A few weeks after the fall of Kabul in August 2021, a group of armed Taliban entered Henna Beauty Salon and assured the staff they could continue their work.  

“The Taliban said, ‘We don’t have any problem with you since there are no men, and you can continue what you do without any problem,’” Athena Hashemi, owner of the salon, remembered.  

But last week, the Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue sent a letter to the salon’s branches in Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul telling them to close in a month.

In a video statement last week, Sadiq Akif Mahjer, spokesperson for the Ministry of Virtue and Vice, said that the services offered by the salons such as shaping eyebrows, hair extensions and makeup, were “forbidden by Islam,” adding that the salons caused economic hardships for the prospective grooms’ families, who pay for the salon visits of the bride and her female relatives for hairdos and makeup. 

Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban have issued several decrees restricting women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Women are not allowed to get secondary and university educations, travel long distances without male companions, work with the government or nongovernmental organizations, or go to parks, public baths and gyms.

Hashemi and her staff continued to work despite the restrictions, but the Taliban’s sudden decision to close women’s beauty salons shocked her.  

As a pioneer businesswoman, Hashemi opened her salon in 2013, offering beauty and wellness services to women in Kabul.  

‘Devastating consequences’

The Taliban’s recent decision is “an attack on women’s ability to participate in the private sector,” said Heather Barr, associate director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.  

“The Taliban has already shut women out of most government jobs and NGO jobs. But they’ve been more tolerant of women working in the private sector, and this could be a sign that, too, is ending with devastating consequences,” Barr said.  

She added that beauty salons were the only spaces offering “community support to women in a situation where they’ve already lost many other sources of support.”  

Rina Amiri, U.S. special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights, said the ban was concerning.  

“The Taliban ban on beauty parlors removes another vital space for women’s work at a time when they’re struggling to feed their families, eliminates one of the few refuges for women outside the home & further transforms the country into a cruel & extreme outlier in the world,” she said in a tweet. 

Hosay Andar, a former board member of Afghanistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Investment, said the Taliban’s decision to close beauty salons would harm the women and Afghanistan’s economy.

“First, it will affect women, as those working in salons are the only breadwinners.… Second, it would have an impact on the new regime. It is because every beauty salon pays taxes and contributes to the national economy,” Andar said.  

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan last week urged the Taliban to reconsider the decision.

“This new restriction on women’s rights will impact negatively on the economy & contradicts stated support for women entrepreneurship,” UNAMA said in a tweet last week. 

Afghanistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Investment said there are about 12,000 beauty salons in business across the country.

Hashemi said the Taliban’s decision would have an impact on her 75 employees in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif.  

“It will affect all of us. We will suffer economically and psychologically,” she said.   

Waheed Faizi from VOA’s Afghan Service contributed to this report, which originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.
…

The Taliban may have achieved a diplomatic win in an agreement to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan, analysts said, but implementation of the project still faces challenges.

“The three sides reaffirmed their resolve to fully harness Afghanistan’s potential as a hub for regional connectivity,” said a joint statement released in May following a meeting of officials representing the three countries in Islamabad. The countries restated their commitment “to further the trilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, and to jointly extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan.”

“I think it’s a big diplomatic success for the Taliban. It further legitimizes the regime,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization.

But she added, “I don’t expect any significant new projects. … I think there are serious obstacles” in terms of regional connectivity.

The $62 billion CPEC connectivity project is a flagship of the Belt and Road Initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. The initiative is a series of infrastructure projects and investments that span the globe with the aim of connecting China to foreign trade.

Felbab-Brown said the decision to extend CPEC to Afghanistan “has really much more to do with China’s global posturing and trying to separate itself from the United States.”

She said China continues its narrative “that the West is to blame for the humanitarian crisis [and] that the West should not be holding [the] money of the central bank of Afghanistan.”

Since the withdrawal of the U.S. and NATO forces and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, China has been vocal in criticizing the U.S. for freezing Afghanistan’s assets.

“[B]y seizing Afghanistan’s overseas assets and imposing unilateral sanctions, the U.S., which created the Afghan issue in the first place, is the biggest external factor that hinders substantive improvement in the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in April.

Chinese investment 

The ministry’s position paper on Afghanistan stated that China would “do its best” to support Afghanistan’s reconstruction and development.

In recent months, Chinese companies have shown interest in investing in Afghanistan.

Last week, in a meeting with Taliban officials in Kabul, officials of Fan China Afghan Mining Processing and Trading Co. announced an investment of $350 million in various sectors ranging from construction to health to energy in Afghanistan, according to the Bakhtar News Agency, Afghanistan’s state news agency. The company is a joint venture between China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co. (CAPEIC) and Afghanistan’s Watan Group.

In January, the Taliban signed a contract with CAPEIC to extract oil in the north of the country by investing $150 million annually.

China has also shown interest in the development and operation of mines in Afghanistan. A Chinese company, Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC), signed a contract with the then-Afghan government in 2008 to extract copper from Mes Aynak in Logar province.

But that work has not started yet. Last month, the Taliban’s mining and petroleum minister, Shahabuddin Delawar, urged MCC to begin “practical” work on the development and operation of the mine. 

Security concerns

“I do think that China continues to have very substantial security interests and frustrations in Afghanistan, and the security agenda is still the dominant one,” Felbab-Brown said.

A U.N. report, published last month, said the Taliban still has ties with al-Qaida and other groups, including the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party.  

China considers ETIM, which was founded in Pakistan by a Uyghur religious figure, Hasan Mahsum, in 1997, as a threat to its security. However, the U.S. removed the ETIM from its terror list in 2020.

Hamidullah Farooqi, a former Afghan minister of transport and civil aviation, told VOA that the Taliban tried to reassure China and Pakistan that “they can address their security concerns, and no terrorist groups will be allowed to use Afghan soil.”

“I do not think that Chinese and Pakistani officials are convinced,” said Farooqi, adding that the Taliban have to act on their counterterrorism commitment.

Farooqi said that the extension of CPEC to Afghanistan was “considered years before the Taliban’s takeover,” but, because of security concerns, it was not implemented.

He said that because of a “lack of security in the country and the activities of TTP [Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan] and other terrorist organizations in the region, the project was not implemented.”

Instability

“Though the security situation improved under the Taliban, Afghanistan does not have political stability, and that is the reason for no foreign investments in the country,” Farooqi said.

He added that the Taliban have to make “fundamental changes in their policies.”

“They [the Taliban] have to respect human rights, women’s rights and form an inclusive government. These are the things that would bring stability to Afghanistan,” he said.

“Though the Taliban claim that they have brought stability in Afghanistan, I think it will take some time to have full control of Afghanistan,” Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, a political economist in Islamabad, told VOA.

Geopolitics

He said geopolitics presents another challenge for Afghanistan in getting investments and deals.

“There is a competition going on among the major powers and some big players in the region,” said Ramay, adding that rivalry between powers can “create some hurdles in the implementation of this policy to include Afghanistan in CPEC.”

Citing an example, Azarakhsh Hafizi, former head of the international relations committee at Afghanistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Industries, told VOA that China is interested in investing in Afghan natural resources, but the Taliban are not recognized by any country as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

“This will make it difficult for any country to deal with the Taliban,” Hafizi said.

This story originated in VOA’s Afghan Service. 
…

The International Monetary Fund approved a $3 billion bailout program for Pakistan on Wednesday to help the cash-starved nation address its short-term, acute balance of payments crisis and avert a potential default.

An IMF statement said that its executive board met at its Washington headquarters and agreed to release the funds over nine months to support Pakistan’s economic stabilization efforts.

“The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund [IMF] approved a 9-month Stand-By Arrangement [SBA] for Pakistan for an amount of SDR2 250 million [about $3 billion, or 111 percent of quota] to support the authorities’ economic stabilization program,” the statement said.

It noted the arrangement comes at a challenging economic juncture for Pakistan.

“A difficult external environment, devastating floods, and policy missteps have led to large fiscal and external deficits, rising inflation, and eroded reserve buffers” in the fiscal year 2023, the IMF statement said.

Pakistan will immediately receive $1.2 billion under the agreement. “The remaining amount will be phased over the program’s duration, subject to two quarterly reviews,” the statement said. 

It underscored that the program would require Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government to implement “greater fiscal discipline, a market-determined exchange rate to absorb external pressures, and further progress on reforms related to the energy sector, climate resilience, and the business climate.”

Wednesday’s loan approval comes less than two weeks after the IMF and Pakistani officials agreed to the plan on June 29 following eight months of negotiations. Sharif hailed the IMF approval as a “major step forward” in his government’s efforts to stabilize the economy.

“It bolsters Pakistan’s economic position to overcome immediate- to medium-term economic challenges, giving the next government the fiscal space to chart the way forward,” the prime minister said on Twitter.

Sharif’s coalition government will complete its mandated term next month, and new elections in Pakistan will be held this fall.

Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have recently dwindled to a historic low of about $4 billion as of a week ago, just enough to buy a few weeks’ worth of controlled imports as opposed to the IMF-mandated three months of cover.

Families across the impoverished South Asian nation of about 230 million are struggling to cope with ever-declining buying power in the wake of skyrocketing inflation.

The IMF board approval will unlock other bilateral and multilayer external financing for Pakistan.

In the run-up to Wednesday’s IMF announcement, the United Arab Emirates deposited a loan of $1 billion with Pakistan’s central bank to support foreign exchange reserves, Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said.

On Tuesday, Islamabad received a $2 billion loan from Saudi Arabia for one year in support of foreign exchange reserves. Close ally China rolled over more than $5 billion of Pakistan’s loan in the last three months, a move Sharif said had significantly saved his country from defaulting on its debt repayments.

Dar expected the foreign exchange reserves to escalate to $15 billion by the end of this month.

The IMF bailout had been on hold since last December because of Pakistan’s lack of compliance with a 2019 bailout deal between the lender and former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government.  
…

Hopes of ending hunger by the end of this decade have all but evaporated as multiple crises — climate change, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts, including the war in Ukraine — have pushed more than 122 million people into hunger since 2019 to reach an unprecedented high of 735 million.

While progress in reducing hunger is occurring in Asia and Latin America, a new report by five United Nations specialized agencies finds hunger is still on the rise in Western Asia, the Caribbean and throughout all subregions of Africa.

The latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, launched Wednesday, says Africa remains the worst affected region, with “one in five people facing hunger on the continent, more than twice the global average.”

Marco Sanchez Cantillo, deputy director of the agrifood economics division at the Food and Agriculture Organization, said the situation of global hunger would have been better “had it not been for the rising food and energy price increases, the conflicts, the weather-related events, and deep inequalities that we observed in the last years.”

He said the report warns that the world is not on track to achieve one of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals of ending hunger by 2030 and instead predicts that nearly 600 million people will be chronically undernourished by then.

Cantillo adds that an estimated 2.4 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure in 2022 and did not know from where their next meal was coming.

“These are people who faced uncertainties about their ability to pay for food and have been forced to reduce, sometimes during the year, the quantity or the quality of the food that they consume due to lack of money or other resources.”

Gian Carlo Cirri, head of the Geneva office of the World Food Program, said data on acute food insecurity show “we are facing the most complex and one of the biggest crises of modern times when it comes to food insecurity.”

He noted that in the 79 high burden countries in which WFP operates, 345 million people are facing food insecurity. He said this was a major increase of 200 million when compared to 2020.

“It is a staggering number,” Cirri said.

The report notes that more and more people are leaving rural areas and moving to cities. It predicts that almost seven in 10 people will live in cities by 2050, and that this increased urbanization is driving changes in agrifood systems.

Helene Papper, director for global communications and advocacy at the International Fund for Agricultural Development, said food insecurity afflicts urban and rural households. However, she said it was strongest in rural areas “where 80 percent of the world’s poorest people live. Yet, they are the people behind our plates.”

She explains that many of these people are small-scale farmers who produce one-third of the world’s food — 70% of the food in Africa and Asia.

“Meanwhile, they struggle to feed themselves, and they bear the brunt of tremendous challenges we all face today, the least being climate change. But they only receive 1.7 percent of global climate finance. This is wrong. We must shift this terrible dichotomy,” Papper said.

She said that urbanization offers opportunities as well as challenges.

“Access to food does not always mean access to nutritious food,” she said. “Urbanization facilitates access to cheap and processed foods contributing to malnutrition and diet-related diseases, and this requires our attention and action.”

The World Health Organization reports that eight to 10 million people die every year because of unhealthy diets. Among the major victims are children and women.

This year’s SOFI report shows that conflict, climate change and increasing inequality are leaving millions of children and women without access to nutritious, safe, affordable and sustainable diets.

“And this also coincides with the increasing availability and consumption of processed foods that do not meet children’s nutritional needs,” said Chika Hayashi, statistics and monitoring senior adviser for UNICEF.

She said that last year, about 22% — 148 million children under five — were stunted; 7%, about 45 million children under five were wasted — a child who is too thin for his or her height and has an increased risk of death if not treated for the condition; and about 6%, or 37 million children, were overweight.

“Ideally, we want these numbers to be less than three percent for it not to be a public health problem. So, we are quite far from where we would like it to be and to meet our SDG goal.”

She said that “the scale of the food and nutritious crisis demands a much stronger response for women and children, especially the most vulnerable.”

To remedy these problems, Hayashi said policy actions should include prioritizing access to nutritious and affordable diets for children and women; providing nutritious support and services; protecting families from nutrient poor or ultra-processed food; and strengthening nutritious supply chains, including the provision of therapeutic foods.
…

Authorities in Pakistan said Wednesday that an insurgent assault on a military base in turbulent southwestern Baluchistan province killed at least four soldiers and “critically injured” five others.

The army’s media wing said that five “terrorists” had attempted “to sneak into the facility” in the province’s northern Zhob district early in the morning but troops intercepted them.  

“In the ensuing heavy exchange of fire the terrorists have been contained into a small area at the boundary,” a statement said, adding that retaliatory fire killed three “heavily armed” assailants. “A clearance operation by security forces is underway to apprehend the remaining two terrorists,” the army said.

A top district administration official earlier confirmed that militants had stormed the Zhob cantonment area. Azeem Kakar told reporters that civilians were also caught in the crossfire, leaving a woman dead and five people injured.

Security sources in Zhob reported that the hours-long siege had ended after all five attackers were killed. They said security forces had lost nine personnel while another 15 were injured.

Pakistani officials did not immediately comment on the reported higher casualty toll.

A relatively new militant outfit, Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan, reportedly claimed credit for staging the attack on the army base but its authenticity could not be ascertained immediately. The group is believed to be tied to the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, an alliance of banned extremist organizations conducting attacks against the Pakistani state.

Baluchistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan, have recently suffered a dramatic upsurge in militant attacks. The violence has killed more than 400 people, mostly security forces, in suicide bombings and other attacks since the beginning of 2023.

The TTP and the so-called Baluch Liberation Army, both designated as global terrorist organizations by the United States, have taken responsibility for most of the bloodshed in the two provinces and elsewhere in Pakistan.

The Pakistani military has confirmed the death of more than 100 officers and soldiers in insurgent raids and clashes in the first six months of the year. 
…

The Supreme Court of India Tuesday ordered a hearing on multiple petitions challenging the government of India’s revocation four years ago of the special status of the Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir or J&K.

Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud, Chief Justice of India announced that the Constitution Bench would commence the hearing on August 2.

Twenty-one petitions have been filed challenging the government’s decision in August 2019 to abrogate Article 370 and Article 35(A) of the Indian constitution. The two articles provided J&K several benefits including a separate constitution, protected land-ownership rights, and government jobs for its permanent residents.

The government of India Monday defended its decision by submitting a written affidavit at the court stating that the region has witnessed a positive impact after the abrogation of the special status. However, the court during the hearing made it clear that it would not consider the fresh affidavit filed by the government regarding the situation in J&K.

Prominent pro-India political parties expressed strong confidence in the Supreme Court regarding the restoration of the special status.

Muzaffar Shah, Vice President of the Awami National Conference, while stressing the historical context of J&K’s accession to the Union of India in 1947 stated that the power to amend Article 370 and Article 35(A) solely lies with the “Constituent Assembly of J&K.”

“I believe that J&K will regain its special status as guaranteed under the Constitution of India through the agreements signed by the Union of India and J&K,” Shah said.

Hasnain Masoodi, former Chief Justice of the J&K High Court and a senior politician associated with the National Conference, told VOA that the Government of India “violated the constitution” when the special status of the region was revoked.

“The main argument of my petition is the unconstitutional nature of the revocation of Article 370 and Article 35(A). “The Court has the authority to set aside illegally taken decisions,” Masoodi said.

Mehbooba Mufti, President of the Peoples Democratic Party and former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said in a recent article that in previous challenges to Article 370’s legality and continuation, the Supreme Court had made it clear that the provision, although temporary in nature, could not be removed unless recommended by the J&K constituent assembly for dissolution to the Indian president.

Raman Bhalla, a Jammu-based politician affiliated with the Indian National Congress, appreciated the decision made by the Supreme Court. Bhalla told VOA that the residents of J&K did not support the revocation of the region’s special status.

“We eagerly await the outcome of the verdict,” said Bhalla. “People of J&K are hopeful for the restoration of the special status, and we will honor whatever decision the Court announces,” he added.

In response to the ongoing developments Ashok Koul, the General Secretary of the BJP in J&K, told VOA that his party had been committed to repealing Article 370 and Article 35(A) since 1953.

He said that every individual has the right to approach the court if they believe there is a matter that needs to be challenged.

“We believe that both articles were enacted unlawfully,” Koul said. “The matter is currently under judicial consideration, and we are prepared to accept whatever decision the Court announces,” he added.
…

A global aid agency said Tuesday that Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities had evicted 280 internally displaced families, or about 1,700 people, from a makeshift settlement in Kabul and demolished it in breach of international obligations.

The Norwegian Refugee Council reported the evictions, saying victim families told its field staff they had to evacuate under “traumatic conditions.” They reported the deaths of two children, one aged 4 and another aged 15, during the evacuation in the Pul-e-Shina area outside of the Afghan capital.

The NRC statement noted that families were waiting in the street, and humanitarian agencies were blocked from the site. The agency did not immediately know the cause of the reported deaths.

A spokesman for Kabul municipality, Niamatullah Barakzai, denied there were casualties during the clearance operation or that houses were demolished, saying the area was under illegal occupation.

“By expelling extremely vulnerable families, the Kabul authorities have added a new chapter to the long book of the suffering of displaced families in Afghanistan,” said Neil Turner, NRC’s county director in Afghanistan.

Turner urged Taliban authorities to halt further evictions and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law.

The hardline group waged a deadly insurgency and returned to power in August 2021 as the United States-led NATO troops departed the country after 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.

Millions displaced

Years of conflict, natural calamities, and economic hardships have displaced millions internally in impoverished Afghanistan.

The NRC noted that after seizing power, the Taliban had informed the humanitarian community of their plans to return internally displaced families to areas of origin and close makeshift settlements across the country.

The aid group warned that if realized, the policy would affect about 2 million individuals living in shantytown homes, usually in appalling conditions, and often highly dependent on humanitarian assistance to survive.

“Internally displaced people who are living in these settlements are already on the brink of survival and struggling with the economic crisis — this raises serious concerns that evictions will exacerbate the already extreme humanitarian needs,” Turner said.

Many evicted families homeless

The NRC said that several thousand internally displaced people have already been forced from their homes despite repeated calls for the Taliban to engage with humanitarian agencies “to adopt a slower and more sustainable returns process.” It added that many evicted families over the last year remained homeless and cut off from humanitarian assistance.

The international community has not yet recognized the Taliban administration as the legitimate authority for lacking political inclusivity and for restricting Afghan women’s access to work and education.

The fundamentalist Taliban reject the criticism as interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, saying they govern the country according to local culture and Islamic law, or Sharia.
…

In a rare moment of international accord, dozens of nations attending a debate at the U.N. Human Rights Council on the alarming rise of religious hatred condemned the lack of tolerance for the beliefs of others, which they said has led to the incitement of discrimination, hostility and violence.

The debate was triggered by the June 28 burning of a Quran by an Iraqi refugee outside a mosque in Stockholm, Sweden. The act, which coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, was widely condemned by Islamic and other nations around the world.

“These and other incidents appear to have been manufactured to express contempt and inflame anger; to drive wedges between people; and to provoke transforming differences of perspective into hatred and, perhaps, violence,” said Volker Türk, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, who kicked off the debate with an impassioned plea to people of all beliefs to “act with respect for others.”

He said, “Only in this way can we have conduct among human beings that enables us to address together, the challenges we face.”

And those challenges, he noted, were many, adding that provocative speech can often incite discriminatory violence.

“In recent years,” the human rights high commissioner said, “numerous acts of violence, terror attacks and mass atrocities have targeted people on account of their religious beliefs, including inside their places of worship.”

He noted that freedom of speech was a fundamental human right and limitation of any kind of speech or expression must “remain an exception — particularly since laws limiting speech are often misused by those in power, including to stifle debate on critical issues.”

While enjoining people to guard against the misuse of free speech, he said every state must prohibit the “advocacy of hatred that constitutes incitement to violence, discrimination and hostility.”

Nazila Ghanea, special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief on behalf of the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures, agreed that religious beliefs or their followers should not be used to incite hatred and violence, “for example for electoral purposes or political gains.”

She cited acts that intentionally are aimed at stirring up hatred or cause hurt and foster inter-religious and political tensions “such as some recent instances of the public burning of the holy Quran or desecration of places of worship.”

She said, “We stand against those who willfully exploit tensions or target individuals based on their religion or belief.”

The high commissioner and special rapporteur tapped into a vein of raw anger that was on display as each of nearly 80 people who participated in the debate took the floor to speak.

The debate was convened at the request of Pakistan on behalf of several members of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation.

In a video statement to the gathering, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan’s foreign minister, condemned the “deliberate desecration of the holy Quran … which is a spiritual anchor for 2 billion Muslims. It is inseparable from their sense of identity and dignity.”

He called for those behind the acts of desecration to be held accountable. He said he believed in the fundamental right of free speech and noted that “free speech is as indispensable as hate speech should be indefensible.”

Other speakers, such as Retno L.P. Marsudi, Indonesia’s minister of foreign affairs echoed those sentiments. She strongly condemned the burnings of the Quran in some countries, including in Sweden and said, “These provocations deeply insult Muslims around the world.”

She added that “freedom of expression does not mean freedom to discriminate and hurt others.”

Rashad Hussein, U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to combat intolerance based on religion or belief. However, he cautioned against states attempting to ban freedom of expression in their zeal to prohibit hate speech because that “often serves as a catalyst for further hatred.”

He said, “These real dynamics are also part of the reason why the United States strongly opposes blasphemy laws and other laws that purport to criminalize speech,” noting that “such laws also fail to address the underlying causes of bigotry.”

A draft resolution presented to the council condemns and strongly rejects “the recent public and premeditated acts of desecration of the Holy Quron” and calls for holding “those responsible to account.”

The resolution requests the High Commissioner to present an oral update at its 54th session in September-October “on the various drivers, root causes, and human rights impacts of religious hatred” that constitute incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
…

All six people on board a helicopter carrying Mexican tourists were killed when it crashed Tuesday near Mount Everest in Nepal, authorities said.

The helicopter crashed in the Lamajura area. All the bodies were recovered and flown out of the area, said Basanta Bhattarai, the chief government administrator in the area.

The five tourists were Mexican nationals and the pilot was Nepalese, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal said in a statement. The Mexicans included two men and three women.

Two rescue helicopters were used to fly the bodies out of the crash site and then to the capital, Kathmandu. Doctors were expected to perform an autopsy before the bodies are handed over to relatives, or in case of foreigners, to embassy officials.

The aircraft was returning to Kathmandu on Tuesday morning after bringing the tourists on a sightseeing trip to the world’s highest peak.

It wasn’t clear what caused the crash. Weather conditions had caused the helicopter’s planned flight route to be changed, airport official Sagar Kadel said.

It is common for flights to be delayed and routes changed during the monsoon season and heavy rains.

The tourist and mountaineering season ended in May with the onset of the rainy season and tourist flights to the mountains are less common this time of year as visibility is poor and weather conditions become unpredictable.
…

The Taliban Tuesday ordered the suspension of all Swedish activities in Afghanistan because of the public burning of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, at a protest in Sweden last month. 

The June 28 authorized protest saw an Iraqi national resident in Stockholm tear and burn a copy of the Quran outside the capital’s largest mosque as Muslims celebrated Eid al-Adha worldwide. The incident sparked outrage and condemnation in Islamic countries.

“The Islamic Emirate suspends Sweden’s activities in Afghanistan for granting permission to insult the Quran and the Muslim faith,” the Taliban said, using the official name for their government in Kabul.

According to the statement, the order will remain effective “until they (Sweden) apologize to the Muslims for this heinous act.” The Taliban called on other Islamic nations to “reconsider” their relations with the Swedish government over its “blasphemous” act.

The Quran burning incident in Sweden saw immediate reaction from the Middle East and North Africa, with governments strongly condemning the act. Morocco recalled its ambassador from Stockholm.

A crowd of angry protesters in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad quickly assembled at the Swedish embassy and stormed its compound before being dispersed by security forces. Tens of thousands of people staged protest rallies across Pakistan last Friday.

Like other Western countries, Sweden closed its embassy in Afghanistan and evacuated all its staff, including Swedish and Afghan citizens, in August 2021, when the then-insurgent Taliban regained control of the country.

Aid workers said Tuesday’s Taliban order would likely disrupt the humanitarian operations of the non-governmental Swedish Committee for Afghanistan in the impoverished war-ravaged country.

The charity group manages development programs, including health care and education, in 19 Afghan provinces, employing around 6,000 people, mostly Afghans. It provides education to nearly 90,000 children and health care to two million people through its hospitals and medical centers in Afghanistan.

The SCA did not immediately comment on the possible suspension of its activities by the Taliban.

Humanitarian operations in Afghanistan have already been under severe pressure after the Taliban banned the United Nations and other non-government organizations from hiring Afghan female workers. The Taliban have also barred girls from attending schools beyond the sixth grade and ordered most female government employees to stay home since seizing power nearly two years ago.

The restrictions on women’s freedom to access education and work and a decline in donor funding have prompted the U.N. to cut its annual humanitarian aid plan for Afghanistan by more than $1 billion, forcing aid agencies to stop giving critical assistance to millions of people across the country.  
…

India will launch a mission to the moon later this week hoping to become the fourth country to land a craft on the lunar surface.    

So far only three countries — the United States, Russia and China — have achieved what is called a “soft landing” on the moon in which vehicles touch down without damage.  

The mission marks the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) second attempt to land a rover on the moon — a previous effort nearly four years ago failed.    

The spacecraft called Chandrayaan-3, which means moon vehicle in Sanskrit, is scheduled to be launched Friday afternoon (2:35 p.m. Indian time) It is equipped with a lander and a robotic rover that are expected to land on the moon on August 23 or August 24 to map the lunar surface for about two weeks. 

“The date is decided based on when the sunrise is on the moon; it will depend on the calculations, but if it gets delayed, then we will have to keep the landing for the next month in September,” ISRO director S. Somanath said.  

He said the main objective is to demonstrate “a safe and soft landing.”  

India aims to land its rover on the South Pole of the moon, a previously unexplored part that lies in near darkness. It will study the topography of this region.   

“There is expectation that the southern parts of the moon have a lot of mineral deposits and helium-3. There is also the possibility of water deposits there,” Ajey Lele, a space consultant with the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi told VOA.  

Through such studies of the moon’s topography, India’s upcoming space flight to the moon “has the potential to contribute to scientific understanding that will underpin a variety of future lunar missions, including those by other actors,” Tomas Hrozensky at the European Space Policy Institute told VOA in emailed comments.  

India’s moon mission in 2019 had successfully deployed a lunar orbiter, but the lander crashed during the final moments of its descent to the lunar surface — a setback to its main goal.   

Aiming for ‘soft’ landing

Lele says there is optimism about Chandrayaan-3 achieving a “soft” landing. “The glitches that led to the failure of the previous mission have been fixed. Basically, they have made the lander system more sturdy, so it can withstand any impact.” 

The latest space project is part of India’s ambitions to showcase its homegrown technological capabilities in space and be seen as a leading space-faring nation.   

“After a quantum rise in our space expertise, India can no longer wait to be left behind in the march to the moon,” India’s space minister, Jitendra Singh, said Sunday.  

India’s space program has notched several milestones. Its first mission to the moon in 2008 helped confirm the presence of water. In 2013, it put a satellite in orbit around Mars. Its space agency is also preparing for its most ambitious space mission yet — a human spaceflight next year.   

Delivering on “an ambitious and technologically challenging vision serves a profound benefit for perception of the government’s capability both within and outside of the country,” according to Hrozensky. 

US, India teaming up

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in exploring the moon as scientists seek to determine whether it will be possible to mine the moon for minerals and other resources that are shrinking on earth.  

Outer space is one of the areas in which India and the U.S. decided to deepen collaboration during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington last month. U.S. President Joe Biden said that the two countries are joining hands to send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station next year.  

India has also signed on to the Artemis Accords, an American-led international partnership for space cooperation that, among other objectives, aims to send humans to the Moon by 2025 after a gap of five decades. 
…

Myanmar’s prolonged civil strife, tensions in the disputed South China Sea, and concern over an arms buildup in the region are expected to dominate the agenda when Southeast Asia’s top diplomats gather for talks this week in Indonesia. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the U.S.-China rivalry will also be under the spotlight as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang participate as dialogue partners of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers meeting in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. 

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui will not attend the ASEAN Regional Forum, an annual security meeting, Indonesian Foreign Ministry official Sidharto Suryodipuro told a news conference on Monday, without elaborating. 

It’s also unclear who among the key figures in the world’s most intractable conflicts will meet on the sidelines of the group’s ministerial meetings. 

The top diplomats of ASEAN, which consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, will meet Tuesday and Wednesday before their Asian and Western counterparts join them in discussions on Thursday and Friday. 

Group’s principles tested

Founded in 1967, the often-unwieldy collective of democracies, autocracies and monarchies has been held together for decades by bedrock principles of non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs and consensus-based decision-making. But that approach has also prevented the 10-nation bloc from dealing swiftly with crises that spill across borders. 

ASEAN’s principles have been tested since Myanmar’s army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and plunged the country into deadly chaos. 

More than 3,750 civilians, including pro-democracy activists, have been killed by security forces and nearly 24,000 arrested since the military takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights group that keeps tallies of such arrests and casualties. 

Myanmar’s military government has largely ignored a five-point plan by ASEAN heads of state that includes an immediate end to the violence and dialogue among all contending parties. That prompted the regional group to take an unprecedented punitive step by barring Myanmar’s military leaders from its top-level gatherings, including the ministerial meetings, that Indonesia will host. 

Since assuming ASEAN’s rotating chairmanship this year, Indonesia has initiated some 110 meetings with groups in Myanmar and provided humanitarian aid to build trust, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said, adding that continuing violence would hurt efforts to return the nation to normalcy within ASEAN. 

“ASEAN is still very concerned about the increasing use of violence in Myanmar which has resulted in civilian casualties and the destruction of public facilities,” Retno told a news conference on Friday. “This must stop immediately.” 

Two months ago, an aid convoy with Indonesian and Singaporean embassy representatives on an ASEAN mission to provide help to displaced people came under fire from unknown attackers in a road ambush in Myanmar’s eastern Shan State. A security team returned fire and a security vehicle was damaged, but no one in the convoy was injured, state-run television MRTV reported. 

ASEAN is under international pressure to effectively address the crisis in Myanmar. But ASEAN members appear divided over how to proceed, with some recommending an easing of punitive actions aimed at isolating Myanmar’s generals and inviting its top diplomat and officials back to the high-profile summit meetings. 

Retno stressed the group would continue to focus on enforcing the ASEAN leaders’ five-point plan. 

A draft of a post-meeting communique to be issued by the ASEAN foreign ministers remained blank on Myanmar, reflecting the difficulty of reaching agreement on the issue. Their concerns over other contentious issues, such as the South China Sea disputes, were included in the draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. 

Dewi Fortuna Anwar, director of the Jakarta-based Habibie Center think tank, said the situation in Myanmar could become a long-term problem like the South China Sea disputes given ASEAN’s limited capacity to solve it. The bloc, however, should try to convince Myanmar’s military government that it has better options, she said. 

“It’s recalcitrant. Its determination to hang on to power is not going to be sustainable because it’s only going to incite conflicts,” Anwar told the AP. 

Myanmar is scheduled next year to assume the role of coordinating ASEAN’s engagements with the European Union. But the E.U., which has imposed sanctions on the military government, has opposed such a role for Myanmar, two Southeast Asian diplomats told the AP on condition of anonymity because they lack authority to discuss the issue publicly. 

A call for self-restraint

On the South China Sea conflicts, ASEAN foreign ministers are expected to renew a call for self-restraint “in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability,” according to the draft communique, repeating language used in previous statements that does not name China. 

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam have been embroiled in long-simmering territorial conflicts with China and Taiwan for decades. ASEAN and China have been negotiating a non-aggression pact that aims to prevent an escalation of the disputes, but the talks have faced years of delay. 

The disputed waters have emerged as a delicate front in the rivalry between China and the United States. 

Washington has challenged Beijing’s expansive territorial claims and regularly deploys warships and fighter jets in what it calls freedom of navigation and overflight patrols that have incensed China. 

Other Western and European nations have deployed navy ships on occasional patrols in the busy waterway, where a bulk of the world’s trade transits, with similar calls for unimpeded commerce and mobility. 

China’s increasingly aggressive actions have prompted other countries to boost their territorial defenses. 

“We expressed concern about the growing arms race and naval power projection in the region, which could lead to miscalculation, increased tensions, and may undermine regional peace, security, and stability,” the ASEAN foreign ministers said without elaborating in their draft communique, whose wording is still subject to negotiations and could change. 

Anwar said there’s no solution in sight for the South China Sea disputes and ASEAN could only take steps to help prevent full-blown conflict. 

“We hope that China will give up this claim, but don’t hold your breath on that,” she said. 
…

China has protested a weekend meeting between the Dalai Lama and the U.S. coordinator for Tibetan affairs, saying on Monday that “no external forces have the right to interfere” in the affairs of Tibet. 

Uzra Zeya, U.S. special coordinator for Tibetan issues who is also the U.S. undersecretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights, met Sunday with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, which China annexed in 1950.  

Namgyal Choedup, the representative of the Dalai Lama in Washington who attended the meeting, said, “Undersecretary Urza Zeya reiterated the continued attention and support for Tibetan issues by the U.S. administration.”  

The Chinese Embassy in New Delhi tweeted that “China firmly opposes any form of contact between foreign officials and the “Tibetan independence” forces.”

“The 14th Dalai Lama is by no means just a religious figure, but rather a political exile who has long been engaging in anti-China separatist activities and attempting to split Xizang (Tibet) from China. … The so-called ‘Tibetan government-in-exile’ is an out-and-out separatist political group and an illegal organization completely in violation of China’s Constitution and laws. It is not recognized by any country in the world,” he said in the tweet. 

Penpa Tsering, leader of the Central Tibetan Administration, also attended the meeting. The government-in-exile represents about 100,000 Tibetans living in an estimated 30 countries, including India, Nepal, Canada and the United States. 

In March, Zeya told a congressional commission that China continues to “wage a campaign of repression that seeks to forcibly Sinicize” the 6 million Tibetans in the country and eliminate Tibetan religious, cultural and linguistic heritage, according to Reuters.  

In that report, Republican Representative Chris Smith, who chairs the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said that while the global focus was on China’s activities in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang, “we cannot take our eyes off the ongoing genocide being committed against Tibetan people.” 

Zeya, who will also visit Bangladesh during her July 8-14 trip to the region, is expected to meet senior government officials in India to discuss the U.S.-India partnership, including “advancing shared solutions to global challenges, democracy, regional stability, and cooperation on humanitarian relief,” the U.S. State Department said.  
…

Pakistan officials say at least six people were killed in a gas cylinder explosion at a hotel in Jhelum in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Ten people were injured in the blast Sunday, authorities said.  

Jhelum Deputy Commissioner Samiullah Farooq said Sunday that emergency workers were clearing the site to determine if there was anyone trapped under the rubble.  
…

A senior U.S. official says the Biden administration is “working tirelessly every day” to ensure the Taliban stick to their pledges to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a haven for transnational terrorists.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed the matter with reporters aboard Air Force One when asked by VOA if Washington is working with the Taliban to hunt down terrorist targets on Afghan soil. Sullivan traveled to London, where President Joe Biden met with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. 

“What I could say is that we are holding the Taliban to their commitments under the Doha agreement, which is that Afghanistan cannot be used as a safe haven to plot terrorist attacks against anyone and especially, from our purposes, against the United States of America, our homeland, our allies, and our partners,” Sullivan said.

He referred to the February 2020 deal the Trump administration negotiated with the then-insurgent Taliban in Doha, the capital of Qatar. The deal paved the way for all U.S.-led NATO troops to depart Afghanistan in mid-August 2021 after two decades of involvement in the war. The insurgents, in turn, pledged they would not allow terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, to threaten other countries from Afghan soil.

Sullivan spoke days after President Joe Biden defended the chaotic troop withdrawal and suggested that the Taliban are helping Washington to push out al-Qaida from the war-torn South Asian country.

“We are working tirelessly every day to ensure that that set of commitments is fulfilled,” Sullivan said. “And beyond that, I won’t say anything further,” he added.

The Taliban reclaimed control of Afghanistan just days before the last group of U.S. soldiers left the country.

While the U.S. and the Taliban have declined to acknowledge publicly any counterterrorism cooperation, regional diplomatic and Taliban sources say the two former adversaries are working together to deal with the threat of terrorism.

The reported collaboration stemmed from a meeting between top Biden administration and Taliban officials in Doha last October.

The CIA deputy director, David Cohen, and the Taliban spy chief, Abdul Haq Wasiq, also attended the talks, underscoring the emphasis on counterterrorism. Both sides confirmed the meeting but would not say whether Cohen and Wasiq, who heads the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence or GDI, participated in the talks.

The meeting came several months after the United States announced its drone missiles killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in his hiding place in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Washington said the terror mastermind lived in the safehouse as a Taliban guest and accused the de facto Taliban authorities of violating the Doha agreement.

Taliban authorities have maintained they were unaware of al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul, and the incident was under investigation.

Wasiq has established an exclusive cell in the GDI for counterterrorism collaboration with U.S. authorities and oversees its work, VOA learned through reliable sources.

VOA contacted chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid for comments on whether Kabul and Washington are jointly working to combat terrorism but did not receive a response immediately.

Regional sources also attribute the Taliban’s recent successes against Islamic State-Khorasan, the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist network, to their counterterrorism collaboration with the U.S.

The United States has denied working with the Taliban on operations against Islamic State-Khorasan. U.S. military officials have publicly doubted the Taliban’s ability to go after high-value IS-K targets.

The Taliban, however, maintain they are conducting operations against IS-K on their own, saying the group is a threat to Afghanistan and regional stability. 

VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this story.
…

Parts of India are being inundated with rain.

The heavy rains in northern India, causing landslides and flooding, have killed at least 22 people.

The India Meteorological Department forecast Monday “intense rainfall” for Himachal Pradesh and adjoining areas of North Punjab and Haryana.

The department said “isolated heavy rainfall is also likely over Delhi Monday.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said Monday that Delhi’s infrastructure is not designed to withstand the amount of rain it is receiving.

The Times of India reported that at least four people died Sunday in Delhi in separate incidents, including a wall collapse, a house collapse and the uprooting of trees from Sunday’s rain.

Forecasters say heavy to very heavy rainfall very likely over Sub-Himalayan West Bengal & Sikkim, Assam & Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Bihar during next 3-4 days and isolated heavy rainfall thereafter.
…

Voters in Uzbekistan handed a widely expected victory to President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. He was returned to office with almost 90% of the votes without facing any strong opposition.  

The snap presidential election came just months after another poll that changed the country’s constitution, extending presidential term limits from two five-year terms to two seven-year terms.  

Without the change, Mirziyoyev would have had to leave office in 2026, after a second five-year term election in 2021.   

Now, however, he can begin anew and run for two seven-year terms, raising the possibility that he could be in office until 2037.  

Mirziyoyev, who is 65, was first elected in 2016 after the death of longtime leader Islam Karimov, who had ruled Uzbekistan since the Soviet era.  

Mirziyoyev has introduced a host of reforms since taking office while maintaining ties with Russia.
…

Voters in Uzbekistan cast their ballots Sunday in a snap presidential election that is widely expected to extend the incumbent’s rule by seven more years.

The vote followed a constitutional referendum that extended a presidential term from five to seven years and allowed President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to run for two more terms in office.

In 2021, Mirziyoyev was elected to his second five-year term, the limit allowed by the constitution at the time. A set of constitutional amendments approved in April’s plebiscite allowed him to begin the count of terms anew and run for two more, raising the possibility that he could stay in office until 2037.

In May, the 65-year-old Mirziyoyev called for a snap election. He is set to win the vote by a landslide against three token rivals.

More than 10,700 polling stations opened in Uzbekistan at 8 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) and were scheduled to close 12 hours later. By 11 a.m., more than 33% of voters have cast their ballots, election officials reported, which is enough to deem the vote valid in accordance with Uzbek laws.

Since coming to power in 2016 after the death of longtime dictator Islam Karimov, Mirziyoyev has introduced a slew of political and economic reforms that eased some of the draconian policies of his predecessor, who made Uzbekistan into one of the region’s most repressive countries.

At the same time, Uzbekistan has remained strongly authoritarian with no significant opposition. All registered political parties are loyal to Mirziyoyev.

In April’s referendum, more than 90% of those who cast ballots voted to approve the amendments extending the presidential term. Similar constitutional amendments in recent years have been adopted in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Like the leaders of other Central Asian nations that have close economic ties with Moscow, Mirziyoyev has engaged in a delicate balancing act after Russian troops swarmed Ukraine, steering clear of backing what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” but not condemning it either.
…

Peruvian authorities Sunday rescued 23 Afghans from migrant traffickers along the border with Brazil, the attorney general’s office said.

The migrants, who were trying to get to Ecuador, paid money to people smugglers to transport them across the nation and to the northern border, prosecutors said.

But they were cheated out of their money and crowded into a house without food in the village of Inapari in the Madre de Dios department along the Peru-Brazil border, a statement from the prosecutor’s office said.

Among the victims were “four children, including a two-month-old baby,” it said.

Prosecutors did not say how much the migrants had paid the smugglers. 

The Afghans were led to believe they would be transferred to a regional city, then on to the capital Lima before heading to Tumbes, a city near Peru’s northern border with Ecuador.
…

MOSCOW — Uzbekistan is holding a snap presidential election Sunday, a vote that follows a constitutional referendum that extended the incumbent’s term from five to seven years.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was elected in 2021 to a second five-year term, the limit allowed by the constitution. But the amendments approved in April’s plebiscite allowed him to begin the count of terms anew and run for two more, raising the possibility that he could stay in office until 2037.

The 65-year-old Mirziyoyev is set to win the vote by landslide against three token rivals.

“The political landscape has remained unchanged, and none of the parliamentary political parties stand in open opposition to the president’s policies and agenda,” the elections observer arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said in a pre-voting report.

Since coming to power in 2016 after the death of longtime dictatorial leader Islam Karimov, Mirziyoyev has introduced a slew of political and economic reforms that eased some of the draconian policies of his predecessor, who made Uzbekistan into one of the region’s most repressive countries.

Under Mirziyoyev, freedom of speech has been expanded compared with the total suppression of dissent during the Karimov era, and some independent news media and bloggers have appeared. He also relaxed the tight controls on Islam in the predominantly Muslim country that Karimov imposed to counter dissident views.

At the same time, Uzbekistan has remained strongly authoritarian with no significant opposition. All registered political parties are loyal to Mirziyoyev.

In April’s referendum, more than 90% of those who cast ballots voted to approve the amendments extending the presidential term.

As part of his reforms, Mirziyoyev has abolished state regulation of cotton production and sales, ending decades of forced labor in the country’s cotton industries, a major source of export revenues. Under Karimov, more than 2 million Uzbeks were forced to work in the annual cotton harvest.

Mirziyoyev has also lifted controls on hard currency, encouraging investment from abroad, and he moved to improve relations with the West that soured under Karimov. He has maintained close ties with Russia and signed a number of key agreements with China, which became Uzbekistan’s largest trading partner as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

Like the leaders of other ex-Soviet Central Asian nations that have close economic ties with Moscow, Mirziyoyev has engaged in a delicate balancing act after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine, steering clear of backing the Russian action but not condemning it either.
…

Relations between the United States and China are on a “surer footing,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday in Beijing as she wrapped up a four-day visit there, saying “no one visit will solve our challenges overnight.”

The world’s two largest economies – the United States and China – have a duty to themselves and other nations to communicate more closely when it comes to their economic decisions and climate change, Yellen said at a press conference at the U.S. Embassy.

During her visit, Yellen met with Chinese officials for 10 hours of talks. Five of them were with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Saturday. The U.S. Treasury Department described the meetings as “candid, constructive and comprehensive,” while Chinese state media termed them “in-depth, candid and pragmatic.”

Yellen defended Biden administration restrictions on technology exports that Beijing disagrees with and said such disagreements should not prevent the two countries from finding ways to address ″important global challenges, such as debt distress in emerging markets and developing countries and climate change.”

The Chinese side expressed concern about U.S. sanctions and restrictive measures against China, the Xinhua state news agency said. The vice premier said the two governments should return to an agreement reached last November by Biden and Xi to improve relations.

″The two countries should act with a sense of responsibility for history, for the people and for the world,” he said.

On climate, Yellen pointed out that the U.S. and China are the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases and the largest investors in renewable energy.

She said that “climate finance should be targeted efficiently and effectively” to support already established institutions like the Green Climate Fund, a U.N. entity that is endeavoring to support a paradigm shift in the global response to climate change.

Yellen’s three-day visit to China wraps up Sunday with an early morning news conference.

On Friday, Yellen held “candid and constructive” talks with China’s prime minister, Li Qiang, in Beijing.

A Treasury Department statement said Yellen “discussed the administration’s desire to seek healthy economic competition with China that benefits both economies, including American workers and businesses.”

She also emphasized close communication on “global macroeconomic and financial issues and working together on global challenges, including debt distress in low-income and emerging economies and climate finance.”

China’s foreign ministry released a statement saying the prime minister noted that U.S. and Chinese economic interests are closely intertwined, and that China’s development is an opportunity rather than a challenge to the United States. Beijing said that Yellen stated during the talks the U.S. “does not seek ‘decoupling and disconnection’ and has no intention of hindering China’s modernization process.”

The foreign ministry said, “China and the United States should strengthen coordination and cooperation, join hands to tackle global challenges and promote common development.”

While both sides described Yellen’s visit in positive terms, no new plans for more high-level meetings were announced.

“China’s going to continue to be around and be a major player on the world stage,” White House press secretary Karin Jean Pierre said Friday, adding that an intense competition requires intense diplomacy.

“So, it is important to have an intense competition requires intense diplomacy,” she said. “That’s what you see Secretary Yellen do, that’s what you saw Secretary Blinken do. These are the type of conversations that the president has had with President Xi in meetings that he’s had with him as well,” she said.

The U.S. Treasury secretary began a four-day visit Friday to China by calling for market reforms in the world’s second-largest economy, and warning that the United States and its allies will fight back against what she called China’s “unfair economic practices.”

Speaking Friday in Beijing to the American Chamber of Commerce in China, Yellen said, “The United States does not seek a wholesale separation of our economies. … The decoupling of the world’s two largest economies would be destabilizing for the global economy, and it would be virtually impossible to undertake.”

And while she noted the importance of trade and investment with China, Yellen also “raised concerns, including barriers to market access, China’s use of non-market tools, and punitive actions that have been taken against U.S. firms in recent months,” during a roundtable with more than 10 U.S. businesses operating in Beijing.

“She also reaffirmed the U.S. economic approach to China, which remains focused on three primary objectives: securing vital interests pertaining to national security and human rights; pursuing healthy and mutually beneficial economic competition, in which China plays by international rules; and seeking mutual cooperation on urgent global challenges, including on the macroeconomy, climate, and global debt,” according to a Treasury Department statement Friday.

China’s foreign ministry said in its statement, “the two sides should strengthen communication and seek consensus on important issues in the bilateral economic field through candid, in-depth, and pragmatic exchanges, so as to inject stability and positive energy into Chinese-U.S. economic relations.”

Yellen arrived in Beijing Thursday and tweeted, President Joe Biden “charged his administration with deepening communication between our two countries on a range of issues, and I look forward to doing so during my visit.”

Treasury Department officials said before the trip that Yellen would be discussing stabilizing the global economy, as well as challenging China’s support of Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yellen was not expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Her visit, which is scheduled to last through Sunday, follows U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing last month.

Yellen met earlier this week with China’s ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, a meeting during which the Treasury said Yellen “raised issues of concern while also conveying the importance of the two largest economies working together on global challenges, including on macroeconomic and financial issues.”

Chinese state media said Xie expressed hope the two countries will eliminate interference and strengthen dialogue.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

TORONTO – A few hundred members of Canada’s Sikh community demonstrated outside the Indian Consulate in Toronto on Saturday to protest the unsolved killing of one of their leaders last month in the Vancouver, British Columbia, area.

They accused the Indian government of being responsible for the gunning down of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, president of a Sikh temple and campaigner for the creation of an independent Sikh state that supporters hope to call Khalistan.

“When an Indian agency and system commit a crime, they have to be held accountable,” Kuljeet Singh, spokesperson for Sikhs for Justice, a US-based organization behind the rally, told AFP.

Nijjar, whom India had declared a wanted terrorist, was killed on June 18 in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver that is home to one of the largest Sikh populations in Canada.

Nijjar advocated for the creation of an independent Sikh state to be carved out of parts of northern India and perhaps part of Pakistan. India accused Nijjar of carrying out terrorist attacks in India, a charge he denied.

The demonstrators, almost exclusively men, carried yellow flags with blue logos representing their separatist movement, and shouted “Khalistan! Khalistan!”

Setting off from the Toronto suburbs, they arrived in front of the Indian Consulate, where they were greeted by around 50 members of the diaspora in support of the Indian government.

“They have a poster here calling to kill Indian diplomats. We are concerned because these groups have committed terrorist acts in the past and politicians are not taking actions,” one of the counterdemonstrators, Vijay Jain, an IT consultant, told AFP.

A line of 20 police officers intervened to separate the two groups, and one Sikh protester was taken away after forcing down a barrier and running to the other side.

Since the killing of the Sikh leader, tensions have risen between Canada and India.

New Delhi regularly accuses Ottawa of laxity in its handling of Sikh protesters in Canada.

“We have asked the Canadian government to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of our diplomats,” Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for India’s foreign minister, said Thursday.

Canada is home to the largest number of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab, India. 
…

The world’s two largest economies – the United States and China – have a duty to themselves and other nations to communicate more closely when it comes to their economic decisions and climate change, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Saturday in Beijing. 

Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng spoke for five hours Saturday. The U.S. Treasury described the meetings as “candid, constructive and comprehensive,” while Chinese state media termed them “in-depth, candid and pragmatic.” 

Yellen defended Biden administration restrictions on technology exports that Beijing disagrees with and said such disagreements should not prevent the two countries from finding ways to address ″important global challenges, such as debt distress in emerging markets and developing countries and climate change.” 

The Chinese side expressed concern about U.S. sanctions and restrictive measures against China, the Xinhua state news agency said. The vice premier said the two governments should return to an agreement reached last November by Biden and Xi to improve relations. 

″The two countries should act with a sense of responsibility for history, for the people and for the world,” he said. 

On climate, Yellen pointed out that the U.S. and China are the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases and the largest investors in renewable energy. 

She said that “climate finance should be targeted efficiently and effectively” to support already established institutions like the Green Climate Fund, a U.N. entity that is endeavoring to support a paradigm shift in the global response to climate change. 

Yellen’s three-day visit to China wraps up Sunday with an early morning news conference. 

On Friday, Yellen held “candid and constructive” talks with China’s prime minister, Li Qiang, in Beijing.  

A Treasury Department statement said Yellen “discussed the administration’s desire to seek healthy economic competition with China that benefits both economies, including American workers and businesses.”  

She also emphasized close communication on “global macroeconomic and financial issues and working together on global challenges, including debt distress in low-income and emerging economies and climate finance.”  

China’s foreign ministry released a statement saying the prime minister noted that U.S. and Chinese economic interests are closely intertwined, and that China’s development is an opportunity rather than a challenge to the United States. Beijing said that Yellen stated during the talks the U.S. “does not seek ‘decoupling and disconnection’ and has no intention of hindering China’s modernization process.” 

The foreign ministry said, “China and the United States should strengthen coordination and cooperation, join hands to tackle global challenges and promote common development.” 

While both sides described Yellen’s visit in positive terms, no new plans for more high-level meetings were announced. 

“China’s going to continue to be around and be a major player on the world stage,” White House press secretary Karin Jean Pierre said Friday, adding that an intense competition requires intense diplomacy. 

“So, it is important to have an intense competition requires intense diplomacy,” she said. “That’s what you see Secretary Yellen do, that’s what you saw Secretary Blinken do. These are the type of conversations that the president has had with President Xi in meetings that he’s had with him as well,” she said. 

The U.S. Treasury secretary began a four-day visit Friday to China by calling for market reforms in the world’s second-largest economy, and warning that the United States and its allies will fight back against what she called China’s “unfair economic practices.”   

Speaking Friday in Beijing to the American Chamber of Commerce in China, Yellen said, “The United States does not seek a wholesale separation of our economies. … The decoupling of the world’s two largest economies would be destabilizing for the global economy, and it would be virtually impossible to undertake.”    

And while she noted the importance of trade and investment with China, Yellen also “raised concerns, including barriers to market access, China’s use of non-market tools, and punitive actions that have been taken against U.S. firms in recent months,” during a roundtable with more than 10 U.S. businesses operating in Beijing.   

“She also reaffirmed the U.S. economic approach to China, which remains focused on three primary objectives: securing vital interests pertaining to national security and human rights; pursuing healthy and mutually beneficial economic competition, in which China plays by international rules; and seeking mutual cooperation on urgent global challenges, including on the macroeconomy, climate, and global debt,” according to a Treasury Department statement Friday.  

China’s foreign ministry said in its statement, “the two sides should strengthen communication and seek consensus on important issues in the bilateral economic field through candid, in-depth, and pragmatic exchanges, so as to inject stability and positive energy into Chinese-U.S. economic relations.”    

Yellen arrived in Beijing Thursday and tweeted, President Joe Biden “charged his administration with deepening communication between our two countries on a range of issues, and I look forward to doing so during my visit.”   

Treasury Department officials said before the trip that Yellen would be discussing stabilizing the global economy, as well as challenging China’s support of Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yellen was not expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.    

Her visit, which is scheduled to last through Sunday, follows U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing last month.       

Yellen met earlier this week with China’s ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, a meeting during which the Treasury said Yellen “raised issues of concern while also conveying the importance of the two largest economies working together on global challenges, including on macroeconomic and financial issues.”    

Chinese state media said Xie expressed hope the two countries will eliminate interference and strengthen dialogue.    

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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More than two years after Myanmar’s military toppled the country’s elected government and set off a bloody civil war, resistance groups pushing back against the junta’s rule are finding ever more clever and high-tech ways of bankrolling their fight.

Straightforward donations from the country’s diaspora from Sweden to Singapore continue pouring into what remains a largely crowdfunded campaign, but bonds, real estate auctions and mining leases are now adding to the mix.

The National Unity Government, an opposition shadow administration run from hiding and exile, launched a digital currency last year in an end run around banks in the junta’s grip and is now on the cusp of opening its own online bank.

“While the NUG would clearly love more state sponsorship and support, whether lethal assistance or non lethal assistance, from Western countries, it’s just not in the cards right now, and so they’ve really had to be self-reliant,” said Zachary Abuza, a professor at Washington’s National War College who has studied Southeast Asian insurgencies for 30 years.

“And they’ve done so through some of the most tech-savvy and creative, and dare I say, playful, ways,” he told VOA. “They really have flipped the script.”

Not so real estate

The fighting is estimated to have killed more than 30,000 people, displaced upwards of 1.5 million internally and sent thousands more fleeing to neighboring countries since the February 2021 coup.

Hundreds of local militias have taken up arms across the country to fight back, often teaming up with ethnic minority-led rebel armies that have been fighting the military for territory for decades. The NUG commands and funds many of the militias and has allied with some of the largest rebel armies.

The NUG refused VOA’s requests for an interview and ignored its emails.

At a news briefing in January, though, its minister for planning, finance and investment, Tin Tun Naing, said the NUG had raised over $100 million to date. He said nearly half had come from the sale of so-called Spring Revolution bonds, named after what resistance groups have dubbed Myanmar’s “Spring Revolution.” The bonds earn no interest and will be paid back only if and when the junta falls.

He said the NUG had also collected more than $1.4 million in taxes across the roughly half of Myanmar that resistance groups are believed to control or contest and would soon start selling leases to gem mines largely still in junta hands. The NUG reportedly sold its first mining lease to an anonymous buyer for $4 million in February.

The shadow government has also been auctioning off shares in real estate owned or seized by the military, including a lakeside villa junta leader Min Aung Hlaing uses when in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital. As with the mining leases, investors cannot actually use what they’ve bought until the resistance wins.

Abuza said the real estate auctions are especially popular and are likely to outstrip the NUG’s bond earnings eventually, since people could actually turn a profit from the property.

In bonds we trust

While often arriving in dribs and drabs, simple donations from around the world are also believed to be adding up to millions of dollars for the NUG and others.

From her New York City home, Myanmar native Khin Moe auctions off rings, pendants and other glitzy jewelry online for the cause. At up to $20 a raffle ticket, she said she can rake in well over $1,000 per piece.

She and a circle of friends and family have also bought some $10,000 worth of Spring Revolution bonds. Khin Moe said her sister, who also lives in New York, even purchased a unit in an apartment block the NUG has designed and promised to build, someday, on land the Myanmar military still holds.

“They [the junta] want to control everybody else with power. … They took all the prisoners, and they killed the people and students. The worst part is they took everybody else’s freedom; we cannot accept it,” she told VOA.

“We trust … the NUG leaders [can] help and support whatever people need in Burma, that’s the reason why we trust them, and we bought the bonds,” she added, using another name for Myanmar. “We know this kind of bond doesn’t make interest money, but we support because we trust.”

Getting that money into the hands of the people it is meant for on the ground in Myanmar is another matter.

With the coup, the military took control of Myanmar’s central bank and soon ordered local banks to watch for and block accounts suspected of funneling funds to resistance groups. It has arrested those who transferred money through suspect accounts and sentenced them to 10 years in jail with hard labor.

The informal “hundi” money transfer system, which uses networks of affiliated agents, helps them skirt the banks but has its limits.

As another workaround, the NUG last year launched the Digital Myanmar Kyat, or DMMK, a cryptocurrency pegged 1 to 1 to the real kyat based on blockchain technology designed to be difficult or impossible to block. It also launched a mobile wallet, NUGPay, for users to hold and trade the digital coins.

Banking on victory

While still in its infancy, DMMK is helping the resistance move money into and around the country, said Soe, a blockchain expert who asked his full name not to be used for safety reasons.

Soe trains nongovernment charities in Myanmar conflict zones in using cryptocurrencies and other blockchain tools to evade the military’s banking restrictions and its suspected eavesdropping on mobile networks, and he stays in touch with some militias and rebel armies.

“The main thing is that the revolution needs funding support from the people [of Myanmar] and other people from other countries. Using crypto is one of the safest ways to support,” he told VOA. “Not only the Myanmar military, [but] all the governments around the world cannot control transactions on the blockchain.”

DMMK’s limited exchangeability with other cryptocurrencies, though, and the need for physical agents to cash in and out, have raised doubts about its ultimate utility to the resistance. Soe said the scattered details the NUG has revealed about its plans for its forthcoming Spring Development Bank could solve some of those problems, in part by using a blockchain network more compatible with other cryptocurrencies than the one hosting DMMK.

The NUG has previously announced launch dates for the online-only bank that have come and gone. In late June, local media reported on its plans to take the bank live sometime this month.

Myanmar’s armed resistance, though, scrapes by on a fraction of the billions of dollars at junta disposal. If the NUG gets its bank operating, though, it could prove a vital new lifeline, said Abuza, who has had confidential conversations with the NUG about its plans.

“I have seen the details of the Spring Bank and what they’re offering and the interface that they’re going to use online, and I think it will be popular,” he said.

“It will be a source of revenue for the NUG, but it will also facilitate their other funding, including the lottery, land sales, bond sales, etc.,” he said. “So, if they can pull this off … it will be very important for them to sustain the revolution.”
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