmission.

Pakistan

Since January 2021, all reported cases in Pakistan, a country of about 230 million people, have been from seven polio-endemic districts in the southern area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province out of 171 districts nationwide.

Despite detections of poliovirus in wastewater samples in other Pakistani districts, circulation has yet to be established outside the seven endemic districts.

“This is the result of very effective outbreak responses in each affected district outside the seven endemic districts,” Jafari said. He added that the polio program in Pakistan was “capitalizing on the momentum of recent success and continues to strive for zero polio.”

On Tuesday, Pakistan will launch its latest vaccination campaign to eliminate the highly contagious virus in a country where the disease paralyzed approximately 20,000 children in the early 1990s.

A polio program spokesperson told VOA the campaign aims to immunize nearly 8 million children under five across 61 districts in two phases. He said the government had deployed around 65,000 “front-line workers” to administer polio drops to the targeted population.

Pakistan has repeatedly come close to eradicating polio, but long-running propaganda in conservative rural areas that the vaccines cause sterility in children, coupled with deadly militant attacks on vaccinators, have set back the mission. Anti-state militants allege polio vaccinators gather intelligence on their hideouts.

The global polio eradication program identifies Pakistan, Afghanistan, parts of Somalia, and Yemen as areas where outbreaks are difficult to control.
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Fourteen members of the U.S. Congress have written to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations expressing concerns over reports of an alleged violent crackdown by the Bangladesh government on opposition parties and other dissidents ahead of general elections likely taking place in January.

In their letter to Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the congressmen and women called for the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping forces during the next general election in Bangladesh to ensure free and fair polls.

They also sought the immediate suspension of Bangladesh’s membership in the U.N. Human Rights Council until an “impartial and transparent” investigation into the government’s alleged crimes against political opponents and others, including journalists, is completed.

“Over the past 6 to 8 months, thousands of peaceful and courageous protesters have demonstrated in support of free and fair elections [in Bangladesh],” the letter stated, referring to the demonstrations by the opposition and pro-democracy activists.

“These demonstrations have often been met by violence, tear gas, and brutal assault by police, other state actors, and supporters of [Prime Minister Sheikh] Hasina.”

In the letter, the congress members also raised concerns about the coming elections, which Hasina and her ministers insist will be free and fair.

“Given its history of election fraud, violence, and intimidation; we are highly skeptical that the Hasina government will permit fair and transparent elections,” the congress members noted in the letter.

Allegations of rigging

The 2014 elections were boycotted by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party or BNP — the largest opposition party in the country. And, in 2018, the elections were marred by allegations of massive rigging by Hasina’s ruling Awami League [AL] party— a charge Hasina repeatedly denied.

France-based exiled Bangladeshi pro-democracy activist and popular YouTuber Pinaki Bhattacharya said that Hasina “appears incapable” of delivering a free and fair election.

“She made similar promises in 2018. But we ended up witnessing one of the most fraudulent elections in global history, with ballot boxes stuffed overnight on the eve of the election. She has structured her administration, the election commission, and the police force in such a way that they either actively engage in vote rigging or turn a blind eye when it occurs,” Bhattacharya told VOA.

“Sheikh Hasina has consistently dismissed any legitimate evidence from both national and international sources that indicates rampant election rigging. So, how can she claim to have the capacity or, the willingness to hold a free and fair election?”

Demands to ‘step aside’

For several months, the BNP and its allies have been staging a series of demonstrations demanding that Hasina step aside making way for a non-partisan caretaker government before the next general elections take place — a demand her government has rejected.

On Saturday (July 29), tens of thousands of BNP leaders and supporters staged sit-in protests on main roads in Dhaka demanding the resignation of Hasina.

As the protesters tried to resist by throwing stones, police at several locations fired rubber bullets, pellets and teargas at them. Visuals in local TV channels and newspapers showed AL supporters — carrying machetes and sticks — attack and chase away the BNP protesters, in the presence of police.

Scores of protesters, including senior BNP leaders such as Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, Abdus Salam Azad and Ishraq Hossain, were injured during Saturday’s protests. Some police officers were injured too, a police spokesperson said.

The BNP says several of its initially peaceful rallies on political and other issues were violently attacked by the police and AL activists in the past year and 19 of its activists have been killed.

Also in the past year, according to the BNP statistics, more than 25,000 of its leaders and activists have been arrested. The party says police arrested at least 600 BNP protesters in the past week.

A spokesperson of Dhaka Metropolitan Police did not respond to messages from VOA on WhatsApp related to the July 29 clashes with the BNP protesters. The Bangladesh Ministry of Home Affairs, which controls the police, has not responded to requests for comment either.

Taking to the streets

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said Hasina, while she was in opposition, took to the streets demanding a neutral caretaker government.

“In 1996, the BNP-led government introduced the election-time caretaker government system to the constitution. In 2009, the Awami League-led government amended the constitution and scrapped the system and kept rigging the elections to stay in power. People have lost interest in such sham elections in the country and are staying away from casting their votes,” Alamgir told VOA. “We want people to cast their votes. For this, we have to change the system. There is no alternative but to reintroduce the election-time non-partisan caretaker government system.”

Since last year, the U.S. and other countries have urged the Hasina government to hold the next general election in a free and fair manner.
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A senior Chinese leader landed in Pakistan Sunday to attend a government-sponsored ceremony this week, marking the 10th anniversary of their infrastructure development collaboration under China’s global Belt and Road Initiative.

He Lifeng, the Chinese vice premier and special presidential envoy, arrived in Islamabad amid tight security. The government declared a two-day holiday in the Pakistani capital starting Monday “to provide foolproof security” to the foreign delegation.

The foreign ministry said Lifeng’s visit “reflects the importance” the two countries attached to deepen their bilateral ties further. It noted that Lifeng would be the chief guest “at an event celebrating the decade of CPEC” and hold meetings with the country’s leadership. 

The ministry referred to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC, which was introduced in July 2013 as a flagship project of the BRI. 

Both countries say CPEC has brought more than $25 billion in direct Chinese investment to Pakistan, establishing power plants, developing the strategically located deep-water Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, and building transport infrastructure. 

“Over the past decade, as an important pioneering project of the BRI, CPEC has achieved fruitful results and become a new benchmark for the friendship between China and Pakistan,” the Chinese foreign ministry said Saturday while announcing Lifeng’s visit. The countries “are all-weather strategic cooperative partners and iron-clad friends,” the ministry added. 

CPEC aims to give landlocked western China the shortest possible access to international markets through the Gwadar port.

The mega undertaking has created nearly 200,000 direct local jobs, built more than 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) of highways and roads, and added 8,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid, ending years of blackouts caused by power outages in the country of 230 million people.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing earlier this month that CPEC projects “are flourishing all across Pakistan,” making a “tangible contribution” to the national development of the country and to regional connectivity.

But critics say many projects have suffered delays, including several much-touted industrial zones that were supposed to help Pakistan enhance its exports to earn much-needed foreign exchange. 

The country’s declining dollar reserves have prevented Islamabad from paying Chinese power producers, leading to strains in many ties. 

Pakistan owes more than $1.26 billion (350 billion rupees) to Chinese power plants. The amount keeps growing, and China has been reluctant to defer or restructure the payment and CPEC debts. All the Chinese loans – both government and commercial banks – makeup nearly 30% of Islamabad’s external debt.

Some critics blame CPEC investments for contributing to Pakistan’s economic troubles. The government fended off the risk of an imminent default by securing a short-term $3 billion International Monetary Fund bailout agreement this month.

Security threats to its citizens and interests in Pakistan have also been a cause of concern for China. Militant attacks have killed several Chinese nationals in recent years, prompting Beijing to press Islamabad to ensure security measures for CPEC projects.

Diplomatic sources told VOA that China has lately directed its diplomats and citizens working on CPEC programs to strictly limit their movements and avoid visiting certain Pakistani cities for security reasons. 

“They [Chinese] believe this security issue is becoming an impediment in taking CPEC forward,” Senator Mushahid Hussain, the chairman of the defense committee of the upper house of the Pakistani parliament, told VOA in an interview earlier this month. 

“Recurring expressions of concern about the safety and security of Chinese citizens and investors in Pakistan by top Chinese leaders indicate that Pakistan’s promises of ‘foolproof security’ for Chinese working in Pakistan have yet to be fulfilled,” said Hussain, who represents Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s ruling party in the Senate.
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A blast in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, or KP, province has killed dozens of people and injured more than 100 others, according to authorities.

The explosion in the tribal area of Bajaur, near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, occurred Sunday afternoon during a convention of the religious political party Jamiat Ulema Islam.

There are conflicting figures about the number of people killed and injured.

District Police Officer Nazeer Khan told VOA that 30 people were confirmed dead while 90 were injured. He said the terror attack was being investigated as a suicide bombing.

A local health official, Dr. Faisal Kamal, told VOA the bodies of 35 people were brought to the district hospital and 16 critically injured victims have been transported via helicopter to another facility.

Other media reports say at least 40 people were killed and 150 others were wounded.

A health emergency has been declared in hospitals across the province as the death toll is expected to rise.

The inspector general of police in KP, Akthar Hayat Gandapur, told media that their initial information indicates the attack could be the work of a suicide bomber.

Zabiullah Mujahid, chief spokesperson of the Afghan Taliban issued a statement condemning the incident, which is being investigated as a terrorist attack.

“Such crimes are not acceptable or justifiable in any way,” he said.

Since the Afghan Taliban took control in Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistan has seen a major increase in terror attacks, led primarily by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, an ideological offshoot of the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of harboring anti-Pakistan terrorists, a charge the Taliban in Afghanistan have denied.
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A group of Indian opposition lawmakers arrived Saturday in a remote northeastern state where deadly ethnic clashes have killed at least 130 people. They hope to pressure the government to take action against the violence which began in May. 

The delegation of 20 lawmakers from 15 political parties, who are part of a new opposition alliance called INDIA, are in Manipur state for a two-day visit to assess the situation as the ongoing violence and bloodshed have displaced tens of thousands in recent months. 

The conflict in Manipur has become a global issue because of the scale of violence, said Adhir Ranjan Choudhury, a lawmaker belonging to the opposition Congress party. 

“Our delegation is here to express solidarity with the people of Manipur in this time of distress. The top priority now is to restore normalcy as soon as possible,” he added. 

Tucked in the mountains on the border with Myanmar, Manipur is on the brink of a civil war. Mobs have rampaged through villages, torching houses and buildings. The conflict was sparked by an affirmative action controversy in which Christian Kukis protested a demand by mostly Hindu Meiteis for a special status that would let them buy land in the hills populated by Kukis and other tribal groups and get a share of government jobs. 

After arriving in the state capital, Imphal, the lawmakers went to the Churachandpur district, where they visited two relief camps and spoke to community leaders. 

The conflict has triggered an impasse in India’s Parliament, as opposition members demand a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the violence roiling the state. On Wednesday, the opposition moved a no-confidence motion against the Modi government. This means the government will soon face a no-confidence vote in Parliament, which is likely to be defeated, as Modi’s party and its allies have a clear majority. 

But opposition leaders say the move could at least force Modi to speak on the conflict and open a debate. 

Two weeks ago, Modi broke more than two months of public silence over the conflict in Manipur when he condemned the mob assaults on two women in the state who were paraded naked through the streets. But he did not directly refer to the larger violence. He has also not visited the state, which is ruled by his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, since the violence broke out. 

Both houses of Parliament were adjourned at various times last week as the opposition stopped proceedings with their demand for a statement from Modi. 

Despite a heavy army presence and a visit earlier by the home minister, when he met with both communities, the deadly clashes have persisted. 

The violence in Manipur and the assault on the two women triggered protests across the country last week. In Manipur, thousands held a sit-in protest recently and called for the firing of Biren Singh, the top elected official in the state, who also belongs to Modi’s party. 

The European Parliament also recently adopted a resolution calling on Indian authorities to take action to stop the violence in Manipur and protect religious minorities, especially Christians. India’s foreign ministry condemned the resolution, describing it as interference in its internal affairs. 
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A powerful explosion ripped through a fireworks warehouse Saturday in southern Thailand, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 100, a senior official said, as several nearby homes were leveled or damaged. 

The blast in the town of Sungai Kolok in the border province of Narathiwat is thought to have been caused by welding during construction work on the building. 

“A warehouse storing firecrackers in Sungai Kolok exploded this afternoon, the latest number is nine dead and 115 injured,” Narathiwat governor Sanan Pongaksorn told AFP. 

“The fire is now under control. Preliminary investigation suggests the cause is a technical error during the steel welding process, as the building is under construction,” he said. 

The explosion devastated a substantial area around the warehouse. Footage on local media showed a huge plume of smoke rising into the air and numerous shops, homes and vehicles badly damaged by the force of the blast, some ablaze and many with their roofs blown off. 

Some media are putting the death toll at 10 but the figure could not be confirmed. 

AFP photos from the scene show the warehouse reduced to rubble and twisted metal. 

The Bangkok Post cited the Ministry of Interior reporting that as many as 200 houses were damaged by the explosion in the border town on the frontier with Malaysia. Other media had said up to 500 homes could have been damaged. 

“I was playing with my phone inside the house then suddenly I heard a loud, thunderous noise and my whole house shook,” Seksan Taesen, who lives 100 meters (110 yards) from the warehouse, told AFP. 

“Then I saw my roof was wide open. I looked outside and I saw a house collapsing and people lying on the ground everywhere. It was chaos,” Seksan said. 

Video shot by Seksan showed a scene of turmoil at a local market that serves the district next to the Malaysian border, with dazed locals wandering around and emergency services rushing to help. 

Broken glass, roof tiles and other debris littered the ground. Several market stalls were shredded or otherwise heavily damaged. 

Explosions at workshops producing firecrackers and other pyrotechnics are not uncommon in Thailand. Saturday’s deadly blast comes five days after 11 people reportedly were injured when a fireworks factory exploded in the northern city of Chiang Mai. 

The Southeast Asian kingdom also has a poor safety record in the construction sector and deadly accidents are common. 

Last month two people were killed when a bridge under construction in Bangkok collapsed onto traffic. 
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was joined by senior Russian and Chinese delegates as he displayed his most powerful nuclear-capable missiles in a military parade marking a major war anniversary. The show of defiance against the United States also served to deepen ties with Moscow as tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest point in years. 

Kim attended Thursday night’s parade with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese ruling party official Li Hongzhong from a balcony looking over a brightly illuminated Kim Il Sung Square, named after Kim’s grandfather, the founder of North Korea. 

Edited footage from North Korean state TV on Friday showed streets and stands packed with tens of thousands of spectators, who roared in approval as waves of goose-stepping soldiers, tanks and huge, intercontinental ballistic missiles wheeled out on launcher trucks filled the main road. People were brought from around the country to the capital, Pyongyang, to fill the crowd, according to state media. 

The parade began with warm-up events that featured ceremonial flights of newly developed surveillance and attack drones, which were first unveiled by state media this week as they reported on an arms exhibition attended by Kim and Shoigu. 

The main event began with Kim arriving at the square in a limousine escorted by a formation of motorcycles. Kim saluted honor guards and military officials and walked down a red carpet to enter a building where Shoigu and Li greeted him at the balcony, as troops below chanted “protect Kim Jong Un with our lives!” 

Organizers broadcast messages in Russian, Chinese and Korean while introducing Kim’s guests to the crowd, drawing cheers and applause. 

As the parade proceeded, Kim was constantly talking and exchanging smiles with Shoigu and Li, who stood to his right and left, respectively, at the balcony’s center. Kim and Shoigu repeatedly raised their hands to salute the parading troops. The broadcast did not show Kim making a speech. 

Kim’s biggest weapons were saved for the end, when his troops rolled out new ICBMs that were flight-tested in recent months and demonstrated ranges that could reach deep into the U.S. mainland, the Hwasong-17 and Hwasong-18. Some analysts say the missiles are based on Russian designs or know-how. 

North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam spoke, describing the parade as a historic celebration of the country’s “great victory” against “U.S. imperialist aggression forces and groups of its satellite states.” 

He condemned the United States for its expanding military exercises with South Korea, which the North portrays as invasion rehearsals, and holding new rounds of nuclear contingency planning meetings with Seoul. The allies describe their drills as defensive and say the upgrades in training and planning are necessary to cope with the North’s evolving nuclear threat. 

“We solemnly declare that if they attempt military confrontation as now, the exercise of our state’s armed forces will go beyond the scope of the right to defense for the United States of America and (South Korea),” Kang said, repeating previous North Korean threats of nuclear conflict. 

“The U.S. imperialists have no room of choice of survival in case they use nuclear weapons against the DPRK,” he said, using the initials of his country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. 

Clouds over Pyongyang in recent days made it difficult for satellites to monitor preparations for the parade, which took place at night. 

Satellite images showed what appeared to be a massing of people at the square at 1316 GMT (10:16 p.m. local) Thursday, said Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, which is part of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. 

North Korea’s invitation of Russian and Chinese delegates was a rare diplomatic opening since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts say Kim is trying to break out of his diplomatic isolation and boost the visibility of his partnership with authoritarian allies to counter pressure from the United States. 

The parade followed meetings between Kim and Shoigu this week that demonstrated North Korea’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and added to suspicions the North was willing to supply arms to Russia, whose war efforts have been compromised by defense procurement and inventory problems. 

North Korean state media also highlighted a message sent by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who thanked Kim for “firmly supporting” his war efforts in Ukraine. Putin said that interests between Moscow and Pyongyang were aligning as they counter the “collective West in its policy to stand in the way of establishing a genuinely multipolar and just world order,” according to the Kremlin’s version of the letter. 

Kim also held a luncheon and dinner banquet for Shoigu and his delegation following a second day of talks about expanding the countries’ “strategic and tactical collaboration and cooperation” in defense and security, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. 

“Given Russia’s need for ammunition for its illegal war in Ukraine and Kim Jong Un’s willingness to personally give the Russian defense minister a tour of North Korea’s arms exhibition, U.N. member states should increase vigilance for observing and penalizing sanctions violations,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. 

“China’s representation at North Korea’s parading of nuclear-capable missiles raises serious questions about Beijing enabling Pyongyang’s threats to global security,” he said. 

The parade capped the North Korean festivities for the 70th anniversary of the armistice that stopped fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea, which triggered the war with a surprise attack on the South in June 1950, was supported by Chinese troops and the then-Soviet air force. South Korea, the United States and troops from other nations under the aegis of the U.N. fought to push back the invasion. 

The July 1953 truce was never replaced with a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war, but the North still sees it as a victory in the “Grand Fatherland Liberation War.” 

The anniversary events were more somber in South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol visited a war cemetery in Busan to honor foreign troops who died while fighting for the South. 

In the face of growing North Korean threats, Yoon has pushed to expand South Korea’s military exercises with Washington and is seeking stronger U.S. reassurances that it would use its nuclear capabilities to defend the South in the event of a nuclear attack. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also marked the anniversary with a statement expressing concern over what he described as a growing “nuclear risk” on the Korean Peninsula. 
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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Saturday that Sri Lanka is a key partner in a Tokyo-led initiative aimed at building security and economic cooperation around the Indo-Pacific but also at countering an increasingly assertive China.

Sri Lanka, strategically located in the Indian Ocean, is integral to realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific, Hayashi said. He was speaking after a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart, Ali Sabry, in the capital, Colombo.

The initiative, announced by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in March includes Japan’s assistance to emerging economies, support for maritime security, a provision of coast guard patrol boats and equipment and other infrastructure cooperation.

Last year Sri Lanka, which owed $51 billion in foreign debt, became the first Asia-Pacific country since the late 1990s to default, sparking an economic crisis.

While Japan is Sri Lanka’s largest creditor, about 10% of its debt is held by China, which lent Colombo billions to build seaports, airports and power plants as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. In March, China agreed to offer Sri Lanka a two-year moratorium on loan repayments.

Hayashi said that he conveyed expectations for further progress in Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring process. He welcomed Sri Lanka’s efforts under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which includes anti-corruption measures and transparency in the policy-making process.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Sabry said that he, along with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, invited Japan to resume investment projects already in the pipeline and to consider fresh investments in sectors such as power generation, ports and highways, and dedicated investment zones, as well as in the green and digital economy.

Over many decades, Japan became one of Sri Lanka’s key donors, carrying out key projects under concessionary terms. However, relations between the two countries came under strain after Wickremesinghe’s predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, unilaterally scrapped a Japan-funded light railway project following his election in 2019.

Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has already approved a proposal to restart the railway project.

Rajapaksa was forced to resign in July 2022 amid angry public protests over the country’s worsening economic crisis.
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COLOMBO, SRI LANKA — French President Emmanuel Macron held discussions with his Sri Lankan counterpart Saturday on an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region in the first-ever visit by a French leader to the Indian Ocean island nation.

As the fourth-largest creditor to Sri Lanka, France had pledged cooperation in debt restructuring to help the island nation recover from its economic crisis.

Macron arrived in Sri Lanka on Friday night, following his trip to the South Pacific region, to mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations, Sri Lanka’s president’s office said.

Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe praised France’s significant role in global affairs, particularly in areas such as climate mitigation, global debt restructuring, and matters related to the Indo-Pacific region, the statement said.

“Sri Lanka and France are two Indian Ocean nations that share the same goal: an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific. In Colombo we confirmed it: strengthened by 75 years of diplomatic relations, we can open a new era of our partnership,” Macron said in a Twitter message after the meeting.
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A new U.N. report has cast doubts on the alleged death of the head of the Islamic State terror group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, noting that the ruling Taliban’s relationship with al-Qaida “remains close and symbiotic.”

The report, released this week by the U.N. Security Council sanctions monitoring team, is based on member-state intelligence. It characterized Islamic State-Khorasan Province, also known as IS-K or ISIL-K, as “the most serious terrorist threat” facing Afghanistan and the broader region.

“Sanaullah Ghafari (alias Shahab al-Muhajir) is viewed as the most ambitious leader of ISIL-K. One Member State reported that Ghafari was killed in Afghanistan in June. This remains to be confirmed,” said the U.N. report, dated Tuesday, without elaborating.

It identified Maulawi Rajab as the leader of IS-K’s external operations and estimated that the terror group had up to 6,000 operatives, including family members, in Afghanistan.

“ISIL-K is becoming more sophisticated in its attacks against both the Taliban and international targets. The group was focused on carrying out a strategy of high-profile attacks to undermine the Taliban’s ability to provide security,” the U.N. report said.

The terror campaign exhibited “strong operational capability involving reconnoiter, coordination, communication, planning and execution,” the report said. It also noted that successful attacks on leading Taliban figures in northern Afghanistan had boosted IS-K’s morale and spurred recruitment. 

Last month, Taliban security sources reported that Ghafari, the self-proclaimed emir of IS-K, was killed during counterterrorism operations in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, which borders Pakistan. Pakistani intelligence officials at the time also confirmed to VOA the death of Ghafari in what they said were “mysterious circumstances.”

The United States has offered a reward of $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of Ghafari. A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, told VOA it was unable to confirm the death of the IS-K leader.

“CENTCOM is aware of reports alleging that an ISIS-K leader was killed in Afghanistan earlier this week,” Major John Moore said in an email. “We have nothing additional to provide at this time.”

The U.N. report noted “the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaida remains close and symbiotic.”

It added that al-Qaida mainly operates covertly in Afghanistan to help promote the narrative that the Taliban are living up to their pledges they would not allow the use of Afghan soil for terrorist purposes.

“Under the patronage of high-ranking officials of the de facto Taliban authorities, al-Qaida members infiltrate law enforcement agencies and public administration bodies, ensuring the security of al-Qaida cells dispersed throughout the country,” the report stated.

According to the U.N. findings, al-Qaida is believed to have 30 to 60 senior operatives in Afghanistan and an additional 400 fighters, reaching 2,000 when including family members and supporters.

Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejected U.N. allegations that his group maintains ties with al-Qaida.

“Al-Qaida organization does not exist in Afghanistan now and reports claiming this are false. The Islamic Emirate does not allow anyone to use Afghanistan’s soil to threaten any other country’s security,” Mujahid tweeted Friday.

The U.N. report found that the August 2021 Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has “emboldened” Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, an outlawed group waging terrorist attacks in Pakistan out of Afghan sanctuaries.

Listed as a global terrorist organization by the U.S., TTP has been “gaining momentum in its operations against Pakistan and aspires to regain control of territory within the country. The group is known to be an offshoot and a close ally of the Afghan Taliban.

“In June, certain TTP elements were relocated away from the border area, as part of the Taliban’s efforts to rein in the group under pressure from the government of Pakistan,” the U.N. report said. It warned that TTP could become a regional threat if it continues to have a safe operating base in Afghanistan.

Taliban leaders reject TTP’s presence in the country, however.

The U.N. document concludes with member states expressing concern “over the availability of large quantities of weaponry and other military equipment” left behind by U.S. and NATO forces. They noted the potential spread of these weapons from stockpiles in Afghanistan into neighboring countries.

The U.S.-led foreign troops chaotically withdrew after almost two decades of involvement in the war with the then-insurgent Taliban.
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Two leading universities on the Indian side of Kashmir have removed the poems and a memoir written by two internationally acclaimed authors from their master’s program curriculum, claiming “resistance literature” in the syllabus promotes a “secessionist mindset, aspiration, and narrative” among students. 

The decision to drop the literary pieces on July 21, according to local news reports, is based on a verbal order allegedly issued by the regional government, and university officials have confirmed their removal. 

The University of Kashmir, in its third semester of the master’s degree in English, used to teach students about the writings of Agha Shahid Ali and Basharat Peer. Ali was a Kashmiri-American poet who had moved to the United States, where he became affiliated with the late-20th century New Formalism movement that stressed traditional forms of verse. He died on Dec. 8, 2021, with brain cancer and is buried in Northampton, Massachusetts. 

Peer is a Kashmir-born America-based journalist, author and political commentator, formerly a New York Times opinion writer, now with the International Crisis Group.

The curriculum included three Ali poems — “Postcard from Kashmir,” “In Arabic,” and “The Last Saffron.” The poems reflected the themes of exile, nostalgia, cultural heritage, and the political situation in Kashmir.  

The curriculum also included Peer’s memoir, Curfewed Night, which won the Crossword Book Award for nonfiction and was chosen among the books of the year by The Economist and The New Yorker. 

The second university to remove works is Cluster University Srinagar, which had incorporated Ali’s poems into its curriculum. “I See Kashmir from New Delhi at Midnight” and “Call Me Ishmael Tonight” narrate tales of the poet’s nostalgic longing for Kashmir’s beauty and peace from far away and explore blending cultures and reimagine classic Western literature with Eastern influences. 

The schools’ decision to drop Ali’s and Peer’s works triggered a debate among the locals regarding the importance of freedom of expression and cultural representation in Kashmir. Critics argued that embracing diverse narratives is crucial for fostering empathy and promoting inclusivity.

Literature student Insha Shah expressed disappointment at the decision to exclude Ali and Peer from the syllabus, saying students are being deprived of an opportunity to engage with the thought-provoking works of the two authors. 

“Aga Shahid Ali has left an indelible mark on the world of literature with his evocative verses that delve into themes of exile and identity, offering profound insights into the human condition,” Shah told VOA. 

“Likewise, Basharat Peer, an immensely talented author, presents a vivid picture of life amid conflict by deeply resonating with the feelings of people,” she said.

Farooq Ahmad Masoodi, the dean of academic affairs at the University of Kashmir, conceded the works of the two have been removed but said he is unaware of a verbal order issued by the local administration as reported by local news organizations.

“The decision was made by the board of studies of the respective department,” Masoodi said. “The addition or deletion of syllabus is a routine process subject to periodic updates,” he said. 

Qayyum Hussain, vice chancellor of Cluster University Srinagar, also claimed to have “no information” on the removal of Ali’s work from the university curriculum.

Mirza Waheed, a Kashmir-born, London-based author and journalist, called the move an “ugly” attack on freedom of thought. He said the decision to remove Ali’s and Peer’s works is “yet another tactic in the Indian state’s war against Kashmiri memory.”

“It is also a clear indication of how a state of abnormality is imposed and people are expected to go along with it,” Waheed wrote on Facebook. “This is how book bans are normalized. At some point, they will go after bookstores, then libraries, then the solitary reader with a book at his home.”

Syed Naeem Akhtar Andrabi, the former education minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said the move is a part of the larger plan of the Indian government under the Bharatiya Janata Party to “obliterate the only Muslim-majority state” in the country. 

“I see the move as a distortion of their version of Hindu Rashtra [a concept that envisions a political and cultural state in which the dominant religion and culture are Hinduism],” Andrabi told VOA. “They started with the dismantling of the state in 2019 [when the Indian government removed the special status of Jammu and Kashmir] and proceeded with taking everything and now they are trying to capture the intellectual space, which spans over thousands of years whose contemporary expression is conveyed in the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali and the writing of Basharat Peer and others,” he said.

“How else can the present generation connect with other parts of the world without writing and poetry?” Andrabi said. “They are trying to hide from the world not just the intellectual and literary image of Kashmir but also anything that reflects the pain and misery that this place has been experiencing for decades,” he said. 
…

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Beijing’s  massive investment plan to boost trade and economic ties with Pakistan, is 10 years old but has not fulfilled its lofty goals.

CPEC became an early example of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an aggressive effort to build billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure in Asia and beyond. At its inception, CPEC was China’s most ambitious BRI effort: More than $35 billion was pledged for energy projects and another $10 billion for transportation.

Speaking this month at a commemoration of the project’s 10th year, Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan’s minister for planning, development and reforms, said that $25 billion in projects had been completed and that the government was now focused on finishing projects originally set for completion by 2020.

He also highlighted the 13 power projects and the 4,000-megawatt electricity transmission line that have been built. At CPEC’s outset, the Pakistani government estimated it needed at least another 4,000 megawatts of power that year to meet demand. Officials estimate CPEC projects now provide about one-third of the power for Pakistan’s electrical grid.

Iqbal also touted key roads and ports that have boosted the economy.

“CPEC effectively helped Pakistan in improving the major transport networks from north to south and laid the foundation for a resilient infrastructure including ports, airports and roads and Orange Line Metro Train in Lahore,” he said.

Job creation

Iqbal estimated that CPEC has created more than 230,000 jobs in Pakistan. In May, Chinese official state media estimated that Pakistani workers held about 155,000 of those positions.   

Haroon Sharif, the head of Pakistan’s Board of Investment in 2018-19, is skeptical that many of those jobs were created. He told VOA the statistics provided by the government were merely the claims of the planning ministry, not based on third-party assessment.

“The figure could be only credible when it is based on the third-party independent economic assessment,” Sharif said.

Sharif said there are two types of jobs in CPEC projects: temporary and permanent. He said the temporary laborers work until projects have been completed, and then permanent workers take over to run them.

“I have serious doubts that they are in hundreds of thousands, but it could be a few thousand jobs,” he said.

Unfinished projects

Authorities say most CPEC projects begun in 2013 with 2020 deadlines have been completed. However, Pakistan is still setting up nine special economic and industrial zones where Chinese companies are expected to invest. Authorities say four of the zones are under construction while work on the others hasn’t started.

At this month’s anniversary ceremony, Iqbal blamed the previous government for the delay in completing the zones, though he provided no details.

Sharif attributed the slowdown to Pakistan’s political turmoil as well as COVID-19, since China closed its borders because of the pandemic.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian rejected earlier reports that CPEC faced any slowdowns during the pandemic.

Ammar A Malik, senior scientist at AidData, a research lab at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, said the delayed completion of the industrial zones did slow down Chinese investments.   

Malik told VOA that China has a lot at stake in its Pakistan investments and could be concerned about the lack of progress in some areas.

“It is in China’s interest that Pakistan achieve political and economic stability,” Malik said.

He also argued that Pakistan should not take Chinese interest and help for granted.

“The success of the CPEC project is conditional to the economic and political stability of the country. If there is continuity in Pakistan’s economic policies, along with political stability, then investment in CPEC and other projects will continue to grow,” Malik said.

Missed opportunities

In 2013, China expressed interest in relocating some of its industries to Pakistan, attracted by lower production costs. This move would have generated employment opportunities and boosted Pakistan’s exports.

That largely has not happened. Iqbal, the planning minister, said the lack of progress on the industrial zones has led many Chinese investors to shift their expansion plans to countries like Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, where production costs are comparatively lower than in China.

Iqbal said the current government is determined to fast-track all CPEC projects.

In an interview with VOA, Pakistani-based economist Ashfaque Hassan Khan said Pakistan’s chronic power shortages also have kept the nation from taking full advantage of Chinese investment.

As an example, Khan said that despite the CPEC  investments that have brought some relief from energy shortages, the country has not yet been able to use the surplus energy for industrial zone construction.

Khan said China’s confidence in Pakistan would be restored only if there is political and economic stability in the country, and if other foreign investors regarded Pakistan favorably for further business ventures.

This story originated in VOA’s Urdu Service. 
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The residency cards of more than a million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan have not been extended, causing concern among the migrants about their refugee status.

The Proof of Registration cards of about 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees expired June 30, 2023, and the Pakistani government has yet to extend them.

Afghan refugees in Pakistan told VOA that they are facing many obstacles, including restrictions on movement within Pakistan and the curtailment of employment.

“We are facing problems,” said Ali Zadran, an Afghan refugee in the Kot Chandna refugee camp in Mianwali in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

“Our cards have expired. … We can’t travel. We can’t even reserve a hotel room,” he said, adding that Pakistani security forces harass refugees without proper documentation.

Ahmad Shah, an Afghan refugee in the Kohat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told VOA that failure to extend the cards means refugees would be vulnerable to police abuse.

“When we go out, police are everywhere. When they stop us and see our cards that are expired, then we are arrested.”

He said the cards are only used as proof that “we can stay in Pakistan, but the renewal takes longer.”

The cards serve as an identity document by which Afghan refugees can remain legally in Pakistan and travel within the country. It cannot be used to travel outside the country.

The registered refugees who have valid cards “cannot be arrested under the 1946 Foreigners Act or other preventive laws.”

The Proof of Registration cards were issued to Afghan refugees in Pakistan in 2006 and were last extended for two years in 2021.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees stated that among 3.7 million Afghans living in Pakistan, more than 1.3 million are registered.

UNHCR spokesperson in Pakistan, Qaiser Khan Afridi, told VOA that the U.N. is in touch with Pakistani officials.

“The Interior Ministry [of Pakistan] has sent an official letter to the provincial governments in Pakistan that they [Pakistani police] should not take any steps against the Afghan refugees until their PoR cards are not renewed,” he said.

Abbas Khan, Pakistan’s commissioner for Afghan refugees, told VOA that the cards may be extended.

“The cards might be extended for two years. Otherwise, the relevant organization would send a letter so that there would be no problem for the Afghans,” he said.

But some Afghans are concerned about losing their jobs.

Milad Wahidi, an Afghan refugee who lives in Peshawar and works with a foreign organization in Islamabad, told VOA that he must stay at home until his card is renewed.

“I will lose my job if the card is not renewed soon,” he said. “I have children, and it will be difficult for me to feed them without having a job.”

New refugees

Meanwhile, thousands of Afghans are fleeing the Taliban and crossing the border to neighboring countries. In Pakistan, crackdowns on Afghan refugees have intensified in recent months despite Taliban calls for Pakistani authorities to stop arresting Afghans living in Pakistan.

Human rights watchdogs also have called on Pakistan to stop the harassment of Afghan refugees.

“The Government of Pakistan must urgently stop arbitrarily arresting and harassing Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers, many of whom are fleeing persecution by the Taliban,” Amnesty International said in a statement on June 20.

UNHCR adds that after Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, around 1.6 million people fled Afghanistan, of which 600,000 crossed the border into Pakistan.

Roshan Noorzai from VOA’s Afghan Service contributed to this report, which originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.
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SRINAGAR, India — Thousands of Shiite Muslims were allowed to hold a religious procession marking the Muslim month of Muharram in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s main city on Thursday for the first time since an anti-India rebellion broke out in the disputed region more than three decades ago.

The participants, mostly wearing black clothes, beat their chests and recited elegies in the commercial heart of Srinagar. Some carried copies of the Quran to protest recent public desecrations of the Islamic holy book in Sweden and Denmark.

Muharram is among the holiest months for Shiite Muslims and marks the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein and his 72 companions in the battle of Karbala in the 7th century in present-day Iraq. The mourning over their deaths reaches its peak on Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram. Thursday’s procession marked the eighth day on the calendar.

The main Muharram gatherings on the eighth and 10th days that used to pass through the city center were banned a year after an armed insurgency broke out in 1989 demanding the region’s independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan, which also controls part of Kashmir. However, Muharram processions continued to be allowed elsewhere in the Indian-controlled portion.

Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the insurgency.

Scores of mourners tried to defy the ban in previous years, often leading to scuffles with police and the firing of tear gas.

Authorities said the lifting of the ban comes as the overall security situation has improved in the region in recent years.

Mohammad Aijaz, Srinagar’s civil administrator, said the procession was “a dividend of peace.”

The lifting of the ban came after a series of talks between Shiite leaders and government officials. Authorities imposed a series of conditions, including that participants should not use “anti-national slogans or propaganda” or “disrespect any national symbol.”

“It was after a long wait of almost 34 years that this procession has once again been allowed to go through its historical route,” said Shabib Ul Hassan, a young participant.

It was unclear whether the authorities would lift the ban on the 10th day procession, as well.

Kashmiri Muslims have long complained that the Indian government restricts their religious freedom with the rationale of maintaining law and order, while promoting a massive annual Hindu pilgrimage to the holy Amarnath Cave Temple in Jammu and Kashmir.

The two-month Hindu pilgrimage currently underway draws hundreds of thousand from across India. The routes leading to the cave shrine are guarded by tens of thousands of soldiers.

Restrictions on Muslims have increased sharply since the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party scrapped the region’s semi-autonomy in 2019.

Since then, critics say, the Indian government has tried to create what it calls “Naya Kashmir,” or “new Kashmir,” by curbing dissent, civil liberties and media freedoms.

Authorities have also confined the region’s chief cleric and top separatist leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, to his home and restricted large congregational prayers at the region’s main mosque.
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A senior White House national security official has said the United States does not want to coerce Pakistan into choosing between Washington and Beijing.

Eileen Laubacher, senior director for South Asia on the U.S. National Security Council, told VOA that Washington wants its partners to be able to choose their relationships freely. The council advises the U.S. president on national security and foreign policy.

“It’s important to reiterate that the United States wants our partners to be able to make their own choices, free of external coercion,” Laubacher said in written comments following her maiden visit to Pakistan this month.

During the July 19-21 visit, Laubacher met with senior Pakistani government and military officials.

“Every country needs productive, supportive, equitable relationships with a variety of partners, and Pakistan is no different,” she said.

The growing rivalry between Washington and Beijing has created a challenge for Islamabad as the United States deepens defense and security ties with Pakistan’s archival India in a bid to counter China’s growing influence.

“Our bilateral relationships with both Pakistan and India do not come at the expense of the other,” the White House official said, repeating a stance frequently expressed by the State Department.

As Islamabad watches India-U.S. ties grow, it hopes to repair its own tenuous relations with Washington, damaged by the 20-year U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that saw the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul.

While Pakistan denies the accusation that it covertly supported the then-insurgent group despite being a U.S. ally in the war, both Washington and Islamabad share concerns over Afghanistan again becoming a terrorist haven under the Taliban.

Laubacher’s visit came amid a flurry of recent high-profile contacts between the two sides, including a telephone call between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, and a meeting between the U.S. CENTCOM chief Gen. Michael E. Kurilla and Pakistani army chief Gen. Asim Munir in Islamabad.

Responding to whether the U.S. is helping Pakistan target anti-Pakistan terrorists inside Afghanistan, Laubacher said, “We have a close working relationship with Pakistan on security matters.”

Pakistan faces almost daily attacks from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, an ideological offshoot of the Afghan Taliban that Islamabad alleges is operating from Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban deny harboring the TTP.

The U.S. national security official said Washington was providing millions of dollars in life-saving equipment for Pakistani law-enforcement officers upon Pakistan’s request.

This month the U.S. ambassador in Pakistan inaugurated a $17.2 million police training center in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan and is most affected by terror attacks. 

The White House, however, has yet to resume military aid to Pakistan, which then-President Trump froze in 2018 after accusing Pakistan of being untrustworthy in a tweet.  

Laubacher did not say if the Biden White House is looking to resume that assistance soon.

“We continue to consider defense transfers and security assistance to Pakistan—as we do with all recipients—on a case-by-case basis, where it serves the interests of both countries.” 

Last September, the White House approved a $450 million deal to provide repair and maintenance services for Pakistan’s F-16 fighter jet fleet. 

Pakistan has been plagued with political instability since Imran Khan was ousted as prime minister in April of last year. Although Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has pledged to pave the way for general elections, uncertainty looms about when and if polls will happen this year. 

Responding to a question on how the White House can ensure Pakistan holds timely elections, Laubacher said the U.S. supports free, fair, and credible elections around the world. 

“We encourage the government of Pakistan to adhere to Pakistan’s constitution and laws, including with regard to holding general elections,” she said.
…

A rights watchdog said Wednesday that human rights in Afghanistan, especially those of women and girls, should be at the center of a U.N. Security Council-mandated independent assessment of the global response to the country’s crisis.

Human Rights Watch said it had shared the recommendations with Feridun Sinirlioğlu, U.N. special coordinator leading the assessment, urging him to address the rights abuses of Afghans and hold accountable those responsible for the abuses, including the Taliban.

“The situation in Afghanistan right now is the most serious women’s rights crisis in the world,” said Heather Barr, associate director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. “The crisis in Afghanistan is overwhelming, and Taliban abuses are deepening what was already a devastating humanitarian crisis.”

Barr criticized the international response as inconsistent, ineffective and insufficiently focused on human rights, saying the independent U.N.-mandated assessment could guide a more effective answer to the “dire situation.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the appointment of Sinirlioğlu as the special coordinator in April and asked the former senior Turkish government diplomat to provide recommendations for an “integrated and coherent approach among relevant political, humanitarian and development actors” to address the challenges faced by Afghanistan.

The move stemmed from a Security Council resolution in March asking the United Nations to conduct and provide the assessment to its members by Nov. 17.

The Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO allies withdrew all their troops after 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.

The fundamentalist authorities have since introduced their interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah, to govern the conflict-ridden and impoverished South Asia nation. The Taliban have banned Afghan women and girls from an education beyond about a sixth-grade level and have barred them from most employment and visiting public places such as parks, gyms and bathhouses.

The Taliban have also barred Afghan women from working for international nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations, in a country where more than 28 million people need food aid. The ban forced the World Food Program to cut 8 million food-insecure Afghans from assistance.

On Tuesday, the hard-line authorities permanently closed all beauty salons across Afghanistan, leaving an estimated 60,000 women without work. Parlors were among the last significant sources of employment for women.

The international community has repeatedly criticized Taliban curbs on women and demanded their reversal.

The Taliban dismiss criticism of their rule, insisting that it is aligned with the Afghan culture and Shariah.

Sinirlioğlu met with Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi during his June visit to Kabul. A post-meeting Taliban statement quoted Muttaqi telling the U.N. coordinator that their government replaced violence with “peace and stability. Islamic rights of women are ensured … and all achievements in the areas of security have been without any foreign support.”

Human rights concerns and the treatment of Afghan women have prevented foreign governments from granting legitimacy to the Taliban as they mark their second anniversary in power next month.

On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department renewed its call for de facto Afghan authorities to review their policies.

“We have been incredibly clear, quite regularly condemning the clear backsliding that we’re seeing in Afghanistan, the egregious human rights abuses, the marginalization of women and girls,” Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson, told reporters in Washington.

Patel emphasized that “if the Taliban intends to seek international recognition, they need to start directly with the actions and the policies they choose to undertake in Afghanistan.”

Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that the U.N. special coordinator should ensure that his team includes experts on human rights, including the rights of women and girls.

“Afghan women and girls and others suffering under Taliban repression feel abandoned by the world,” Barr said. “The independent assessment should both help restore global attention to the situation in Afghanistan and propose concrete tools for holding the Taliban and other rights violators accountable.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department announced Wednesday that Tom West, special representative for Afghanistan, and Rina Amiri, special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights, will travel to Kazakhstan and Qatar July 26-31. The delegation will meet with counterparts from Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for a special session on Afghanistan.

In Qatar’s capital, Doha, West and Amiri will meet with Taliban representatives and technocratic professionals from key Afghan ministries to discuss “critical interests” in Afghanistan, the statement said.

“Priority issues will include humanitarian support for the people of Afghanistan, economic stabilization, fair and dignified treatment of all Afghans, including women and girls, security issues, and efforts to counter narcotics production and trafficking.”
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