DRULAP

Arrest of Pakistan’s Former Prime Minister Plunges Country Further Into Political Chaos

Pakistan is on edge after paramilitary forces arrested former Prime Minister Imran Khan on corruption charges on Tuesday. Since Khan’s ouster last year, the country has been mired in political instability; some fear the chaos could grow worse as Khan supporters target their anger at the powerful military. VOA’s Sarah Zaman reports from Islamabad.
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Canada on Track to Host Largest Afghan Resettlement Program

The government of Canada says it is determined to reach its target of admitting at least 40,000 Afghan refugees by the end of the year.

More than 30,600 Afghans have been resettled in Canada since August 2021 when Ottawa announced it would admit thousands of Afghans whose lives could be at risk under the new Taliban regime.

Canada “is firm in its commitment to resettle at least 40,000 Afghan nationals by the end of 2023, which remains one of the largest programs in the world,” a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) told VOA.

Among those resettled, over 10,000 are individuals who worked for Canadian agencies and programs in Afghanistan while more than 16,000, particularly women and civil society activists, have been admitted under humanitarian considerations.

More than 18,000 applications are still under review by Canadian and international nongovernment organizations and the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for resettlement in the next several months.

Resettlement operations are executed via chartered and commercial flights from Afghanistan and third-party countries.

“The current situation is complex and the challenges are extraordinary,” the spokesperson said. “How quickly any Afghan arrives in Canada once their application is approved depends on a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control, and often directly relate to where Afghans are located.

“There are significant challenges chartering flights in some regions and each country sets its own entry and exit requirements and determines when and if these requirements are changed,” the spokesperson said.

While Canada has no diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, a network of Canadian visa officers across the world are tasked with processing applications expeditiously to achieve the target by the end of the year.

Canada’s government allocated more than $80 million to fund its Afghan program in the 2022-2023 financial year, according to IRCC, which has a total annual budget of nearly $3 billion, a portion of which is also used to support various resettlement programs.

Women

Half of the Afghan refugees taken by Canada are women who are admitted primarily because of the Taliban’s systemic denial of basic rights for women.

Human rights groups say Afghanistan is suffering a gender apartheid under the hardline Islamist regime.

Women leaders, religious and ethnic minorities, journalists and LGBTI individuals are prioritized under Canada’s humanitarian resettlement program, which only accepts applicants referred by UNHCR and two European human rights organizations.

“It would actually be helpful if it was just women generally,” Lauryn Oates, executive director of a nongovernmental organization Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, told VOA.

“All women are at risk in Afghanistan,” Oates said, adding that Canada and other countries that admit Afghan refugees should accept women “on the basis of gender alone.”

The United States and European countries have also taken tens of thousands of Afghan refugees over the past 20 months.

In the immediate aftermath of the Taliban’s return to power, the U.S. military evacuated more than 124,000 individuals from Afghanistan. More than 77,000 of those evacuees were admitted into the United States for urgent humanitarian reasons and offered a two-year entry parole, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

A DHS spokesperson did not answer questions about the gender-based breakdown of the Afghans given paroled entry into the United States.

“For the average Afghan woman, there are no pathways to resettle to the U.S.,” Devon Cone, a women’s rights advocate at Refugees International, told VOA.

Cone said the U.S. Department of State’s P-1 and P-2 resettlement programs for Afghans do not specifically target women.

Managed through the U.S. Refugees Admission Program, the P-1 offers resettlement pathways for any individual of any nationality with compelling protection needs, while the P-2 program is for “qualified Afghans” who worked for U.S. agencies in Afghanistan.

“Even though these P-1 and P-2 programs exist, they are not really functioning, especially in places like Pakistan,” said Cone. “There are very few options for Afghan women at risk to resettle to the U.S. and the options that do exist are not working.”

Addressing a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee in March, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he is “personally committed to keeping our promises to those who stood by us in Afghanistan.”

“The efficient processing and ultimate resettlement of these individuals continues apace and remains among the administration’s highest priorities,” a State Department spokesperson said.

VOA immigration reporter Aline Barros contributed to this report.
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Imran Khan, the Cricket Star Who Ditched Playboy Image to Rule Pakistan

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, a cricketing hero-turned-politician who was arrested on Tuesday, whipped up popular support amid decades-high inflation and a crippling economic slowdown before his ouster last year.

The 70-year-old has since showed no sign of slowing down, even after being wounded in a November attack on his convoy as he lead a protest march to Islamabad calling for snap general elections.

Khan had for months averted arrest in a number of cases registered against him that include charges of instigating crowds to violence. There were massive protests against previous attempts to arrest him.

Khan was pushed out of the premiership in April last year amid public frustration at high inflation, rising deficits and endemic corruption that he had promised to stamp out.

The Supreme Court overturned his decision to dissolve parliament and defections from his ruling coalition meant he lost the no confidence vote that followed.

That put him among a long list of elected Pakistani prime ministers who have failed to see out their full terms – none has done so since independence in 1947.

In 2018, the cricket legend who led Pakistan to its only World Cup win in 1992, rallied the country behind his vision of a corruption-free, prosperous nation respected abroad. But the firebrand nationalist’s fame and charisma were not enough.

Once criticized for being under the thumb of the powerful military establishment, Khan’s ouster came following worsening relations between him and then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

The military, which has an outsized role in Pakistan having ruled the country for nearly half of its history and won control over some of its biggest economic institutions, has said it remains neutral towards politics.

Sudden rise

But Khan is again among the country’s most popular leaders, according to local polls.

His rise to power in 2018 came over two decades after he first launched his political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), or Pakistan Movement for Justice party, in 1996.

Despite his fame and status as a hero in cricket-mad Pakistan, PTI languished in Pakistan’s political wilderness, not winning a seat other than Khan’s for 17 years.

In 2011, Khan began drawing huge crowds of young Pakistanis disillusioned with endemic corruption, chronic electricity shortages and crises in education and unemployment.

He drew even greater backing in the ensuing years, with educated Pakistani expatriates leaving their jobs to work for his party and pop musicians and actors joining his campaign.

His goal, Khan told supporters in 2018, was to turn Pakistan from a country with a “small group of wealthy and a sea of poor” into an “example for a humane system, a just system, for the world, of what an Islamic welfare state is.”

That year he was victorious, marking a rare ascension by a sporting hero to the pinnacle of politics. Observers cautioned, however, that his biggest enemy was his own rhetoric, having raised supporters’ hopes sky high.

Playboy to reformer

Born in 1952, the son of a civil engineer, Khan grew up with four sisters in an affluent urban Pashtun family in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-biggest city.

After a privileged education, he went on to the University of Oxford where he graduated with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

As his cricket career flourished, he developed a playboy reputation in London in the late 1970s.

In 1995, he married Jemima Goldsmith, daughter of business tycoon James Goldsmith. The couple, who had two sons together, divorced in 2004. A second marriage to TV journalist Reham Nayyar Khan also ended in divorce.

His third marriage to Bushra Bibi, a spiritual leader whom Khan had come to know during his visits to a 13th century shrine in Pakistan, reflected his deepening interest in Sufism – a form of Islamic practice that emphasizes spiritual closeness to God.

Once in power, Khan embarked on his plan of building a “welfare” state modeled on what he said was an ideal system dating back to the Islamic world some 14 centuries earlier.

But his anti-corruption drive was heavily criticized as a tool for sidelining political opponents – many of whom were imprisoned on charges of graft.

Pakistan’s generals also remained powerful and military officers, retired and serving, were placed in charge of more than a dozen civilian institutions.
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Ex-Pakistan PM Khan Arrested Amid Deepening Political Turmoil

Authorities in Pakistan Tuesday arrested former prime minister Imran Khan, the leader of the largest national political party, outside a court in the capital, Islamabad.

The 70-year-old politician was taken into custody while moving towards a high courtroom to attend a hearing on the dozens of cases against him ranging from alleged terrorism, and corruption, to treason and other criminal offenses.

Khan’s attorneys alleged that paramilitary forces had physically assaulted him before taking him into custody and handing him over to anti-graft authorities accompanying them.

Khan’s party denounced their leader’s arrest.

“State terrorism – breaking into IHC (Islamabad High Court) premises to abduct Imran Khan from court premises. Law of the jungle in operation. Rangers beat the lawyers, used violence on Imran Khan and abducted him,” tweeted Shireen Mazari, a close aide to the opposing leader, with a purported video of security action.

Pakistan Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah confirmed Khan’s arrest, rejecting charges of any physical assault and telling local media about a corruption case against the opposition politician.

In a rare first foreign reaction, the German ambassador in Pakistan said he was “concerned about pictures circulating” of Khan’s arrest.

“Crucial to ensure highest standards of the rule of law in judicial cases & avoid over-exaggeration,” Alfred Grannas wrote on Twitter. “To all: Stay calm on all sides for the sake of #Pakistan & prioritize dialogue to work towards progress together!” the ambassador added.

He later deleted the post, saying in another tweet that it was removed “to avoid any misinterpretation that we take a side.”

“It will harden negative views toward the military & PDM and unleash chaos in the streets. But it is also a blow to IK,” he wrote on Twitter.

The arrest came just hours after Khan renewed his allegations with new details of how a senior general within the Pakistani military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, is plotting to kill him.

The opposition leader warned such an eventuality could plunge the South Asian nation of about 220 million people into a turmoil worse than Sri Lanka’s recently experienced.

The head of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party made the claims in a video statement a day after the powerful military warned Khan against making what it condemned as “fabricated and malicious” allegations.

Khan was injured in an assassination attempt last November while leading an anti-government protest march near Lahore, the capital of the most populous Punjab province. The attack killed one person, while the PTI chief received bullet wounds in his legs.

Khan identified ISI’s Major-General Faisal Naseer as one of the planners of the assassination attempt on him.

Government officials have said the assassination attempt was the work of a lone gunman, who is now in custody and confessed in a video controversially leaked to the media.

His arrest is likely to worsen political turmoil in the nuclear-armed country.

Pakistan is mired in an economic and political crisis, with the Khan-led PTI pressuring Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s embattled coalition government to hold early elections.
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Taliban Diplomat Defends Policies, Insists Afghan Women Education Ban Not ‘Permanent’

The chief diplomat of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban insisted Monday that his government had not banned girls’ education “permanently,” while women continue to work in different sectors across the country.

Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi addressed a seminar in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, to wrap up a four-day official visit to the neighboring country, where he also attended a trilateral dialogue with his Chinese and Pakistani counterparts.

“We have 10 million students currently attending primary-level and university-level education [in Afghanistan]. Nine million can access all forms of education. They include girls up to grade six. Around 300,000 teachers, including 92,000 females, teach in these institutions,” he said.

The hardline Islamist group reclaimed control of the country in August 2021 when the United States and NATO withdrew their troops after almost two decades of involvement in the Afghan war. The Taliban have since imposed their strict version of Islamic law or Sharia to run the impoverished, war-torn South Asian nation.

Many Afghan women, including those working for the United Nations and non-governmental groups, have been blocked from accessing work and public places.

The Taliban have rejected international demands to remove restrictions on women as interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.

Still in his remarks Monday, Muttaqi insisted that thousands of female doctors and nurses are working in health business sectors. Girls and women are attending madrasas (Islamic seminaries) and even teaching there.

“We have never said that female education is un-Islamic or banned permanently in Afghanistan. The decree clearly stated that female education is suspended until further notice,” Muttaqi said.

He referred to the edict issued by the reclusive Taliban chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, last year that prohibited young girls from attending schools beyond the sixth grade and subsequently suspended female students from accessing university classes.

“We have made progress on this issue to a large extent, and the government of Afghanistan will continue to make efforts to resolve the remaining problems about this issue amicably,” Muttaqi said without elaborating.

A team of U.N. experts on human rights concluded an eight-day mission to the country last Friday, reporting an unprecedented “extreme situation of institutionalized gender-based discrimination” in Afghanistan.

“We are deeply concerned about the apparent perpetration in Afghanistan of gender persecution — a systematic and grave human rights violation and a crime against humanity,” the mission said in its preliminary findings. It noted Taliban authorities, in meetings with the U.N. team, had reiterated that they were working on the reopening of girls’ schools but did not provide a clear timeline.

Trilateral talks

Muttaqi, who faces U.N. travel sanctions, was given a waiver to make the visit to Islamabad to attend on Saturday a trilateral meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Beijing and Islamabad urged the Taliban delegation to conduct counterterror actions against terrorist groups operating on Afghan soil and threatening regional security.

“We will not allow anyone to use the soil of Afghanistan against others. We have been successful in our resolve, and we will remain committed to this pledge in the future that Afghan soil is not used against anyone,” responded Muttaqi while speaking at Monday’s seminar in the Pakistani capital.

Pakistan issued a joint statement Monday about the three-nation talks, saying the participants resolved to deepen and expand their cooperation in the security, development, and political domains.

They also stressed the need for the Taliban to stop militant groups, including the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, from using Afghan soil to threaten neighboring countries.

TTP and ETIM have been waging deadly attacks, respectively, in Pakistan and China from their alleged sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

The Chinese and Pakistani delegates agreed at the meeting to enhance support for the Taliban government in the economic reconstruction of the war-torn country.

The joint statement said the three countries reaffirmed “their commitment to further the trilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and to jointly extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan.”

The CPEC is a multibillion-dollar extension to Pakistan of China’s global BRI infrastructure development project.

Chinese investment of more than $20 billion has built new roads, power plants, and ports in Pakistan to help improve its economy, linking the two allied nations through the corridor to give China access to international markets through the Arabian Sea deep-water Pakistani port of Gwadar.

The Chinese-developed and run port is expected to further facilitate trade and transit activities to and through landlocked Afghanistan to Central Asian countries.
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House Foreign Affairs Chairman Threatens to Hold Blinken in Contempt

The U.S. State Department said Monday it will not fulfill U.S. lawmakers’ request for the full Biden administration report on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“It’s unfortunate that despite having received a classified briefing on the dissent channel cable as well as a written summary that the House Foreign Affairs Committee continues to pursue this unnecessary and unproductive action,” State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters.

“Nevertheless, we will continue to respond to appropriate oversight inquiries and provide Congress the information it needs to do its job while protecting the ability of State Department employees to do theirs.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul called on U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last month to release the administration’s after-action report on the chaotic August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“There is a strong public interest in the Department sharing the results of its After-Action Review to the fullest extent possible,” McCaul wrote, noting large portions of the report are marked as sensitive but unclassified or unclassified.

According to McCaul, the 87-page March 2022 After-Action Review contains numerous unexplained redactions and directly contradicts the Biden administration’s public statements which largely blamed the failures of the withdrawal on the previous administration of President Donald Trump.

McCaul asked the State Department to release the full report by Friday, May 5.

McCaul said Monday the State Department has also failed to comply with its subpoena to release the July 2021 cable from diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul using the “dissent channel.”

“The Department is now in violation of its legal obligation to produce these documents and must do so immediately,” McCaul wrote in a letter to Blinken Monday. “As noted above, should the Department fail to comply with its legal obligation, the Committee is prepared to take the necessary steps to enforce its subpoena, including holding you in contempt of Congress and/or initiating a civil enforcement proceeding.”

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has conducted oversight hearings into the withdrawal, including the August 26, 2021 suicide bomb at Kabul Airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghan civilians.

The Biden administration report said decisions made by the Trump administration to negotiate with the Taliban and set a withdrawal date for U.S. troops prevented an orderly U.S. evacuation.

“When you look at what President Biden inherited, the timeline that was required and the agreement that was reached in the Trump administration, the President did everything he could to manage that situation,” Democratic Rep. David Cicilline, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told VOA last month. “But there are a set of decisions made by the prior administration that made that more difficult.”

The U.S. State Department briefed lawmakers late last month on the contents of the cable and the report.

McCaul, a Republican from Texas, told VOA that was not sufficient.

“I think if you redact the names, that Congress has the right to know the content, and that’s all we asked from the Secretary — you can redact the names, we’ll review in a classified setting,” he said. “But I want to know firsthand the content, I don’t want it filtered through your people.”

Nike Ching contributed to this report.
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Pakistan Crowd Beats Man to Death for Alleged Blasphemy

Police in Pakistan say people attending a political rally in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday beat a man to death because they believed he made blasphemous remarks.

Local police officer Iqbal Khan said Maulana Nigar Alam, 40, was killed because “Some words of his prayer were deemed blasphemous by a number of protestors, leading to torture and death at the hands of the angry mob.”

Police locked the man up in a shop to protect him, but the mob broke through the shop’s door.

Khan told Dawn, a Pakistani website, that Alam died during the attack in the northern city of Marden.

Blasphemy is a sensitive issue in predominantly Muslim Pakistan and is punishable by death.

Domestic and international rights groups say allegations of blasphemy are enough to cause mob attacks and the killing of the accused. Blasphemy laws are also sometimes used to settle personal vendettas and disputes and intimidate religious minorities in Pakistan.

Ayaz Gul contributed to this report from Islamabad. Some information was provided by the Associated Press.
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ASEAN Leaders to Tackle Regional Crises st Tropical Resort

A picturesque tourist destination will host crisis-weary Southeast Asian leaders with sun-splashed tropical islands, turquoise waters brimming with corals and manta rays, seafood feasts, and a hillside savannah crawling with Komodo dragons.

The sunshiny setting is a stark contrast to the seriousness of their agenda.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo picked the far-flung, rustic harbor town of Labuan Bajo as a laidback venue to discuss an agenda rife with contentious issues. These include the continuing bloody civil strife in Myanmar and the escalating territorial conflicts in the South China Sea between fellow leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The 10-nation regional bloc and its member states will meet for three days starting Tuesday, with the growing rivalry between the United States and China as a backdrop.

U.S. President Joe Biden has been reinforcing an arc of alliances in the Indo-Pacific region to better counter China over Taiwan and the long-seething territorial conflicts in the strategic South China Sea which involve four ASEAN members: Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Indonesia, this year’s ASEAN chair, has also confronted Chinese fishing fleets and coast guard that have strayed into what Jakarta says was its internationally recognized exclusive economic zone in the gas-rich Natuna Sea.

Widodo, who’s in his final year on the world stage as he reaches the end of his two-term limit, said ASEAN aims to collaborate with any country to solve problems through dialogue.

That includes Myanmar where, two years after the military power grab that forced out Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration and sparked a bloody civil strife, ASEAN has failed to rein in the violence in its member state. A five-point peace plan by ASEAN leaders and the top Myanmar general, which calls for an immediate stop to killings and other violence and the start of a national dialogue, has been disregarded by Myanmar’s ruling military.

ASEAN stopped inviting Myanmar’s military leaders to its semiannual summits and would only allow non-political representatives to attend. Myanmar has protested the move.

In an additional concern involving Myanmar, Indonesian officials said Sunday that 20 of their nationals, who were trafficked into Myanmar and forced to perform cyber scams, had been freed from Myanmar’s Myawaddy township and brought to the Thai border over the weekend. During the summit, ASEAN leaders planned to express their concern over such human trafficking schemes in a joint statement, a draft copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said her country, as ASEAN chair, has tackled the Myanmar crisis in a non-adversarial way.

“Colleagues certainly know that in the early stages of its leadership, Indonesia decided to take a non-megaphone diplomacy approach,” Marsudi said. “The aim is to provide space for the parties to build trust and for the parties to be more open in communicating.”

Widodo’s choice of a seaside venue with stunning sunrises and sunsets and the sound of birds chirping all day complements that approach.

The Indonesian leader also hoped the high-profile ASEAN summit would put Labuan Bajo and outlying islands, dotted with white-sand beaches and even a rare pink-sand beach, under the global tourism spotlight.

“This is a very good moment for us to host the ASEAN summit and showcase Labuan Bajo to the world,” said Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who flew in Sunday with his wife to a red-carpet welcome flanked by military honor guards and dancing villagers with flower-filled headwear.

But there are a few hitches.

The far-flung fishing town with only three traffic lights and about 6,000 residents is acutely short of hotels for ASEAN’s swarm of diplomats, delegates and journalists. Many had to arrange to share rooms.

Unlike the more popular Bali resort island or the bustling concrete jungle of a capital Jakarta, which has hosted international conclaves in upscale hotels and convention centers, Labuan Bajo is a far smaller town that a visitor could cross from end to end with a brisk two-hour walk. There are no public buses, and villagers mostly move around by walking, riding scooters or driving private cars.

A small team of local technicians with hard hats were flown in to lay cables and expand internet connections at the venues on short notice.

On Sunday, Labuan Bajo’s small airport was jampacked with visitors. Teams of diplomats and journalists arrived to welcome streamers announcing the upbeat summit motto, “ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth.”

Outside the airport named after the Komodo dragons, traffic quickly built up under the brutal noontime sun.

When the sun rose Monday morning, workers were still cementing some roadsides around the venues — a day before the summit opening.

Andre Kurniawan, who works at a dive center in Labuan Bajo, said the infrastructure developments would be a boon for Labuan Bajo villagers. “We were isolated from some areas before and now they are open and the areas are getting better. I hope that Labuan Bajo can be a better tourist town in the future,” he said.

Azril Azahari, chair of an association of Indonesian academic experts on tourism, told the AP that Labuan Bajo was not ready and apparently was chosen to host the summit on short notice. “The hotel facilities and the lodging have become a problem. There is a ship being used for accommodation and it’s not a lodging ship,” he said.

Welcoming visitors to her coffee shop ahead of the summit, Suti Ana said even though it wasn’t the best time for Labuan Bajo to host, ASEAN would boost local businesses. “But we cannot wait, so this is the time,” she said.

Choosing the small port town was not a bad idea, Azril said, if it came with adequate planning and government investments in infrastructure.

Located on the western tip of Flores island in southern Indonesia, Labuan Bajo, aside from its beaches and diving and snorkeling spots, has been better known as the gateway to the Komodo National Park — a UNESCO World Heritage site and the only place in the world where Komodo dragons, the world’s largest lizards, are found in the wild.

Environmentalists and tourism analysts fear that a wider public interest could put further stress on the already endangered Komodo dragons. Only about 3,300 were known to exist as of 2022.

“If more people come, sooner or later the Komodo dragons cannot breed in peace, this can be a problem,” Azahari said, citing longstanding fears that the Komodos could face extinction without full protection.

Despite the odds, Indonesian officials said they would do everything to successfully and safely host the ASEAN summit in Labuan Bajo.

“If there’s any commotion along the way, that will be a big stain on the nation’s dignity,” Edistasius Endi, the regent of Labuan Najo’s West Manggarai district, said in a statement.
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India Air Force Jet Crashes, 2 Killed

An Indian military jet has crashed, killing at least two people on the ground and injuring several others.

The Indian Air Force MiG-21 fighter jet crashed Monday in the Hunumangarh district of Rajasthan while on a routine training run. The plane had taken off from the Suratgarh Air Force Station.

The air force tweeted that the pilot ejected safely, sustaining minor injuries.

The Times of India newspaper reported that more than 2,000 people have gathered at the crash site.
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Boat Capsizes in Southern India, Killing at Least 22

Indian officials say at least 22 passengers, including children, died Sunday when their boat capsized in Southern India.

A report in the Times of India described the vessel as a “heavily overloaded double-decker boat.”

It was not immediately clear how many people were aboard the boat, although sources said there were more than 30.

Kerala Tourism Director P.B. Nooh told the Times of India that district disaster management had warned earlier this year about the possibility of “boat tragedies” due to “illegal boat operations.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on Twitter that he was “Pained by the loss of lives due to the boat mishap in Malappuram, Kerala.” He said victims’ families would be compensated.
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05/07/2023 DruchinaChina

Indian Troops Kill 2 Rebels in Kashmir in Ongoing Operations

Indian soldiers killed two suspected militants in ongoing counterinsurgency operations in Kashmir on Saturday, officials said, a day after rebels fighting against Indian rule killed five soldiers in the disputed Himalayan region.

Joint army, paramilitary and police teams “spotted and pinned down” the militants before killing one of them in a forested area in the southern Rajouri sector, an Indian army statement said. It said soldiers recovered an automatic rifle and some ammunition and grenades and noted another militant was “likely to be injured.”

There was no independent confirmation of the incident.

Separately on Saturday, government forces killed another militant in a gun battle in western Kunzer area, police said.

On Friday, rebels triggered an explosive device during an encounter with the Indian army, killing five soldiers, the military said. That fighting erupted after soldiers tracked a group of militants involved in an ambush of an army vehicle on April 20 that killed five Indian soldiers in the same region, according to the army.

The violence comes as Indian authorities are on high alert in Kashmir and have stepped up security in the already highly militarized region ahead of a meeting of officials from the Group of 20 leading industrialized and developing nations on promoting tourism in the region later this month.

It will be the first significant international event hosted in Kashmir after India stripped Kashmir of its semiautonomy and took direct control of the territory amid a monthslong security and communications lockdown in 2019. Kashmir has been on edge as authorities also put in place a slew of new laws that critics and many Kashmiris fear could change the region’s demographics.

Rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan.

Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

New Delhi insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.

Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
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05/07/2023 DruchinaChina

Dead Rivers, Flaming Lakes: India’s Sewage Failure

Mohammed Azhar holds his baby niece next to a storm drain full of plastic and stinking black sludge, testament to India’s failure to treat nearly two-thirds of its urban sewage.

“We stay inside our homes. We fall sick if we go out,” the 21-year-old told AFP in the Delhi neighborhood of Seelampur, where open gutters packed with plastic and sickly greyish water flow alongside the narrow lanes.

“It stinks. It attracts mosquitoes. We catch diseases and the kids keep falling sick,” he added. “There is no one to clean the filth.”

India at the end of April was projected to have overtaken China as the world’s most populous country, according to the United Nations, with almost 1.43 billion people.

Its urban population is predicted to explode in the coming decades, with over 270 million more people forecast to live in its cities by 2040.

But of the 72 billion liters of sewage currently generated in urban centers every day, 45 billion liters — enough to fill 18,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools — aren’t treated, according to government figures for 2020-21.

India’s sewerage system does not connect to about two-thirds of its urban homes, according to the National Fecal Sludge and Septage Management Alliance (NFSSM).

Many of the sewage treatment plants in operation don’t comply with standards, including 26 out of Delhi’s 35 facilities, according to media reports.

Coupled with huge volumes of industrial effluent, the sewage is causing disease, polluting India’s waterways, killing wildlife and seeping into groundwater.

Ecologically dead

Although India has made major progress in reducing child mortality, diarrhea — caused mostly by contaminated water and food — remains a leading killer.

More than 55,000 children under five died of diarrhea across India in 2019, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal BMC Public Health.

The Yamuna in Delhi is one of the world’s filthiest rivers and is considered ecologically dead in places, although people still wash clothes and take ritual baths in it.

It often billows with white foam, and facilities processing drinking water from the river for Delhi’s 20 million people regularly shut down because of dangerous ammonia levels.

Despite some bright spots, as well as efforts to plant more trees alongside rivers, the situation elsewhere is often no better in big cities including Mumbai and Chennai.

In Bengaluru, massive Bellandur Lake has on occasion caught fire when methane, generated by bacteria feasting on sewage in the oxygen-depleted water, ignited.

Water crisis

Mridula Ramesh, author of a book about India’s water woes who lives in a “nearly” net-zero-waste home, said properly treating sewage into useable water would help solve the crisis.

According to the World Bank, India is one of the most “water-stressed” countries in the world, with plummeting water tables and increasingly erratic monsoon rains.

Chennai nearly ran out of water briefly in 2019, and other cities may see similar calamities in the coming years due to excessive groundwater pumping and rainfall volatility.

“India is headed for a water crisis. Sewage can so easily be co-opted to fight that and help us to a very large extent solve the problem in our cities,” Ramesh told AFP.

This could be achieved with decentralized treatment plants partially funded by the private sector or non-governmental organizations, with some of the fully treated sewage reused or released into local lakes.

“India’s water is so seasonal. Many cities in India get 50 rain days… but sewage is available every day because you go to the bathroom every day… It’s such a powerful weapon,” she said.

For Khalil Ahmad, standing by the revolting open drain in Seelampur as flies buzz around, a solution can’t come soon enough.

“Children keep falling sick… If they don’t get treatment and medicine, the children will die,” he told AFP.
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05/06/2023 DruchinaChina

China Asks Afghanistan’s Taliban to Address Neighbors’ Terrorism Worries

Pakistan on Saturday hosted top diplomats from neighboring China and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan for a trilateral dialogue that seeks to promote regional security, trade, transit, and counterterrorism collaboration.

Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, who faces United Nations travel restrictions, was granted a waiver to attend the meeting in Islamabad. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his Pakistani counterpart, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, led their respective delegations at the fifth round of the trilateral framework.

The participants held “productive discussions on political engagement, counterterrorism, trade, and connectivity,” said the Pakistani Foreign Ministry in a brief post-meeting statement without elaborating.

Official sources said Pakistani and Chinese delegates had shared with Taliban representatives the security concerns stemming from a growing threat of terrorism in Afghanistan and the challenges it poses to neighboring countries. The delegates exchanged views about how to support the de facto Afghan authorities in the economic reconstruction of the conflict-ravaged impoverished South Asian nation.

Terror concerns

Qin said before the trilateral meeting that China and Pakistan were ready to support “actively” the Afghan reconstruction efforts, but he pressed the Taliban to deliver on their regional and international commitments.

“We hope that Taliban would embrace inclusive government and moderate policies and maintain friendly relations with its neighbors,” the top Chinese diplomat told reporters after bilateral talks with Zardari. Qin spoke through his official interpreter.

“It is important that [the] Taliban take the security concerns of its neighbors seriously and take stronger measures to counter various terrorist forces within Afghanistan,” he noted.

Qin said that China was ready to step up counterterrorism and security cooperation with Afghanistan and Pakistan to jointly fight terrorist threats such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Beijing has long alleged ETIM militants use Afghan soil to wage cross-border attacks against China.

An Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group, known as IS-Khorasan, lately has also increased attacks in Afghanistan, targeting civilians, Taliban members and even Chinese nationals.

Speaking alongside his Chinese counterpart, Zardari also underscored Islamabad’s worries stemming from a spike in terrorist attacks in his country since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan nearly two years ago.

“For us in Pakistan, our core issue, our red line is the issue of terrorism, which poses a serious threat to our regional stability, regional peace and is a real stumbling block in the way of the progress of the Afghan people,” Zardari said.

Pakistan says fugitive leaders and members of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, use Afghan sanctuaries to plot cross-border terrorism. Officials in Islamabad maintain that terrorist activities have increased since the Taliban reclaimed power in Kabul in August 2021, killing hundreds of Pakistanis, mostly security forces.

TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, is an offshoot and close ally of the Afghan Taliban and played an instrumental role in their 20 years long insurgency against U.S.-led NATO forces that brought them to power nearly two years ago when the international forces left Afghanistan.

The Taliban deny they are allowing anyone to use Afghan soil to threaten Pakistan or other countries. Critics question those claims, citing the presence of fugitive TTP chief in last year’s failed peace talks with Pakistani officials that were brokered and hosted by the Taliban in Kabul.

Taliban leaders pledged they would respect the rights of all Afghans, including women. Instead, the hardline de facto authorities have gradually imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law or Sharia. They have stopped most women from working and banned teenage girls’ from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade.

The restrictions have outraged the international community and deterred it from recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan-CPEC

Qin said Saturday that his government also was determined to link landlocked Afghanistan to a multibillion-dollar infrastructure development project in Pakistan with Chinese investment under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, is building new road networks, power plants, and ports to link the two countries and help Islamabad improve its economic productivity.

“We will help extend the CPEC toward Afghanistan, promote our exchanges on cooperation in trade, investment, and interactions, and enhance people-to-people and cultural exchanges between our three countries,” Qin said.

China initiated the trilateral dialogue with Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2017 to help ease tensions between its two uneasy neighbors, which share a 2,600-kilometer border. The Taliban were at the time waging a deadly insurgency against the then-U.S.-backed Afghan government, though Beijing and Islamabad maintained contacts with insurgent leaders.

The U.S. and other Western governments had moved their diplomatic missions out of Kabul to Qatar when the Taliban seized power. But China, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Russia are among around 20 neighboring and regional countries that have kept their embassies open or returned to Afghanistan.

While Western nations have suspended their economic cooperation with Kabul since withdrawing their troops, Beijing, Moscow, and Islamabad have increased engagement with the new Afghan authorities.

China recently secured a 25-year contract to extract oil from the Afghan Amu Darya Basin and are actively negotiating other investments with the Taliban. Russian exports to Afghanistan reportedly have increased to more than $10 million monthly.

The trade balance between the Taliban government and Pakistan has tilted in favor of Kabul for the first time in the history of bilateral ties. Taliban Commerce Minister Haji Nooruddin Azizi, accompanying Muttaqi on his Islamabad visit, met Saturday with his Pakistani counterpart, Syed Naveed Qamar.

An official statement said the two sides agreed to enhance trade volumes and streamline procedures to ensure “efficient border management” to improve bilateral trade and economic cooperation.
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05/06/2023 DruchinaChina

Chinese Foreign Minister Tells Pakistan It Must Overcome Political Instability

Expressing concern about Pakistan’s increasing instability, the visiting Chinese foreign minister told the host nation to overcome political differences to pave the way for economic progress.

China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, was in Pakistan on Saturday for the fourth Pakistan-China Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue held in Islamabad. It was Qin’s maiden visit to the country since becoming Beijing’s top diplomat.

“We sincerely hope the political forces in Pakistan will build consensus, uphold stability and more effectively address domestic and external challenges so it can focus on growing the economy,” Qin said, addressing a press briefing alongside his Pakistani counterpart, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, after the closed-door strategic talks.

Pakistan is facing intense political turmoil since former prime minister Imran Khan was ousted a year ago in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence. A lack of consensus between Khan’s party and the 13-party ruling alliance led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif regarding the election schedule has plunged the country into a political and constitutional crisis.

The country also is mired in a crippling financial crisis. To help Pakistan revive a stalled bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund and avoid default, China has provided relief by rolling over debt and parking funds there to boost dangerously low foreign exchange reserves.

Qin said his country will “continue to do our best to support Pakistan’s foreign exchange and financial stability.”

Pakistan’s former envoy to the U.K., U.S. and U.N., Maleeha Lodhi, told VOA her country would have defaulted without China coming to the rescue.

“It was the Chinese decision to roll over even commercial loans to Pakistan that has helped keep Pakistan financially afloat. So, China’s help has been extremely vital to help Pakistan, at least keep its [foreign exchange] reserves,” said Lodhi.

China is also Pakistan’s single biggest lender, though, with the South Asian nation owing one-third of its external debt to Beijing. That debt has skyrocketed since the launch of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor 10 years ago. Known as CPEC, the multi-billion-dollar infrastructure and development project is part of China’s global Belt and Road Initiative.

By not providing large-scale debt forgiveness to Pakistan, policy expert and former adviser to the Pakistani government Mosharraf Zaidi said Beijing is telling Pakistan to manage its affairs better.

“[The] Chinese, I think, will keep insisting that we will not let you fail completely, but we will not support mismanagement and misgovernance, which is really what Pakistan over the last year-and-a-half in particular has done,” Zaidi told VOA.

Both foreign ministers rejected the perception that Pakistan is a victim of “debt-trap diplomacy” and the assertions that China targets struggling economies through unsustainable loans to pursue its geo-strategic goals.

“There is no basis whatsoever in the so-called debt sustainability, debt trap … concerns that are propagated. Chinese investment and financial support … is in keeping with the traditions of our unique, time-tested friendship” Bhutto Zardari told journalists.

“For those who make false suggestions about debt trap,” Qin said in a veiled reference to Washington’s criticism of China’s investment pattern, “I suggest that you ask those people, ‘what have they done for the national development and well-being of the Pakistani people?'”

The U.S. is Pakistan’s biggest export market, followed by China.

Along with Pakistan’s economic and political instability, the safety of its citizens is a major concern for China.

Despite multi-layered security guarding Chinese projects in Pakistan, including a special military unit, Chinese workers have faced lethal attacks from militant groups that oppose the Pakistani state or see Chinese projects as an extension of what they regard as the state’s encroachment of their resources.

Qin said his Pakistani counterpart had shared “the meticulous arrangements by Pakistan to protect China’s citizens, institutions and projects in Pakistan. Our two sides agreed to hunt down and bring to justice the perpetrators of terrorist attacks targeting Chinese.”

Last November, a Pakistani counterterrorism court gave death sentences to two men accused of killing 13 people, including nine Chinese engineers working on a hydropower project, in a suicide attack in July 2021.

During his brief stay in Pakistan, China’s top diplomat took part in trilateral talks with his Pakistani and Afghan counterparts. The Afghan Taliban’s interim foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, who faces travel restrictions by the United Nations, was granted a waiver to come to Islamabad.

Bhutto Zardari noted that for Pakistan, the core issue with Afghanistan is terrorism, which he called a “red line.”

Pakistan blames Kabul for not reining in terrorists present on its soil who have been mounting near-daily attacks on Pakistani security personnel.

As China deepens its interests in Afghanistan, Qin said before the trilateral talks, he hoped that “Pakistan and Afghanistan will bear in mind the larger picture and try to work out the issues between them through dialogue and consultation.”

Qin’s visit to Pakistan comes on the heels of the Pakistani army chief’s visit to Beijing just over a week ago and a bilateral political consultation there in March. The two heads of state met in China last November.

A recent Washington Post report on U.S. intelligence leaks revealed Pakistani officials sought to distance the country from the U.S. on key issues to avoid hurting its relationship with China.

Standing with the Pakistani foreign minister, China’s top diplomat took swipes at the U.S., at one point saying Beijing and Islamabad will keep working together to “oppose the cold war mentality, zero-sum game.”

On the challenges of balancing relations with two competing global powers, former Pakistani envoy Lodhi told VOA, “Pakistan has made it clear it will not be part of any anti-China coalition that the United States is trying its best to mobilize across the world.”

In policy expert Zaidi’s opinion, however, Islamabad’s compulsion is to maintain strategic ties with China and strengthen its weak relationship with the U.S. because Pakistan is “too big to choose a side, but it’s also too small to choose a side successfully.”
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05/06/2023 DruchinaChina

UN Experts Call Perpetration of Gender Persecution in Afghanistan Alarming

A weeklong special U.N. mission on human rights in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan has found an unprecedented level of “systemic gender-based” discrimination that severely threatens the impoverished country’s future.

The United Nations released preliminary findings of the two-member mission Friday, saying the study concluded Thursday and took place amid a long-standing humanitarian crisis and profound turmoil caused by the latest Taliban edict banning Afghan women from working for the U.N. and local NGOs.

The Taliban have banned girls from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade and women from most government jobs and public places since seizing power in Afghanistan nearly two years ago.

“During our mission, we have documented how women and girls’ lives in Afghanistan are being devastated by the crackdown on their human rights,” the U.N. quoted its investigating team. “They have imposed extreme modesty rules and detained women and girls for alleged ‘moral crimes.'”

The mission comprised Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on Afghan human rights, and Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, the chair of its working group on discrimination against women and girls. They met with Taliban representatives, civil society, women groups, entrepreneurs, religious leaders, teachers, journalists and victims of human rights violations, among others, in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and northern Balkh province.

‘Unparalleled’ situation

“This extreme situation of institutionalized gender-based discrimination in Afghanistan is unparalleled anywhere in the world,” the statement warned.

While talking to the U.N. experts, numerous women shared “their feelings of fear and extreme anxiety, describing their situation as a life under house arrest.”

Taliban authorities were quoted as telling the mission that women were working in the health, education, and business sectors and that efforts were underway to ensure that “women could work according to Sharia, separated from men.”

The de facto authorities reiterated that they were working on the reopening of schools but did not provide a clear timeline. However, they indicated that the international community should not interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, the U.N. experts said.

“We are deeply concerned about the apparent perpetration in Afghanistan of gender persecution – a systematic and grave human rights violation and a crime against humanity,” they added.

The findings were released on the same day that the U.N. office in Kabul concluded a nearly monthlong review of Afghan operations in the aftermath of the Taliban ban on its female staff.

The review renewed the global organization’s condemnation of the ban and demanded its urgent removal, saying it is unlawful and “seriously undermines” the U.N. work in Afghanistan.

The U.N. office reiterated its commitment to stay and deliver on behalf of the people of Afghanistan, saying it “cannot disengage despite the challenges.”

The Taliban reclaimed control of the country in August 2021 when the United States and NATO troops withdrew after almost 20 years of involvement in the war with the former insurgent group. The hard-line Afghan authorities have imposed their own interpretation of Sharia, effectively barring most women from public life.

‘Internal matters’

The international community has refused to recognize the Taliban government, in part because of its bans on women’s access to work and education and its refusal to govern the country through a politically inclusive system.

However, the reclusive Taliban chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has ruled out any compromise on what he says is his “Sharia-based governance” and vowed not to allow foreign interference in “internal matters” of Afghanistan.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hosted a two-day international dialogue in Qatar earlier this week on how to engage with the Taliban and develop “a common international approach” to multiple challenges facing Afghanistan.

The conference brought together the envoys of about two dozen countries, including the United States, China and Russia, and major international donors and representatives of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. But the U.N. did not invite the Taliban.

Guterres told a post-meeting news conference in Doha, Qatar, that the participants had agreed on the “need for a strategy of engagement that allows for the stabilization of Afghanistan but also allows for addressing important concerns.”
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05/05/2023 DruchinaChina

5 Indian Soldiers Killed in Operation Against Kashmir Militants

Five Indian Army soldiers were killed and one wounded Friday during an operation against militants in Kashmir, the army said.

Indian defense forces have launched several operations in the Rajouri sector of the Himalayan region since unidentified attackers opened fire on an Indian army vehicle last month.

A military search team came across a group of militants in an area “thickly vegetated with rocky and steep cliffs,” the army said in a statement.

“The terrorists triggered an explosive device in retaliation,” the army said.

Two soldiers died in the attack and another three succumbed to their injuries later in the day, it added.

Kashmir is claimed in full but ruled in part by nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan.

New Delhi has accused Pakistan of stoking a decadeslong insurgency in Kashmir. Islamabad denies that, saying it provides only diplomatic and moral support for Kashmiris seeking self-determination.
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05/05/2023 DruchinaChina

Pakistani, Indian Foreign Ministers Exchange Swipes at Meeting in India

During the first visit of Pakistan’s top diplomat to archrival India in almost a decade, each side took veiled swipes at the other on bilateral issues but presented a united front on a key regional issue – Afghanistan.

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was in Goa, India, Thursday and Friday for the Foreign Ministers Council Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. He was Pakistan’s first high-ranking official to visit the neighbor since 2014.

India is current president of the eight-member organization.

In his speech to the forum, Indian Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar said there was no justification for terrorism.

“And it must be stopped in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism,” Jaishankar said.

In his remarks provided by the Foreign Office, Bhutto Zardari said fighting terrorism was a joint responsibility but cautioned to “not get caught up in weaponizing terrorism for diplomatic point scoring.”

He asked the forum to “condemn all forms of terrorism, including state-sponsored terrorism.” Pakistan accuses India of supporting militants in its restive southern province of Balochistan, which New Delhi denies.

In an apparent reference to India’s 2019 decision to take away the special autonomous status of Indian-controlled Kashmir and bring its part of the disputed Himalayan territory under New Delhi’s direct control, Bhutto Zardari said, “Unilateral and illegal measures by states in violation of international law and [United Nations] Security Council resolutions run counter to the SCO objectives.”

Later, when Pakistani journalists asked whether he was referring to India’s action in Kashmir or to Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory, Bhutto Zardari laughed but did not specify.

Pakistan’s foreign minister asked SCO participants to “resolutely resist the temptation to stoke prejudice and discrimination to derive our identity,” to condemn “incitement to hate, especially on religious grounds,” and to fight “historical revisionism that is leading to violent ultranationalism anywhere in the world.”

Treatment of religious minorities

While Pakistan’s top diplomat did not name India, global human rights watchdogs routinely call out Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government for not sufficiently protecting religious minorities. Incidents of mob violence against Muslims have risen in recent years, some cities named after or by Muslim rulers have been renamed, and lately, chapters on Muslim rulers have been removed from textbooks.

Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center, told VOA there was no other member of the SCO that Pakistan would criticize except its archrival.

“So we could assume that if he’s taking a subtle swipe at someone within the SCO, it would have to be India,” Kugelman said.

However, in what he called a “silver lining” of the Pakistani foreign minister’s visit, the nuclear-armed rivals presented a similar stance on Afghanistan.

Pakistan is facing near daily attacks from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan militants, also known as TTP. Islamabad contends TTP leadership is operating from Afghan soil, a charge Kabul denies.

Bhutto Zardari called on the de facto rulers to “uphold their commitments on not allowing the use of Afghan soil for terrorism.”

The Pakistani foreign minister also said the international community should “continue to urge Afghan authorities to adopt universally accepted principles of political inclusivity, and respecting the rights of all Afghans, including girls’ right to education.”

In his remarks earlier, Jaishankar said that “ensuring a truly inclusive and representative government … combating terrorism … and preserving the rights of women, children and minorities” were his government’s priorities in Afghanistan.

“If you’re looking for an example where Pakistan and India would see eye to eye within SCO, it would be the Afghanistan issue and the terrorism risks emanating from there, and concerns about the Taliban not having the ability – or more importantly, the desire – to combat these threats that are so concerning for both India and Pakistan,” said Kugelman.

Reconciliation? No

Indian and Pakistani media closely covered Bhutto Zardari’s visit to India. Kugelman said that while it was in Pakistan’s interest to attend a conference in India where its ally, China, played a major role, “we should not think his [Bhutto Zardari’s] visit to India will be the first salvo of an attempt to forge reconciliation.”

That became apparent quickly once the conference ended.

At a press briefing with Pakistani journalists in Goa, after the foreign ministers conference, Bhutto Zardari blamed the lack of formal diplomacy with India on New Dehli’s revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy. He put the onus of creating a “conducive environment” for engagement on New Delhi.

Speaking to local journalists, Jaishankar expressed outrage at Bhutto Zardari’s remarks on terrorism, calling him a “promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry.”

Despite the tensions, Bhutto Zardari praised Jaishankar as a host, telling Pakistani media covering the event, “At no point did he [Jaishankar] make me feel that our bilateral disagreements have any impact on this conference.”
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05/05/2023 DruchinaChina

More Than 1,000 Trafficking Victims Rescued, Philippines Authorities Say

Philippines authorities say they rescued more than 1,000 human trafficking victims from across Asia during a raid Thursday night and Friday.

Police say the victims were forced to work up to 18 hours a day perpetrating cryptocurrency scams. It allegedly happened in a compound in Mabalacat, about a two-hour drive from the country’s capital, Manila.

“They met the people they scammed on Facebook and dating apps,” Captain Michelle Sabino of the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group told VOA. “They would pretend to fall in love with them and get their money.”

Police say the trafficking victims came from Vietnam, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Taiwan.

“They were lured by social media posts promising good-paying jobs only to get trapped in these compounds that had armed guards to keep them from leaving,” Sabino said, adding that the criminals who ran the scam center are from China.

Philippines authorities were tipped off about the compound by officials in Indonesia, who received desperate messages for help from Indonesians trapped inside.

Illicit operations like this are called online “fraud factories” and have been traced to several countries in Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. Experts say this is a multibillion-dollar industry with tens of thousands of human trafficking victims.

The victims often are university educated, white-collar workers with social media skills. Some lost their jobs during the pandemic and are desperate for work. There’s huge demand for scammers who can speak English and/or Chinese because those are two widely spoken languages, the Global Anti-Scam Organization told VOA.

While the fraud factories are often in remote areas, a recent senate hearing in the Philippines revealed that some are in major urban centers.

VOA’s prior reporting on this issue showed how in some fraud factories, poor performers are beaten and even killed — although Sabino told VOA at this stage there’s no evidence that this type of violence took place at the compound in Mabalacat.

Victims can often buy their way out of the scam centers but that typically costs tens of thousands of dollars, which is far more than most families in Southeast Asia can afford.
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Regional Talks Expected to Highlight China’s Interests in Pakistan, Afghanistan

Senior officials from China, Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban will hold two days of talks starting Friday in Islamabad, where observers expect to learn more about Beijing’s priorities in the region.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi will meet with Pakistani officials. The international community has ostracized the Taliban over hard-line policies targeting Afghan women and others.

Not only has Beijing encouraged the international community to continue to talk to the Taliban, but it also has said it supports encouraging the Taliban to “build an inclusive government, exercise moderate governance, develop friendly relations with its neighbors and firmly fight terrorism.”

Besides participating in the trilateral talks, Qin and Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will co-chair the fourth round of the China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue. The Chinese Foreign Ministry described the two countries as “all-weather strategic cooperative partners and ironclad friends.”

China’s Afghan priorities

Beijing’s priorities in Afghanistan are mitigating security threats and looking for economic opportunities, said Zafar Iqbal Yousafzai, author and researcher at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington think tank.

Last month, China said its development plans for the country would depend on improvement in the security situation.

“Security is the foundation and prerequisite of development,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an 11-point policy paper published last month titled China’s Position on the Afghan Issue.

A more pressing issue is whether China can pressure the Taliban to form a more inclusive government. In its Afghan policy paper, Beijing said: “We hope the Afghan Interim Government will protect the basic rights and interests of all Afghan people, including women, children and all ethnic groups.”

Yousafzai said there is now substantial international consensus on what should happen in Afghanistan. “The interest of China converges with that of the U.S. and other countries,” he said.

Indeed, China and Russia have joined the international community in pressuring the Taliban.

On April 13, a day after China released its Afghanistan policy, the foreign ministers of China, Russia and five of Afghanistan’s neighbors met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and demanded that the Taliban form an inclusive government and respect women’s and minorities’ rights.

Yousafzai said China wants an inclusive government because “stability is very far-fetched” without such a government in Afghanistan.

“Not in terms of the West to be a stable democracy, but they want Afghanistan to be stable in their own terms,” Yousafzai said.

Development projects

China wants stability in Afghanistan, Yousafzai said, because the country is crucial for Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and because of fears it could become “a hotbed for terrorists.”

China’s BRI is a global land and sea infrastructure project that was launched in 2013.

During a meeting in July between China and Afghanistan, Beijing said it hoped to “support the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan.”

Beyond communication and transportation links, Beijing is also interested in Afghanistan’s mineral and oil reserves.

In January, the Taliban and a Chinese petroleum company signed an agreement to extract and develop oil reserves in northern Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s minister for mines and petroleum, Shahabuddin Delawar, said last month that a Chinese company, Gochin, was interested in investing $10 billion in Afghanistan’s lithium mines.

The main holdup for such development projects appears to be the security situation. In December, China urged citizens to leave Afghanistan after a hotel in Kabul frequented by Chinese nationals was attacked. Beijing is also concerned about the potential spillover of militants from Afghanistan into China’s western Xinjiang region.

Grateful to China

The Taliban remain warm toward Beijing at a time when China is increasingly seen as a possible economic lifeline for Afghanistan. In an April 14 interview with Chinese state-run news outlet CGTN, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said that the Taliban were “grateful” to China.

He said that since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, “China has kept its embassy open and [remained] active diplomatically. It also stays true to its economic projects in Afghanistan and renewed contracts repeatedly.”

He added that China’s interest in investment in Afghanistan was “commendable.”

Hamidullah Farooqi, a former Afghan minister of transport and civil aviation, told VOA that the Taliban and China mutually benefit from having good relations.

“It is good for propaganda purposes,” he said. “The Taliban use this by telling people that things will change as China is going to invest. China also benefits from it, showing that it has a presence in the region and is interested in economic development.”

No recognition

Beijing, however, has not yet recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.

Shinkai Karokhail, a former member of the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of Afghanistan’s parliament, told VOA that by not recognizing the Taliban, “China wants to show that they share the international community’s concerns.”

China wants to make sure that the Afghan government is “cooperating” in fighting extremism, she said. “Right now, the presence of extremist groups in Afghanistan is the main concern.”

“The only way to fight extremist groups is to have an inclusive government,” Karokhail said.

Analysts will be watching the talks in Pakistan for signs that Beijing is willing to use its economic influence in Afghanistan to encourage the Taliban to adopt reforms broadly backed by the international community.

This report originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.
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Militant Attacks Kill 6 Pakistani Troops, 7 School Teachers Near Afghanistan’s Border

Authorities in Pakistan said Thursday that clashes with militants and a suspected sectarian-based shooting incident in areas abutting Afghanistan had killed at least 13 people, including six soldiers.

A military statement said Pakistani troops had engaged a “terrorists’ location” in the North Waziristan border district, killing three and wounding two others in the ensuing shootout.

“However, during an intense exchange of fire, six brave soldiers, having fought gallantly, embraced shahadat [martyrdom],” the statement said without further details.

The banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, claimed responsibility for the violence. The militant group, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, said security forces had tried to conduct a raid against TTP members in the area but were ambushed in the process, leaving seven of them dead.

It was not possible to immediately verify the militant claim from independent sources, although the Waziristan region served as a TTP stronghold until a few years ago.

Separately, police and hospital officials in another district, Kurram, on the Afghan border, said unknown gunmen had stormed a school and killed seven teachers, mostly members of the minority Shi’ite community.

No group immediately took responsibility for the shooting incident in the district center, Parachinar. The Pakistani region has long suffered from sectarian tensions between majority Sunni and minority Shi’ite communities.

Surge in TTP attacks

The TTP carries out almost daily attacks against security forces in North Waziristan and surrounding districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Taliban is an offshoot and close ally of Afghanistan’s ruling fundamentalist Taliban. Pakistan maintains fugitive TTP leaders have long taken refuge on the Afghan side and direct cross-border terrorism from there.

The 2021 Taliban takeover of the neighboring conflict-torn country has seen a dramatic surge in TTP attacks in Pakistan, straining bilateral ties with Afghanistan.

Islamabad says the TTP has enjoyed greater operational freedom and intensified cross-border terrorism since the Taliban seized power in Kabul.

Thursday’s violence comes a day before Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is scheduled to visit Islamabad for talks with Pakistani officials on bilateral politics, trade and matters related to regional stability.

The surge in TTP attacks will likely figure high in the meetings amid repeated demands for Kabul to rein in TTP activities on Afghan soil. The Pakistani Taliban is designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Muttaqi’s government denies allowing any group to use Afghan soil against any country, including Pakistan.

During his stay in Islamabad, the Taliban foreign minister will also participate in a new round of dialogue involving Afghanistan, China and Pakistan. Muttaqi’s office in Kabul said he would discuss “regional stability and connectivity” with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his Pakistani counterpart, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
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New Uzbekistan Constitution: Genuine Reform or Authoritarian Makeover?

As of this week, Uzbekistan has a new constitution. The country’s Central Election Commission says more than 90% of voters approved the new basic law in an April 30 referendum, with а turnout rate of 84.5%.

International observers expressed reservations, noting that “there was no organized

opposition to the amendments” and that as with previous Uzbek elections and referendums, the balloting fell “short of genuine political pluralism and competition.”

But CEC Chairperson Zayniddin Nizamkhodjaev insisted the process “was conducted in full compliance with international norms and standards, our referendum legislation, and generally accepted democratic principles such as openness and transparency.”

Nizamkhodjaev acknowledged “some shortcomings,” which he said were “being investigated in a timely manner and under public control.” Among them was a case in which a commission member was caught filling out multiple ballots and stuffing them into a box.

According to the CEC, the referendum was monitored by 383 international observers from 45 countries, including from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and from the Association of World Election Bodies.

Of the 19.7 million people registered to vote, Nizamkhodjaev said, ballots were filled out by 16.7 million, including Uzbeks living abroad in 39 countries.

The announced results were greeted with overwhelming cynicism on social media, where writers pointed out that neither the turnout nor the government’s position has been reported at less than 80% in any Uzbek election or referendum.

However, VOA reporting ahead of the 155-article referendum had shown broad support for the proposed changes and the margin of approval was in line with results registered at the Uzbek Embassy in Washington, where VOA observed the process.

Votes cast by 903 people in Maryland, Virginia, Florida and Washington were tallied at the embassy, with 88% approving the proposed changes. Among the dissenters, a few drew cartoons on the ballot to express their disagreement, while one even tore up the paper in protest.

‘We need a constitution that works’

But several voters expressed optimism. Maryland resident Zulfiya Karshiyeva, who has lived in the U.S. for about 20 years, wants Uzbekistan’s doors to remain open to naturalized Americans like herself.

“I recently spent three months in Uzbekistan. I like that the government now treats us with respect. I voted ‘yes’ today without any hesitation,” Karshiyeva said.

She represents a growing community, many of whom worry that Tashkent may enact restrictions on them for possessing foreign passports. Uzbek consular services deny any pressure but emphasize that other citizenships are not recognized if a person remains a citizen of Uzbekistan.

Virginia-based Doniyor Yusupov told VOA that he sees the new constitution as part of a reform agenda initiated by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev after taking office in 2016.

Yusupov’s family business is involved in industrial construction and maintenance and has major investments in Uzbekistan.

“I’m happy that our native country welcomes our projects that we believe are improving its technological capacity,” he said.

Sharifa Murod, a journalist from Ferghana, in eastern Uzbekistan, stressed that the real picture back home is not as glossy as some may imagine.

“We don’t need a new constitution. We need a constitution that works,” Murod said, echoing thousands of Uzbeks on Facebook, Telegram, and other social media platforms.

Like many citizens, she complained that Uzbek authorities have a tradition of overpromising and underdelivering.

“People are struggling with so many critical issues that require attention and action, beginning with serious economic challenges and corruption. Something resembling the rule of law would represent real political progress, not this referendum,” Murod said.

Lack of political pluralism, open debates

Several voters told VOA that they are happy with the new constitution, especially its articles providing for gender equality and increased social protections but said they also long for political pluralism and open deliberations.

ODIHR’s initial report said that how the referendum was conducted “highlighted the need to further encourage alternative views, provide opportunities for independent civil society and respect for fundamental freedoms, which continue to be restricted.”

It also pointed out that “media did not provide impartial and balanced information, undermining voters’ ability to make an informed choice.”

On social media, many Uzbeks questioned the CEC’s reported turnout, noting that they did not vote themselves. ODIHR found serious violations during the voting and counting, “undermining the integrity of the process.”

“The proposed amendments affecting approximately two-thirds of the constitution were voted on as a single package, not providing the opportunity for voters to make a choice about each distinct issue featured in the amendments, and not in line with international good practice,” ODIHR said.

Tashkent-based political scientist Bakhrom Radjabov said he was not surprised by the ODIHR’s evaluation, which resembled its findings and recommendations after previous missions.

“While we heard ‘yes’ voices, we barely heard ‘no’ voices. Though they consist of less than 10%, it is critical to listen to them since they exist,” Radjabov told VOA.

The constitutional commission said it received more than 220,000 proposals from citizens during the drafting process.

“Which were picked and why?” asked Radjabov, who argued that the Uzbek public would only win from “transparency and debate on proposed changes and critique.”

Authoritarian modernization?

Luca Anceschi, a professor at the University of Glasgow, who has observed elections in Central Asia, regards the ODIHR assessment as key indicator that there was, as always, a top-down process.

“The referendum was conducted by the regime for the regime.”

Anceschi sees significant obstacles to genuinely competitive elections and political campaigns in Uzbekistan.

“We saw that in the 2019 parliamentary election, where the range of options available to voters was restricted to regime-adjacent parties, and in this recent referendum, wherein the range of constitutional articles to be amended was carefully selected by the regime without any public discussion.”

Anceschi views a change in the presidential term as the most consequential part of this referendum. Mirziyoyev, who was nearing the end of his second and final term, may now be able to run for two more terms.

“Government propaganda informed us that there is a new range of rights enshrined in this new draft, as if Uzbekistan’s governance problems had to do with the content of its constitution rather than to the practical implementation of constitutional dictates,” Anceschi said.

He believes Mirziyoyev is more interested in “authoritarian modernization” than in introducing a democratic system of governance.

“The political history of post-Soviet Central Asia tells us that such referenda are instruments of authoritarian consolidation, insofar as they extend, often indefinitely, presidential terms,” he said. “I’d be surprised if Uzbekistan turns out to be the exception to this norm.”
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