Apple Inc. opened its first flagship store in India in a much-anticipated launch Tuesday that highlights the company’s growing aspirations to expand in the country it also hopes to turn into a potential manufacturing hub.

The company’s CEO Tim Cook posed for photos with a few of the 100 or so Apple fans who had lined up outside the sprawling 20,000-square-foot store in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, its design inspired by the iconic black-and-yellow cabs unique to the city. A second store will open Thursday in the national capital, New Delhi.

“India has such a beautiful culture and an incredible energy, and we’re excited to build on our long-standing history,” Cook said in a statement earlier.

The tech giant has been operating in India for more than 25 years, selling its products through authorized retailers and the website it launched a few years ago. But regulatory hurdles and the pandemic delayed its plans to open a flagship store.

The new stores are a clear signal of the company’s commitment to invest in India, the second-largest smartphone market in the world where iPhone sales have been ticking up steadily, said Jayanth Kolla, analyst at Convergence Catalyst, a tech consultancy. The stores show “how much India matters to the present and the future of the company,” he added.

For the Cupertino, California-based company, India’s sheer size makes the market especially encouraging.

About 600 million of India’s 1.4 billion people have smartphones, “which means the market is still under-penetrated and the growth prospect is huge,” said Neil Shah, vice president of research at technology market research firm Counterpoint Research.

Between 2020 and 2022, the Silicon Valley company has gained some ground in the smartphone market in the country, going from just about 2% to capturing 6%, according to Counterpoint data.

Still, the iPhone’s hefty price tag puts it out of reach for the majority of Indians.

Instead, iPhone sales in the country have thrived among the sliver of upper-middle-class and rich Indians with disposable incomes, a segment of buyers that Shah says is rising. According to Counterpoint data, Apple has captured 65% of the “premium” smartphone market, where prices range up from 30,000 rupees ($360).

In September, Apple announced it would start making its iPhone 14 in India. The news was hailed as a win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has pushed for ramping up local manufacturing ever since he came to power in 2014.

Apple first began manufacturing from India in 2017 with its iPhone SE and has since continued to assemble a number of iPhone models from the country.

Most of Apple’s smartphones and tablets are assembled by contractors with factories in China, but the company started looking at potentially moving some production to Southeast Asia or other places after repeated shutdowns to fight COVID-19 disrupted its global flow of products.

“Big companies got a jolt, they realized they needed a backup strategy outside of China — they couldn’t risk another lockdown or any geopolitical rift affecting their business,” said Kolla.

Currently, India makes close to 13 million iPhones every year, up from less than 5 million three years ago, according to Counterpoint Research. This is about 6% of iPhones made globally — and only a small slice in comparison to China, which still produces around 90% of them.

Last week, India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the government was in regular touch with Apple to support their business here and that the company had plans to have 25% of their global production come out of India in the next five years.

The challenge for Apple, according to Shah of Counterpoint, is that the raw materials are still coming from outside India so the tech company will need to either find a local supplier or bring their suppliers, based in countries like China, Japan and Taiwan, closer to drive up production.

Still, he’s optimistic this target could be met, especially with labor costs being lower in India and the government wooing companies with attractive subsidies to boost local manufacturing.

“For Apple, everything is about timing. They don’t enter a market with full flow until they feel confident about their prospects. They can see the opportunity here today — it’s a win-win situation,” Shah said.
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At least two people are dead after a landslide buried dozens of trucks on the main road between Pakistan and Afghanistan Tuesday. 

More than 20 trucks were buried in the disaster, which struck at the border crossing on the Khyber Pass, a major point of trade between the South Asian nations. Several people were also injured.   

Officials said a heavy rain storm overnight could have triggered the landslide.   
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Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai is working on a new memoir, the latest book by the young activist from Pakistan known for her advocacy for education for girls and for surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban when she was in her teens. 

Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced the memoir Monday. It is currently untitled and has no scheduled release date. 

Yousafzai’s previous works include the million-selling “I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban,” published in 2013, the year before she won the Nobel Peace Prize at age 17. She has since graduated from Oxford University and married Asser Malik, a manager with the Pakistan Cricket Board. Her production company, Extracurricular, has a deal with Apple TV+ for a wide range of film and television projects. 

“The last few years of my life have been marked by extraordinary transformation, and all the anguish and joy that accompanies growth,” Yousafzai, 25, said in a statement released by Atria. “This is my most personal book yet and I hope that readers will find recognition, reassurance, and insight in my story.” 

Atria is calling the new book a “breathtaking story of recovery and search for identity, a candid exploration of her coming-of-age in the public spotlight, and an intimate look at her life today.” Young readers and picture book editions are also planned. 

Yousafzai was targeted by the Taliban for her relentless objections to the group’s regressive interpretation of Islam that limits girls’ access to education. She was shot while returning home from school in Pakistan’s Swat Valley in 2012. 

The TTP, or Pakistani Taliban, is separate from but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, and that group’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 emboldened the TTP, which shares the group’s ideology. 
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A former Indian lawmaker was shot dead Saturday on live television along with his brother.

Police were escorting Atiq Ahmed and his brother, Ashraf, to a medical facility for a checkup when the handcuffed men were ambushed by three gunmen.

Media reports say the gunmen had been posing as journalists.

The brothers died within moments of being shot.

The men who shot the brothers are in police custody in Uttar Pradesh state.

A few days before Atiq was shot, his son was shot by police.

The former politician has been brought up on several charges over the years, including kidnapping, murder and extortion.

He had been sentenced to life in prison earlier this year in a kidnapping case.
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Authorities in northwestern Pakistan confirmed Monday they had arrested a Chinese engineer for allegedly insulting Islam, ending overnight angry protests that called for legal action against the foreigner.

Police identified the detainee as “Mr. Tian,” head of heavy transport at the China Gezhouba Group Company constructing the Dasu hydropower project about 350 kilometers north of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad

The trouble erupted Saturday when the Chinese supervisor tried to push his local driving staff while they were collectively offering afternoon prayers at the worksite to speed up the pace of work instead.

“He went on to make insulting remarks and derogatory gestures to disparage Allah and the Prophet of Muslims,” said a copy of the formal police complaint VOA received.

Police said the alleged blasphemy act had enraged the local staff, leading to angry protests Sunday evening across the Kohistan district where the project is being built, with thousands of protesters blocking the main highway linking Pakistan with China.

The demonstrations continued for several hours and only subsided pre-dawn Monday when the Chinese national was taken into custody, and community leaders were assured he would face legal action, police said, adding that traffic on the busy Karakoram Highway was later also restored.

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

Suspects are often attacked and sometimes lynched by mobs. 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 used to settle personal vendettas and disputes and intimidate religious minorities in Pakistan.

A Sri Lankan factory manager was beaten to death by co-workers in the country’s most populous central Punjab province in December 2021 after he was falsely accused of insulting Islam. A court later sentenced six men to death for lynching the foreigner.

China has invested billions of dollars in close ally Pakistan in recent years, building roads, communication networks, ports, and power plants under Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative.

The collaboration, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC, has brought thousands of Chinese workers and engineers to work on the mega project. The 4,300 mega-watt Dasu hydropower project is not part of the CPEC, but Chinese nationals live and work at guarded facilities in the area.

A suicide car bombing targeted a bus convoy transporting Chinese and Pakistani workers to the construction site in 2021. The blast killed nine Chinese and three local workers, the largest loss of life of Chinese citizens in Pakistan in recent years.

The deadly attack forced the Chinese company to suspend work on the Dasu Dam for several months.
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Eleven people have died after attending an outdoor government function Sunday on the outskirts of Mumbai. The Times of India website reports that eight of the dead were women.  

At least 50 people were admitted to the hospital.  

The outdoor event was held to present an award to a social activist. 

One doctor told The Times that the patients were suffering from dehydration, chest pain, rise in blood sugar levels and a host of other conditions.  

The temperature Sunday had reached a scorching 38 degrees Celsius. 
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Pakistan has decided to send its ambassador back to Afghanistan this week, more than four months after he was pulled out because of a failed attempt on his life in Kabul by the Islamic State group, multiple official sources told VOA Sunday.

The decision stemmed from an overnight telephone call between Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

“The ambassador is due to arrive in Kabul before the Eid-ul-Fitar festival,” a Pakistani government official said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to interact with media.

The official refused to share more details, saying diplomatic movements require secrecy for security reasons. The three-day Eid festivities marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan are expected to begin in Afghanistan this weekend.

Both sides have released brief statements confirming the Saturday contact between the two officials but neither mentioned the planned return of Pakistani Chargé d’affaires Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamanit to the Afghan capital.

Muttaqi discussed “a range of important bilateral political, economic, trade and transit issues” with the Pakistani counterpart, the Taliban-led Afghan foreign ministry said Sunday. “Both sides also agreed to improve diplomatic relations,” the statement said without elaborating.

Zardari’s office in Islamabad said that “issues of mutual interest” came under discussion between the two leaders but provided no further details. “The foreign minister reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to a stable, peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan,” the statement said.

Nizamani was on a routine walk inside the sprawling embassy compound in Kabul on December 2 when shooters opened fire on him from a nearby multistory building. He escaped unhurt, but his Pakistani security guard was hit in the legs by bullets. Pakistan immediately evacuated the chief diplomat and demanded the Taliban enhance the security of its embassy.

The Islamic State group, in a statement, claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying its regional affiliate, known as Islamic State Khorasan, assaulted “the apostate Pakistani ambassador and his guards.”

The incident strained otherwise friendly ties between the Taliban administration and Pakistan.

Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan share a nearly 2,600-kilometer border. Bilateral trade ties have increased since the Taliban reclaimed control of Afghanistan in August 2021 as the United States-led NATO troops withdrew after 20 years of the Afghan war.

Islamabad and the world at large do not formally recognize the Taliban government, citing human rights concerns, particularly restrictions placed on Afghan women’s access to work and education.

The Taliban have banned female higher education and teenage girls are barred from attending schools beyond the sixth grade. They have banned Afghan women from working for the United Nations and nongovernmental aid organizations and ordered most women government employees to stay home.

Sunday’s Taliban statement said Zardari assured Muttaqi that Pakistan, in the coming days, would release the remaining Afghan migrants jailed for not possessing valid travel documents. It gave no further details.

Pakistani authorities have, in recent months, released and repatriated more than 2,000 Afghan inmates, including women and children.

Nearly 300,000 people arrived in Pakistan after the Taliban takeover 20 months ago, fleeing worsening economic and humanitarian conditions in strife-torn, impoverished Afghanistan. Many left the country fearing Taliban reprisals for their association with U.S. and Western troops.

Pakistani officials estimate that only about 100,000 asylum seekers entered the country on valid visas. They have joined several million Afghans living in Pakistan as refugees and economic migrants after having fled decades of Afghan conflicts and poverty.

Several countries, including Pakistan, China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, have kept their embassies in Kabul open after the Taliban seized power 20 months ago. But the United States and other Western nations moved their diplomatic missions out of Afghanistan to Qatar to help facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the more than 28 million, two-thirds of the country’s population, in need of it.
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A passenger bus carrying dozens of members of a music troupe slid off a highway and fell into a gorge in western India Saturday, killing 13 people and injuring 29 others, police said.

The bus was on its way to Mumbai, India’s financial capital, in Maharashtra state, from Pune city, where the musicians held a performance, said Atul Zende, a police officer. The exact cause of the crash was not immediately known.

Zende said most of the passengers who died were part of the music troupe from Mumbai.

He said rescue workers pulled out the badly injured from the wreckage of the bus and sent them to a hospital.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed sorrow over the accident and announced monetary relief to the victims’ families.

Deadly road accidents are common in India due to reckless driving, poorly maintained roads, and aging vehicles. More than 110,000 people are killed every year in road accidents across India, according to police.
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Cash-strapped Pakistan still does not have a date to close a key agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that will allow the release of a $1.1 billion bailout package. The IMF says the debt continues to be sustainable, however the situation has grown more pressing as the country’s central bank says it only has enough foreign exchange reserves to finance another four weeks of imports.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Federal Minister of Finance Ishaq Dar tweeted Friday that the United Arab Emirates has confirmed to the IMF $1 billion in financial support to Pakistan, and the state bank is collecting the documentation needed to take the deposit from UAE authorities.

Minister of State for Finance Aisha Ghaus Pasha told VOA in Islamabad on Thursday that Pakistan is hoping the IMF will soon get confirmation from its external financing partners to allow the funds to be released.

After Dar’s tweet Friday, it seems as if Pakistan is closer to unlocking the IMF funds, but no date is in sight for a staff-level agreement.

Also Friday, Jihad Azour, director of the Middle East and Central Asia department at the IMF, told reporters that the country needs to manage double-digit inflation and maintain monetary policy to promote sustainable growth.

“Pakistan is at a critical juncture today and a decisive action by the country is required to reform and stabilize the economy,” Azour said.

The IMF this week forecast 27% inflation for Pakistan and slashed the impoverished nation’s growth outlook to just 0.5% in the coming year. The country has been reeling from high fuel and commodity prices. In March, the cost of food was estimated at almost 50% higher than a year before.

That has made some economists worry the country’s debt problem ultimately will hurt consumers. Uzair Younus, director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Washington-based think tank the Atlantic Council, told VOA that, “given the ongoing crisis, it is likely, ultimately Pakistan will require debt restructuring, which would unleash even more pain on ordinary citizens.”

Younus said, “Sooner or later the country will either need a robust reform roadmap that convinces folks to lend to the country again or go down the path of debt restructuring.”

This week, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva said the fund is working hard to ensure that Pakistan has the policy framework so that its debt does not become unsustainable.

Pakistan is among a group of countries that international credit agencies have warned could be vulnerable to default this year, as their economies try to recover from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The London-based Fitch Ratings group last month said there are now a record five Fitch-rated sovereigns currently in default: Belarus, Lebanon, Ghana, Sri Lanka and Zambia.

Ali Furqan contributed to this report. This story originated in VOA’s Urdu Service.
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A gathering of regional foreign ministers to discuss the way forward in Afghanistan this week brought little in the way of new initiatives but provided a forum for several of Kabul’s neighbors to blame the country’s economic plight on the United States and its Western allies.

The United States “was described as an irresponsible actor, which for two decades destroyed Afghanistan and now refuses to cover the damage,” said a Central Asian diplomat who described to VOA the general mood at the Samarkand gathering hosted by Uzbekistan and attended by representatives of Afghanistan, China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity.

That message was reflected on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Telegram channel, which said the participants “emphasized that the U.S. and its NATO allies must be held accountable for the outcome of their 20-year military campaign, which brought Afghanistan to its current dire state.”

The foreign ministry stressed “the countries of the collective West should assume the main financial burden for the post-conflict reconstruction of Afghanistan.” Moscow also called to immediately unfreeze Afghanistan’s national assets held in Western institutions, saying that is “especially important for resolving the humanitarian crisis in that country.”

Russia cited “the unacceptability of the U.S. and NATO attempts to deploy their military infrastructure on the territory of the neighboring countries of Afghanistan.” The United States has sought a presence in the region to monitor and address threats from terrorist groups such as Islamic State.

Uzbekistan stresses need

Host Uzbekistan, in its own statement, avoided direct criticism of the United States but underscored the need for a joint mechanism to provide humanitarian assistance and restore Afghanistan’s economy.

It said the parties discussed the Taliban’s implementation of the international community’s main demands, “such as the creation of an inclusive government, the opportunity for Afghan women to work and receive education and ensuring the rights of the minorities.”

Uzbekistan considers Afghanistan an integral part of Central Asia and sees it as key to connecting Central and South Asia, opening commercial routes for landlocked country like itself.

“In this context, the parties spoke in favor of the implementation of infrastructure and socioeconomic projects in the territory of Afghanistan with the participation of neighboring states, which will contribute not only to the creation of new jobs but also to a more active integration of Afghanistan into regional economic processes,” Tashkent said.

Foreign ministers criticize West

No public comments were released by Turkmenistan, which has the longest Central Asian border with Afghanistan, or Tajikistan, which is supporting ethnic Tajiks in northern Afghanistan and is the only country in the region accepting Afghan refugees.

Displaying Tehran’s typical disdain for U.S. foreign policy, Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said the West “should admit responsibility for decades of destruction in this country and compensate it. Afghanistan’s geography cannot be used as a leverage against the regional countries.”

Amir-Abdollahian also accused Washington of “supporting and guiding Daesh and other terrorist and extremist groups in the south and north of Afghanistan.” Daesh is another name for the Islamic State extremist group, which has claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks in Afghanistan both before and after the Taliban takeover.

Pakistan’s Minister of State Hina Rabbani Khar urged the international community to help the Afghan people, criticizing the West for “advocating a complete break from Afghanistan, to offload its problems to the neighborhood and to walk away.”

Western governments have in fact continued to contribute to relief efforts in Afghanistan while funneling that aid through international organizations rather than directly funding the Taliban administration. The United States alone says it has provided more than $1.1 billion in humanitarian assistance since August 2021.

The United Nations also has almost 4,000 employees working in Afghanistan mainly on relief efforts, although it recently suspended operations after the Taliban issued an order banning its female Afghan employees from working.

Islamabad’s envoy warned of declining humanitarian support for Afghanistan and said it is time to re-assess policies that question the utility of engaging the interim Afghan government.

‘The U.S. should not sit back’

Ahead of the forum, Beijing declared its readiness to work with the countries around Afghanistan as well as the international community to help the struggling nation, calling on the Biden administration “to live up to its commitments” in Afghanistan.

Following the conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told reporters the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was a multifold strategic failure.

Echoing China’s oft-repeated grievances with Washington, Qin charged that the 20-year U.S. military presence did not bring peace to Afghanistan, and the West’s attempt to affect a “democratic transformation” of the country did not fit local conditions.

Qin also demanded the return of Afghanistan’s $7 billion in financial reserves that the United States froze in New York immediately after the Taliban seized power last year. President Joe Biden later authorized the release of half of the reserves and left the rest for 9/11 victims to pursue through ongoing litigation.

“The U.S. should not sit back and ignore the current plight of the Afghan people, and their hard-earned money forcibly seized by the U.S. must be returned as soon as possible,” the Chinese envoy said.

Hope, human rights

In a joint Samarkand Declaration issued Friday, Afghanistan’s neighbors and Russia reaffirmed their commitment to the development of Afghanistan “as a peaceful, united, sovereign and independent state, free from the threats of terrorism and drug trafficking.”

Underlining the prerequisite for a government reflecting the interests of all segments of the Afghan society, the parties noted the terrorism-related situation remained severe with several extremist groups “still based in Afghanistan” and threatening regional and global security.

These groups were listed as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Al-Qaeda, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Balochistan Liberation Army, Jundallah, Jaish al-Adl, Jamaat Ansarullah and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

The declaration said the international community must communicate with Afghanistan and expressed hope that the United Nations will continue its humanitarian assistance to the country, while calling on the Taliban to respect human rights, including those of all ethnic groups and women.

The attendees cheered Uzbekistan’s proposal to launch a U.N.-led negotiation group and Tajikistan’s initiative to create a “security belt” around Afghanistan.

Speaking at a recent policy seminar in Washington, Gavin Helf of the U.S. Institute of Peace said American policy-makers and thinkers “are still very confused about how to respond” to the challenges in Afghanistan.

“Are we for helping the Taliban to get humanitarian support or do we want to see regime change?” he asked at the event sponsored by the George Washington University’s Central Asia Program. “We don’t yet have any answers to these questions in terms of policy.”

As a result, Helf said, the Central Asians have begun to address the situation “from a position of their own agency, trying to take the lead.”

“Is the best way to deal with your neighbor as the Taliban engagement, looking for evolution or is it containment? Or is it confrontation?”

Helf’s questions were partly answered by the visiting Uzbek delegation last week, which touted Tashkent’s dialogue with the Taliban as not advocacy or support of this group but an effort to prevent the situation in Afghanistan from getting worse.
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Police in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state arrested four members of a right-wing Hindu group Wednesday after charging that they slaughtered a cow near the city of Agra and tried to frame some Muslims in the case, apparently to spur hostility toward Muslims.

The slaughter of cattle – considered sacred by Hindus — is banned in many Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh, where conviction can incur up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of up to about $6,000.

Rakesh Kumar Singh, one of the assistant police commissioners in Agra, told reporters April 8 that Jitendra Kushwaha, a senior leader of the Hindu right-wing group All India Hindu Mahasabha, or AIHM, filed a police complaint alleging that during the early hours of March 30, he had witnessed the slaughtering of a cow by four Muslim men.

The group even staged a demonstration demanding arrest of the “Muslim culprits” — Mohammad Rizwan and his three sons.

The police arrested Rizwan and his sons, booking them under the UP Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act. However, after investigating, the police determined that the four Muslims were not involved with the case and that Sanjay Jat, an AIHM spokesperson, had hatched the conspiracy to slaughter the cow.

On April 8, the police announced that the four Muslims were innocent and Hindu activists were the culprits and would be arrested.

“Sanjay Jat is the main conspirator. His followers and friends slaughtered a cow…[and asked] Jitendra Kushwaha to file a case against Mohammad Rizwan [and other Muslims] … Later, the investigation revealed that the named accused had nothing to do with the crime,” Singh told the Indian newspaper The Telegraph.

“Jitendra, Sanjay and a few others were near the spot of the cow slaughter, call records suggest, not those they named in the police complaint. Call records also show that the accused persons had not gone to that spot in over a month.”

In recent years, during the festival of Ram Navami in India, communal tension often breaks out between Hindus and Muslims. An unidentified police officer in Agra told The Telegraph: “The cow was slaughtered on the eve of Ram Navami to disturb social harmony.”

Hindu leader blames rivals

Jat, however, has insisted he is innocent.

“Some of my rivals are trying to falsely implicate me and some of my colleagues in this case. We will conduct protest demonstrations if the case is not investigated properly,” Jat told local TV channels.

Social activists said that the Hindu right-wing group organized the killing of the cow in an attempt to frame Muslims and incite Hindus against them.

The news of a cow being slaughtered at the behest of the leaders of the AIHM with an aim to create communal tension and use this as an excuse to do violence against Muslims is not surprising, Delhi University professor and social activist Apoorvanand, who uses one name, told VOA.

“This has been the modus operandi of the Hindu supremacist bodies for a long time. There are numerous cases of their people throwing beef in temples. Members of various Hindu supremacist groups have been caught planting the national flag of Pakistan at different places in India. And, they blamed all the acts on Muslims, to incite Hindus against Muslims,” Apoorvanand said.

“They can go to any extent to defame Muslims and then attack them using that pretext.”

Kolkata-based social activist Malay Tewari said that there are scores of instances of “false-flag operations” by Hindu right-wing group activists in India.

“Through such false-flag operations, the Hindu right-wing groups, who work like foot soldiers of India’s ruling BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party], aim to whip up anti-Muslim passion to polarize Hindus against Muslims. India is a Hindu-majority country. A polarization on communal lines immensely helps Hindu nationalist BJP garner more votes from the majority community,” Tewari told VOA.

“In a cow slaughter case, Muslims are usually convicted to the strictest punishment of jail terms and fines. Let us see if the Hindu right-wing activists in the Agra case are awarded the same level of punishment, too,” he said.
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The top diplomats from Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan attended a conference Thursday that focused on ensuring regional security considering the situation in Afghanistan.

The foreign ministers of the four countries met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and discussed the need to cooperate with Afghan authorities to maintain political stability and to prevent a humanitarian crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The ministers also talked about the coordination of efforts to “counter the threats of terrorism and drug trafficking from the Afghan territory.”

Russia and China are among a few countries that have kept their diplomatic missions in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, since the Taliban took power in August 2021.

Moscow worked for years to establish contacts with the Taliban, even though it designated the group a terror organization in 2003 and never took it off the list. It hosted several rounds of talks on Afghanistan that involved senior representatives of the Taliban and neighboring countries.

Beijing has taken a higher profile on regional issues related to Afghanistan as part of China’s efforts to extend its global clout.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang held separate talks on the sidelines of Thursday’s meeting to discuss a range of issues, including the situation in Ukraine, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

In a statement preceding the Uzbekistan conference, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing was ready to work more closely with Afghanistan’s neighbors and the international community for stability, security, prosperity, and development in both the country and wider region.

The statement reaffirmed China’s pledge to respect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, as well as the choices made by its people. It called on the international community to firmly support Afghanistan to combat terrorism, and it urged the United States to live up to its commitment to the country.

Beijing also expressed hope that Afghanistan’s interim government would continue working actively to meet its people’s interests and the international community’s expectations for an open and inclusive political structure.

“We hope the Afghan interim government will protect the basic rights and interests of all Afghan people, including women, children and all ethnic groups,” the statement said.

Girls currently cannot attend school beyond sixth grade, and women are not allowed at universities in Afghanistan. Authorities present the education restrictions as a temporary suspension and not a ban, but universities and schools reopened in March without their female students.

Women also are barred from public spaces, including parks, and most forms of employment.

The policies have raised fierce international objections, increasing the country’s isolation at a time when its economy has collapsed and worsened a humanitarian crisis.

No country has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
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Uzbekistan is hosting a conference Thursday of foreign ministers of regional countries, including Russia and China, to review the situation and cooperation with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

The event in the Uzbek city of Samarkand comes as the United Nations reviews its presence in the strife-torn South Asian nation after the radical Taliban barred female staff from working for the world body, the latest in a series of curbs placed on Afghan women.

Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is attending Thursday’s meeting with counterparts from Russia and six neighbors of Afghanistan, including China, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.

Muttaqi’s office confirmed his arrival in Samarkand on Twitter, saying Uzbek officials received him “warmly.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, earlier also arrived in Samarkand to attend the meeting.

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement said Wednesday that participants at the Samarkand huddle “will focus on the development of regional economic integration and the implementation of transport and energy projects involving Kabul under earlier agreements.”

On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, responding to criticism of the Taliban’s restrictions on women and lack of political inclusivity, told reporters Beijing supports “the Afghan government in adopting moderate, prudent and inclusive policies.”

Wang said his government had maintained contact with the Taliban government to help them and the Afghan people overcome reconstruction, economic development, and security-related challenges.

“China stands ready to step up coordination and cooperation with Afghanistan’s neighbors and the rest of the world to help Afghanistan embark on a path of stability and development,” he said.

Beijing and Moscow have stepped up engagements with the Taliban since they seized control of Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S.-led Western troops withdrew after 20 years of war.

China’s Policy

Analysts say Beijing’s growing engagement with Kabul stems from potentially vital economic opportunities and to expand Beijing’s regional influence. They see Afghanistan’s largely unexplored mineral wealth and the presence of anti-China militants in the country as the main drivers behind the increased Chinese diplomatic outreach.

The impoverished nation, reeling from years of war and natural calamities, links West Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia countries. China has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure and economic development projects in these countries under its global Belt and Road Initiative, hoping to make Afghanistan part of it.

“China welcomes Afghanistan’s participation in Belt and Road cooperation and supports Afghanistan’s integration into regional economic cooperation and connectivity that will transform Afghanistan from a ‘land-locked country’ to a ‘land-linked country,'” the Chinese foreign ministry said in its Afghan policy document released on Wednesday.

China and Russia are among several regional and neighboring countries that have kept their embassies in Kabul after the Taliban takeover. But no foreign government has recognized the Taliban authorities, citing curbs on Afghan women and concerns stemming from other human rights abuses.

“We hope the Afghan interim government will protect the basic rights and interests of all Afghan people, including women, children, and all ethnic groups, and continue working actively to meet Afghan people’s interests and the international community’s expectations,” the Chinese foreign ministry said Wednesday.

The United Nations has condemned the “unlawful” ban on hundreds of its Afghan female staff, imposed a week ago, and warned it could push the global organization to stop operations in the country.

The Taliban on Wednesday defended their decision to forbid Afghan women from working for the U.N., saying it is an internal matter that all parties should respect.

Afghanistan is home to one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, where the United Nations says 28.3 million people, or two-thirds of the population, need humanitarian assistance, with 6 million people on the brink of famine.
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Rural Afghanistan is “facing a very concerning situation,” where households live in a “quite desperate’” situation facing extreme food shortages and acute malnutrition, said a U.N. official who visited Afghanistan in recent weeks.

Rein Paulsen, the director of the Office of Emergencies and Resilience at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, told VOA “the situation is concerning. Households lack basic supplies. They lack often seeds to produce staple foods. They may lack animal feed to keep animals alive.”

The U.N. Food agency, World Food Program, said Monday it “urgently” needs $800 million in the next six months to help Afghans in need as a “catastrophic hunger knocks on Afghanistan’s doors.”

Paulsen said beyond immediate needs, the agriculture sector in Afghanistan has to be supported to help people produce for themselves as it is “one of the most effective ways to make sure people have food at a precarious time.”

In a Skype interview, Paulsen told Shaista Sadat Lami of VOA’s Afghan Service that all their programs “benefit either directly or indirectly” women in the country in addition to having some activities that are focused on households headed by women.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Could you please shed some light on Afghanistan’s need, as we know the situation is dire in the country, when it comes to food shortages and malnutrition?

Rein Paulsen: Afghanistan’s rural populations are facing a deep crisis and the risk of a collapse of rural livelihood is real. The situation is deteriorating. Obviously, the winter months have been difficult. We’re in a lean season, but just to put some numbers around this, the latest estimation we have that approximately 20 million people are facing what’s called acute food insecurity. This is in the range of about 46% of the total population. So, this means that we have a population at risk with rising levels of malnutrition, acute malnutrition and situations that are quite desperate, families facing extreme food shortages and acute malnutrition, like I said, disease levels are high. So, the situation is concerning. Households that are in this type of a situation lack basic supplies. They lack often seeds to produce staple foods. They may lack animal feed to keep animals alive, which are vital for protein and for access to milk. So, all in all, we’re facing a very concerning situation, which is why the FAO has been expanding its response in Afghanistan to address the needs of some of the most vulnerable people in rural areas.

Just last year in 2022, the FOA directly supported more than 6 million Afghans, and this was spread across all 34 provinces in the country, and we do it through different packages of what we call emergency agricultural assistance. Some of those are focused on protecting livestock. So, this is concentrated animal feed and it’s about animal health, veterinary support to keep animals alive. Some of it is focused on allowing people to plant key crops. We had a very large campaign for the winter wheat season as well as now for the spring cropping season, where we give seeds and fertilizers, but also training to help farmers. We also give cash to vulnerable families who may not have an opportunity to grow for themselves. These are then the most food-insecure households. And indeed, we also support women directly, female-headed households, and this can be through poultry support programs, provision of chickens to allow access to protein or indeed to allow cultivation of vegetables at a backyard garden level. So, we’re talking here about tailored packages that respond to vulnerable households’ particular needs.

VOA: How do you determine who should be helped? And how do you set your priorities?

Paulsen: As a specialized technical agency of the United Nations, one of our strengths is on a needs assessment on understanding vulnerabilities and resilience and doing surveys and assessment within communities that identify the families that are in most need of urgent support. And then we triangulate that information through speaking to key stakeholders, even using independent monitors to verify the information. We want to make sure that the people we support are really those that are most vulnerable, most in need of support. And this is an experience that we have in Afghanistan over years and decades and, indeed, globally over years and decades, so people can have confidence in the impartiality of the activities that we implement.

VOA: How does supporting the agriculture sector help with the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan?

Paulsen: It’s vital that we get a key agricultural input in the hands of farmers so that they can take advantage of planting seasons as they’re coming in. I should say that one of the most cost-effective ways to support people is actually not trucking in and providing international assistance. One of the most cost-effective ways is to allow people to produce themselves. I mentioned the winter wheat campaign. So, this is to allow a family of seven to produce all of the cereal that they need for a 12-month period. It costs just $220. It’s a package that allows the family to produce enough food to meet their annual cereal needs. It even typically leaves a bit of a surplus for them to sell. So incredibly cost-effective interventions that allow people to support themselves. Natural disasters do create an additional challenge and for Afghanistan specifically, we know that as we were in 2022, this was the third consecutive year of lower-than-normal rainfall and drought conditions, which has really created problems.

VOA: We have reports on the shortage of aid activities. How worried are you that the aid might not be enough for all the needy people?

Paulsen: I should say that donors provided a lot of funding last year, in 2022, and really stepped up to respond to the drought situation. And organizations like FAO were able to scale up our activities as a result. If I talk about the most cost-effective way to respond, it’s because the dollars aren’t enough. We really do need to maximize the impact of every single dollar that we receive for funding, and this is why some of the agricultural interventions that I mentioned are so important. This $220 wheat package that I talked about before, if a family had to buy wheat flour for 12 months, if they had the money and if the flour was available on the markets, it would cost maybe four to five times as much to buy. If you had to provide international in-kind food assistance, the cost could be eight, nine or 10 times as much. So, allowing people to produce for themselves is one of the most effective ways to make sure people have food at a precarious time. Beyond responding to immediate needs, people are then able to keep seeds for the next season, they may have animals so there is a multiplier effect. You can tell I’m a true believer in the role of agriculture in terms of meeting emergency needs.

VOA: How many women are being helped through these agriculture programs, as we know many women are the breadwinners of families due to four decades of war in Afghanistan?

Paulsen: All of the agriculture emergency activities that we implement in Afghanistan benefit women either directly or indirectly and we have activities that are specifically designed to support vulnerable, landless, food-insecure, female-headed households. This is one of our key priority groups for all the reasons you mentioned. Our emergency activities are really driven by who are the most vulnerable. And so, unsurprisingly, there’s a segment that’s focused on female-headed households, in that regard. But indeed, women play a vital role in agriculture in Afghanistan as they do in really every country around the world. And it’s important to target the right types of activities and support to female-headed households.

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

Pakistan’s defense minister, Khawaja Asif, has said that Islamabad has warned the Afghan Taliban it will strike terrorist hideouts inside Afghanistan if the de facto rulers in Kabul are unable to rein in anti-Pakistan militants.

In an exclusive interview with Voice of America, Asif said in his late-February visit to Afghanistan that he reminded Taliban leaders to live up to their cross-border security commitments forbidding terrorists from using Afghan soil to plan and conduct attacks on Pakistan or Islamabad will take action.

“If that is not done, at some point we’ll have to … resort to some measures, which will definitely — wherever [terrorists] are, their sanctuaries on Afghan soil — we’ll have to hit them,” he said. “We’ll have to hit them because we cannot tolerate this situation for long.”

Since the Afghan Taliban’s August 2021 takeover of Kabul, Pakistan has seen a resurgence in terror attacks led by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the TTP, an ideological offshoot and ally of the Afghan Taliban.

According to the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, the country recorded at least 262 terror attacks in 2022, of which the TTP was responsible for at least 89. Last November, the group ended a unilateral cease-fire after talks with Islamabad broke down. Since then, the country has seen near-daily lethal attacks, most of them targeting members of the military and police.

Pakistan alleges TTP leadership is operating from Afghanistan after Pakistani military operations in the border areas a few years ago forced it to flee along with thousands of fighters.

When asked if he believed the Afghan Taliban’s assertion that the TTP is not operating from Afghan soil, Asif said, “they still operate from their soil.”

Asif claimed Taliban leadership “responded very well” to the recent warning. He said he believes that the Afghan Taliban are trying to “disentangle” from the TTP, after receiving support from the group to fight the U.S.-led coalition troops.

Last April, Pakistan struck what it claimed was a TTP outpost in eastern Afghanistan. However, a large number of civilian deaths in the operation led to a strong reaction by the Afghan Taliban.

Asif said he hopes the security threat to his country will not escalate to a point where “we have to do something which will be not to the liking of our neighbors and our brothers in Kabul,” whom he said Pakistan “wished well” in their efforts to establish their writ across Afghanistan.

But Asif also criticized former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan and the previous military and intelligence leadership for allowing thousands of Taliban fighters and their families to return to Pakistan in a bid to continue negotiations with the militants. Intelligence reports say that allowed the terrorists to regroup.

In a recent interview with VOA, Khan defended that decision, saying Pakistan did not have many options.

“Should we have just lined them up and shot them or should we have tried to work with them to resettle them?” Khan said, accusing Pakistani security forces and intelligence agencies of negligence as terrorists reorganized.

Pakistani government and security officials allege TTP fighters attacking Pakistan are using arms and equipment left behind by U.S. troops at the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet told VOA in February that U.S. officials do not have an independent assessment of that claim.

Asif said the TTP was using light weapons, assault rifles, ammunition, night vision goggles and sniper rifles that U.S. troops left behind. When asked if Pakistan had shared any evidence with Washington, Asif questioned how that would help Islamabad as “Washington left … that sort of hardware on foreign soil because they couldn’t carry it.”

Alluding to the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan after two decades of fighting U.S. and coalition troops, Asif questioned Washington’s ability to fight terrorism successfully or the need to request its help to fight terrorism in Pakistan.

“I do not see any logic in that,” he said. “My personal view is that we can take care of this … menace ourselves.”

After conducting two large-scale military operations against terrorists in 2014 and 2017, Pakistan is once again contemplating a comprehensive plan, including a possible military operation in areas bordering Afghanistan. But Pakistan is also in the throes of an economic crisis as the threat of a default looms due to mounting external debt payments, dwindling foreign reserves and stalled bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund.

Asif said the economic crisis is the biggest threat for the country right now and the military, which receives the largest chunk of the annual federal budget, is looking at curtailing its expenses. However, he refused to specify where the cuts would be made.

He also did not elaborate on where the finances would come from if Pakistan decided to conduct a new military operation.

Pakistan’s military has a history of meddling in politics, a fact the previous army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, admitted publicly last year. Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan accuses the army of orchestrating his ouster a year ago, while his opponents accuse him of coming to power on the military’s back.

Asif believes the military will uphold its latest pledge of staying out of politics.

“I am 100% sure that the next election will … be [without] any interference,” he said.

Despite facing a trifecta of crises—political instability, an economic meltdown and rising terrorism—Asif said he has “absolutely no doubt” that Pakistan’s defense is stable.
…

When Shamsuzzaman Shams walked out of prison on bail last week, his colleagues draped garlands around the Bangladeshi journalist’s neck.

Shams, a reporter for the daily Prothom Alo newspaper, had spent six days in the Dhaka Central Jail over accusations that he published “false news” about food prices.

He now faces two legal complaints under the country’s Digital Security Act, and his colleague, Prothom Alo editor Matiur Rahman, is named in one of those cases.

The arrest came as analysts noted a rise in the legal harassment of journalists in Bangladesh, often under the security measure. Some media advocates have said that authorities are too quick to use the law instead of the Press Council to mediate complaints involving the news media.

Introduced in 2018, the Digital Security Act was drafted to protect against online content deemed to defame or harm the nation.

Media advocates say the law’s wide provisions allow for authorities to silence critics and stifle free expression. The act allows searches without a warrant and carries sentences of up to 14 years in prison.

Between October 2018 and August 2022, the act has been cited in 1,029 cases including cases involving 301 politicians and 280 journalists, a report by the Bangladesh research group, Centre for Governance Studies, found.

In Shams’s case, the arrest is linked to a mistake that his paper says it tried to quickly correct.

Shams had interviewed residents about their lives on Independence Day in Bangladesh.

As part of that reporting on March 26, Prothom Alo shared a graphic on its Facebook page that included a quote from a laborer. But an accompanying photograph erroneously showed a child who was also featured in Shams article rather than the laborer, said the paper’s executive editor, Sajjad Sharif.

“We removed the ‘graphic card’ from our Facebook page soon after posting it, fearing that it might confuse readers,” Sharif told VOA. “And a correction note was also published beneath the online report.”

Joint editor Sohrab Hassan added that while the outlet tried to correct its error in the graphic, it stands by the reporting.

“After learning about the story, we took it down from our social media post; however, we do stand by our print story,” he said.

Three days later — in the early hours of March 29 — more than a dozen officers came to Shams’s home in Savar, a city in Dhaka district.

The agents searched the journalist’s room, confiscated a laptop, mobile phones and a portable hard disk, and detained him.

VOA emailed the Information and Communications Technology Ministry for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The minister for law, Anisul Huq, told reporters shortly after Sham’s arrest that the journalist had “misrepresented facts with the mala fide intention of creating discontent.” 

The minister said that the case against the media outlet was not filed by the government and that “due process will follow.”

Sharif questioned why the case against his team was dealt with under the Digital Security Act instead of being referred to the Press Council, which is supposed to handle such matters.

The latter body reviews complaints against the news media. It has the power to investigate complaints and issue warnings.

The secretary general of the writers’ group PEN International Bangladesh, Syeda Aireen Jaman, said she believes the arrest is an attempt to create fear.

Speaking about the case that led to Shams’s arrest, Jaman said, “This was just a mistake, nothing else — totally unintentional from the journalistic point of view.”

Referring to the Digital Security Act, she said, “I would go so far as to say that it’s a draconian law created by the government to target individuals they dislike for no justifiable reason, simply because these individuals speak the truth.”

Faruq Faisel, the regional director for rights organization Article 19, said the rights organization is “deeply concerned about the current state of press freedom in Bangladesh,” adding that it is “disheartening to see an increase in such incidents.”

Faisel said the lawsuit against the journalists risks creating an “environment of fear” and that the Digital Security Act “seems biased in favor of the government.”

Bangladesh dropped 10 points on the World Press Freedom Index in 2022. It currently ranks 162 out of 180 countries, where No. 1 represents the best environment for media, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The media watchdog described the Digital Security Act as “one of the world’s most draconian laws for journalists” and said it is often used to keep media workers in prison.  
…

An imprisoned opposition activist with Azerbaijan Popular Front Party has been on hunger strike for more than 60 days.

Zamin Salayev’s lawyer, who last met with his client on April 7, said Salayev’s health is deteriorating.

“There are already lesions on his body, he has lost a lot of weight,” Nemat Karimli told VOA, adding that Salayev is not being closely monitored by doctors.

According to Karimli, Salayev is determined to continue his hunger strike until he is released.

“He says ‘either freedom or death.’ He will continue his hunger strike until he dies,” Karimli said.

Salayev was detained on February 8 and ordered to serve three months of pretrial detention on charges of “hooliganism.” If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.

He was arrested after “an unidentified person stabbed a resident of Sahil district, Natiq Suleymanov, in the stomach and hand, and then left the scene. The victim was hospitalized. Qaradagh District Police Department detained Zamin [Alzamin] Salayev as a suspect in the stabbing,” the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs told VOA by telephone.

Salayev denies the allegations and says they are politically motivated.

His lawyer told VOA: “He [Salayev] said the criminal case is fabricated. A person insulted him and attacked him with a knife in his hand when he was getting out of a taxi in Baku’s Lokbatan district. A few minutes later police officers detained Zamin.”

Activists facing ‘hooliganism’ crimes

Azerbaijani authorities often use “hooliganism” charges to detain opposition activists.

In November 2021, Baku Serious Crimes Court sentenced Agil Humbatov, another activist of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, to 10 years in prison. He was charged with “intentionally causing serious harm to health in a generally dangerous manner with the intention of hooliganism.” Human rights defenders identify him as a political prisoner.

On April 11, Humbatov’s wife, Aygun Humbatova, held a protest in front of the Ministry of Justice, claiming that Humbatov was not provided with proper medical care in the penitentiary.

“I am very worried about his health, there are problems related to his health. I have appealed many times to the Ministry of Justice, the Ombudsman, the Red Cross, and all they say is that they will take care of the matter, but no one does anything. Agil is dying in prison,” she told VOA.

Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, another prominent Azerbaijani human rights activist, was arrested on December 9, 2022, and also charged with “hooliganism” and contempt of court. He was ordered by the Khatai District Court to spend one and a half months of pretrial detention. His pretrial detention has been been extended to April 28.

On April 7, the Baku Court of Appeal upheld a lower court’s decision to deny a petition filed by Karimli to release Salayev on house arrest.

Karimli told VOA that the pretrial investigation of the case was completed on April 6 and there is no basis to keep Salayev in prison.

Karimli said Salayev’s supporters will appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights.

International rights groups routinely catalog abuses and dubious charges against opposition politicians and rights activists in Azerbaijan.

This story originated in VOA’s Azerbaijani service. Tapdiq Guliyev contributed.
…

New developments:

Russia’s defense ministry said it conducted a successful test launch of what it called an “advanced” intercontinental ballistic missile.
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns told an audience at Rice University that deepening isolation from the West as a result of its invasion of Ukraine puts Russia at “risk of becoming an economic colony of China,” Reuters reported.
World Bank President David Malpass said Western European governments will need to contribute money in order to achieve the sums needed to rebuild Ukraine after the war

Ukrainian officials on Wednesday denounced Russia after a video emerged on social media purportedly showing a man in uniform beheading a man whose clothing included a symbol worn by Ukrainian soldiers.

News agencies could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video.

“There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message he posted Wednesday.

Zelenskyy said the video showed the “execution of a Ukrainian captive” and that “everyone must react.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that the video was awful and that its authenticity needs to be verified.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, renewed criticism of Russia’s holding of the rotating presidency at the U.N. Security Council and said Russia “must be kicked out of Ukraine and the U.N. and be held accountable for their crimes.”

Indian aid

India said Wednesday that Ukraine has asked for its help in the form of humanitarian supplies, including medicine and medical equipment.

India’s foreign ministry said the request came in a letter from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered during a visit to India by Ukraine’s First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Emine Dzhaparova.

The Indian foreign ministry statement said Dzhaparova also mentioned during her talks that rebuilding Ukraine’s infrastructure could represent an opportunity for Indian companies.

Dzhaparova tweeted during his visit that Ukraine is counting on India “being on the right side at a historic moment.”

Zelenskyy, in his nightly address Tuesday, called on the people of Ukraine and Ukraine’s allies to not lose focus or relax at this stage of the conflict.

“We managed to do a lot together with our partners to protect people, Ukraine, and the whole of Europe, but this doesn’t mean it’s time to rest on our laurels,” Zelenskyy said. “The path is ahead. The movement is ahead, something that requires no less unity from us than before, no less focus than before.”

Some material in this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

The Taliban said Tuesday their security forces had killed at least eight fighters from an armed opposition group in northern Afghanistan.

The fighting, about 120 kilometers north Kabul in Parwan province, marks the first significant clash between Taliban forces and NRF combatants in months.

Akmal Amiri, a key commander of the National Resistance Front or NRF, was among those killed in the raid against an opposition hideout, said a statement from the Taliban-led Afghan defense ministry.

“The mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate will not allow any group or individual to threaten the security and well-being of our people,” the statement vowed, using the official title of the Taliban government.

The NRF confirmed the death of Amiri and his combatants. It said that a second senior commander was also among the dead, identifying him as Nasir Ahmad Andrabi.

The opposition statement said the fighting had lasted several hours, quoting its self-exiled chief, Ahmad Massoud, as paying tribute to the slain men.

“The martyrdom of these heroic fighters once again highlighted the need to create coordination and unity of action among all the forces opposing the Taliban,” said Massoud, an ethnic Tajik leader.

Last September, Taliban security forces launched a “large-scale” operation against insurgents in Panjshir province and killed 40 NRF fighters, including several commanders. Taliban officials said the operation also captured scores of rebels. The fighting has since subsided in the area, barring a few isolated opposition attacks.

The NRF has been leading a low-level armed resistance to Taliban rule since the fundamentalist group seized control of Afghanistan in August 2021. Its fighters are mostly active in the remote mountains of Panjshir and parts of neighboring provinces, including Parwan.

Anti-Taliban opposition forces essentially comprise members of the now-defunct U.S.-trained Afghan security forces.

Massoud is the son of anti-Taliban mujahedeen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, whom al-Qaida suicide bombers, posing as journalists, assassinated two days before the terrorist network-plotted attacks hit the United States in September 2001.

Panjshir, under the slain Massoud, was at the center of resistance against the Taliban when they previously ruled the country from 1996 to 2001.

Critics are skeptical whether the current Afghan armed opposition could pose a serious threat to the Taliban, saying the de facto authorities, unlike their previous stint in power, are now better armed, possessing U.S. armored vehicles and other sophisticated military weapons left behind by the United States and NATO militaries.

More than $7 billion in U.S.-funded military equipment was in the inventory of the former Afghan government when it collapsed in the face of then-insurgent Taliban nationwide attacks amid the U.S.-led foreign troop exit from the country 19 months ago, the U.S. Department of Defense estimated in a report released last year.
…

Bangladeshi police have arrested a 23-year-old man following a televised documentary in which he alleged he was tortured while in the custody of Bangladesh’s elite counterterrorism force on a charge of illegal alcohol possession.

Rights activists say they fear the arrest Sunday of Nafiz Mohammad Alam, a former gang member who had had past brushes with the law, could be an act of retaliation from the authorities after he described how members of the Rapid Action Battalion, or RAB, allegedly tortured people in custody. The documentary was produced by the Germany-based Deutsche Welle broadcaster and Netra News – a Sweden-based investigative journalism platform focusing on Bangladesh.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said, “The arrest of whistle-blower Nafiz Mohammad Alam within hours of the release of an investigative report about RAB abuses, including his allegations of torture at RAB’s hands, is profoundly disturbing and raises serious concerns about his safety.” 

Long accused of rights violations 

Human rights groups have long accused the RAB of thousands of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. Since 2010, the groups have published dozens of reports alleging the RAB and other security agencies in Bangladesh were involved in serious human rights violations, mostly against political activists and dissidents opposed to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League-led government. 

Although senior government officials in Bangladesh have denied accusations facing the RAB, the United States in late 2021 imposed human rights-related sanctions on the force along with six of its former and then-serving officers.  

The Dhaka Metropolitan Police have denied his arrest had anything to do with the documentary. They say he was taken into custody in connection with a pornography-related case dating to 2021. They also say he broke the law by possessing alcohol without the required documents. 

“When we arrested him on Sunday, we found that he illegally stocked alcohol at home and so we are going to file another suit against him,” the police statement said. 

This is the second time Alam has faced arrest for illegal alcohol possession.

In 2021, the RAB arrested him for illegally stocking and selling foreign liquor. He was identified as an illegal alcohol seller.

A license is required to stock or sell alcohol in Bangladesh.

On April 3, Deutsche Welle broadcast the documentary Inside the Death Squad, on alleged extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture by RAB members.

The documentary featured personal accounts from Alam and others, including former RAB members. 

Alam, whose identity was not hidden in the documentary, alleged that after he was arrested on the initial alcohol charge in 2021, he was tortured. In the documentary, he said he was beaten badly and given electric shocks. He also gave the description of what he called a “torture cell.”

Is the arrest reprisal? 

Although the police maintain that Alam was arrested in connection with the pornography case, rights activists view the arrest as possible reprisal. 

Given the track records of Bangladesh’s law enforcement agencies under the Sheikh Hasina regime, we were somewhat apprehensive that the government would retaliate against Nafiz Mohammad Alam for revealing the details of the secret torture cells and detention facilities that the RAB operates in the country,” said Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, liaison officer of the Hong Kong-based Asian Legal Resource Center.

“Alam, as a victim of torture under arbitrary detention, dared to reveal the ordeals he had gone through at the RAB torture cells. By torturing Nafiz in custody, the RAB officers committed a criminal offense under the country’s Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention) Act, 2013,” Ashrafuzzaman told VOA.

“The government should have independently probed all the torture, extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance-related crimes, including the torture of Alam, committed by the RAB and act against the erring officials. Instead, the regime has detained the victim for speaking out against the RAB’s custodial torture,” Ashrafuzzaman added. 

HRW’s Robertson said that the Bangladeshi authorities “have a solemn obligation to make sure that no harm comes to him” while he is in custody, and that “he is afforded access to his lawyers and his family members on a continuous basis.” 

“RAB’s stubborn refusal to take responsibility for the abuses committed by its members or consider serious reforms in the way it operates continue to leave a massive black mark on Bangladesh’s human rights record,” Robertson added. 

He said, “There needs to be concerted international pressure on PM Sheikh Hasina to hold RAB members accountable for the abuses they commit.”
…

The United Nations has warned that the Taliban’s “unlawful” ban on its female staff in Afghanistan could push the world body to cease operations in the country.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, issued the warning Tuesday, days after the fundamentalist authorities barred Afghan women employees from working for the mission in the improvised nation reeling from years of war and prolonged drought.

The statement reiterated the U.N.’s “unequivocal” condemnation of the restriction, saying the global organization cannot comply with it as it is against international law and the U.N. charter.

“Through this ban, the Taliban de facto authorities seek to force the U.N. into having to make an appalling choice between staying and delivering in support of the Afghan people, and standing by the norms and principles we are duty-bound to uphold,” the UNAMA stressed.

The mission’s chief, Roza Otunbayeva, has initiated a review of UNAMA operations in the country that could continue until May 5, the statement said.

“U.N. national personnel — women and men — have been instructed not to report to U.N. offices, with only limited and calibrated exceptions made for critical tasks.”

During the review period, the U.N. office in Kabul would conduct necessary consultations, make required operational adjustments, and accelerate contingency planning for all possible outcomes, the statement said.

“It should be clear that any negative consequences of this crisis for the Afghan people will be the responsibility of the de facto authorities,” the UNAMA cautioned.

The Taliban have not publicly commented on the restriction since it went into effect a week ago (April 4).

The United Nations has nearly 4,000 staff members in Afghanistan, of which about 3,300 are Afghan nationals. Among them are about 400 Afghan women and 200 international female staffers.

The ban on U.N. female staff is the latest in a series of restrictions the Taliban have imposed on Afghan women since reclaiming control of the country in August 2021.

The curbs have severely impacted women and girls’ participation in public and daily life. Afghan women have been banned from accessing higher education and many government jobs and public spaces. Girls are also not allowed to attend school beyond sixth grade.

On December 24, 2022, the Taliban banned Afghan women from working with domestic and international aid groups but did not include the United Nations at that time. Some international nongovernmental organizations suspended their work after the decree.

The de facto authorities have ignored calls to lift the curbs and dismissed criticism of their governance, saying it is in line with Afghan culture and Islamic law or Shariah.

The global community has refused to grant legitimacy to the men-only Taliban administration, primarily over human rights concerns and the treatment of women.

The United States and the international community at large have linked the legitimacy issue to the removal of restrictions on women and respect for human rights of all Afghans.

John Kirby, the U.S. national security council coordinator for strategic communications, reiterated to reporters last week that Washington does not recognize the Taliban as an official government in Afghanistan.

“If they want to be so recognized — at least by the United States — if they want to be seen as legitimate, then they need to own up to the promises they made about how they were going to govern that country and how they were going to treat their own people, including women and girls,” Kirby told reporters last week.

Afghanistan is one of the world’s largest humanitarian emergencies. The United Nations says 28.3 million people, two-thirds of the population, need humanitarian assistance.

Six million people are on the brink of famine. A $4.6 billion humanitarian appeal for this year is just over $200 million funded.

 
…

Sheela Singh cried the day she handed in her resignation. 

For 16 years, she had been a social worker in Mumbai, India’s frenetic financial capital, and she loved the work. But her family kept telling her she needed to stay at home to take care of her two children. She resisted the pressure for years, but when she found out her daughter was skipping school when she was at work, it felt like she didn’t have a choice. 

“Everyone used to tell me my kids were neglected … it made me feel really bad,” Singh, 39, said. 

When she resigned in 2020, Singh was earning more money than her husband, an auto-rickshaw driver whose earnings fluctuated day to day. But nobody suggested he quit. 

“His friends used to taunt him that he was living off my salary,” Singh said. “I thought that clearly there was no value in me working so what’s the use?” 

India is on the cusp of surpassing China to become the world’s most populous country, and its economy is among the fastest growing in the world. But the percentage of Indian women in the workforce, already among the 20 lowest in the world, has been shrinking for years. 

It’s not only a problem for women like Singh, but a growing challenge for India’s own economic ambitions if its estimated 670 million women are left behind as its population expands. The hope is that India’s fast-growing working-age population will propel its growth for years to come. Yet experts worry this could just as easily become a demographic liability if India fails to ensure its rising population, especially its women, are employed. 

Without Singh’s income, her family can no longer afford to live in Mumbai, one of Asia’s most expensive cities, and she’s now preparing to move back to her village to save money. “But there are no jobs there,” she sighed. 

The women’s employment rate peaked at 35% in 2004 and fell to about 25% in 2022, according to calculations based on official data, said Rosa Abraham, an economist at Azim Premji University. But official figures count as employed people who report as little as one hour of work outside the home in the previous week. 

A national jobs crisis is one reason for the gap, experts say, but entrenched cultural beliefs that see women as the primary caregivers and stigmatize them working outside the home, as in Singh’s case, is another. 

The Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE), which uses a more restrictive definition of employment, found that only 10% of working-age Indian women in 2022 were either employed or looking for jobs. This means there are only 39 million women employed in the workforce compared with 361 million men. 

Just a few decades ago, things seemed to be on a different track. 

When Singh became a social worker in 2004, India was still riding high from historic reforms in the 1990s. New industries and new opportunities were born seemingly overnight, sparking millions to leave their villages and move to cities like Mumbai in search of better jobs. 

It felt life changing. “I didn’t have a college degree, so I never thought it would be possible for someone like me to get a job in an office,” she said. 

Even then, leaving home to work was an uphill fight for many women. Sunita Sutar, who was in school in 2004, said that women in her village of Shirsawadi in Maharashtra state were usually married at 18, beginning lives that revolved around their husbands’ homes. Neighbors mocked her parents for investing in her education, saying it wouldn’t matter after marriage. 

Sutar bucked the trend. In 2013, she became the first person in her village of nearly 2,000 people to earn an engineering degree. 

“I knew that if I studied, only then would I become something — otherwise, I’d be like the rest, married off and stuck in the village,” Sutar said. 

Today, she lives and works in Mumbai as an auditor for the Indian Defense Department, a government job coveted by many Indians for its security, prestige and benefits. 

In one way, she was part of a trend: Indian women have gained better access to education since her youth and are now nearly at parity with men. But for most women, education hasn’t led to jobs. Even as more women have begun graduating from school, joblessness has swelled. 

“The working-age population continues to grow, but employment hasn’t kept up, which means the proportion of people with jobs will only decline,” said Mahesh Vyas, director at CMIE, adding there’s been a severe slowdown in good quality jobs in the past decade. “This also keeps women out of the workforce as they or their families may see more benefit in taking care of the home or children, instead of toiling in low-paid work.” 

And even when jobs are available, social pressures can keep women away. 

In her home village in Uttar Pradesh state, Lalmani Chauhan hardly ever saw women working outside the home. But when she came to Mumbai in 2006, she saw women swarm public spaces, she said, serving food in cafes, cutting hair or painting nails in salons, selling tickets for the local trains, or boarding the trains themselves, crammed into packed compartments as they rushed to work. It was motivating to see what was possible, she said. 

“When I started working and leaving the house, my family used to say I must be working as a prostitute,” said Chauhan, a social worker.  

One reason she was able to hold onto her job was because it became a lifeline when an accident left her husband bedridden and unable to work, Chauhan said. 

Economist Abraham said there is growing recognition among policymakers that the retreat of women from the workforce is a huge problem, but it has not been met with direct fixes like more childcare facilities or transportation safety. 

When more women participate in the labor market, she added, they contribute to the economy and their family’s income, but they also are empowered to make decisions. Children who grow up in a household where both parents work, especially girls, are more likely to be employed later. 

The number of working-age Indian women who don’t have jobs is staggering — almost twice the entire number of people in the United States. Experts say this gap could be a huge opportunity if India can find a way to plug it. A 2018 McKinsey report estimated that India could add $552 billion to its GDP by increasing its female workforce participation rate by 10%. 

Even as she prepares to leave her one-bedroom home, tucked deep inside a narrow lane in a Mumbai slum, Singh is determined to return to the city in the near future. She hopes to find a way to work again, saying she will take whatever job she can find. 

“I never had to ask anyone for a single rupee (before),” Singh said, adding she feels shame every time she’s forced to ask her husband. 

“I felt independent before. See, I lost a part of myself when I quit my job,” she said. “I want that feeling back.”
…

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister on Monday said Kyiv wanted New Delhi to be more involved in helping resolve its conflict with Russia and has sought a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top officials. 

Emine Dzhaparova told broadcaster CNBC TV18 in an interview that Kyiv also expected India to invite Ukrainian officials to participate in G-20 events and intensify political dialog with Kyiv. 

India holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 this year and hosts a leaders summit in September. New Delhi has not been as critical of Moscow as others for its invasion of Ukraine and has even ramped up its buying of Russian oil — the lifeblood of its economy — while others have sought to buy less or ban it. 

Dzhaparova, who is on a four-day visit to New Delhi, told the broadcaster: “We believe India should be engaged and involved in the Ukraine issue to a great extent.” 

“We believe intensification of political dialog on the highest level is first step towards this big goal. My president is requesting a phone conversation with the prime minister. We are looking forward to welcome him in Kyiv one day,” she said. 

Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, she said India should be pragmatic in securing its resources, including energy and defense equipment, while warning against dependence on Russia. 

India has sought a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Ukraine, while Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin in September that now is “not an era of war.” 

India has also boosted its purchases of Russian oil, taking advantage of the deep discounts following a European ban on Russian oil imports. 

Russia, like the Soviet Union before it, has been India’s main source of arms and defense equipment for decades and it has now displaced Iraq as India’s top crude supplier as well. 

“We only think it is crucial to diversify all of the resources, not only energy but also military resources,” Dzhaparova said. “When you are dependent from Russia, they always use this blackmail instrument.” 

Dzhaparova will meet India’s deputy national security adviser and a junior foreign minister during her visit and address a world affairs think tank.
…

Demographers are unsure exactly when India will take the title as the most populous nation in the world because they’re relying on estimates to make their best guess. But they know it’s going to happen soon, if it hasn’t occurred by now. 

China has had the most people in the world since at least 1950, the year United Nations population data began. Both China and India have more than 1.4 billion people, and combined they make up more than a third of the world’s 8 billion people. 

“Actually, there is no way we can know exactly when India will surpass China,” said Bruno Schoumaker, a demographer at Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. “There is some uncertainty, not only about India’s population, but also China’s population.” 

Still, when is it happening? 

Mathematical calculations from a range of surveys, as well as birth and death records, project that India will overtake China sometime in the middle of April. But demographers warn that it should be taken with a grain of salt since the numbers are fuzzy and could be revised. 

“It’s a crude approximation, a best guess,” said Patrick Gerland, chief of the population estimates and projections section at the U.N. in New York. 

Not long ago, India wasn’t expected to become the most populous country until later this decade. But the timing has been sped up by a drop in China’s fertility rate, with families having fewer children. 

How is it calculated? 

Demographers at the U.N. Population Division make estimates based on projections from a wide variety of data sources to get what they believe are the most up-to-date demographic numbers. The last update to the data used for these calculations for both India and China was in July 2022, said Sara Hertog, a U.N. population affairs officer in New York. 

The demographers then use a statistical technique to infer when India’s population has surpassed that of China, according to Stuart Gietel-Basten, a professor at Khalifa University of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi. 

“The reality, of course, is that these estimates are just that,” Gietel-Basten said. “But at least they are based on a relatively solid and consistent methodology.” 

Where do the numbers come from? 

The foundations of both nations’ numbers are censuses, or head counts conducted every decade. 

China’s last census was in 2020. Demographers used birth and death records, along with other administrative data, to calculate how the population has grown since then. 

India’s last census was in 2011. Its scheduled 2021 census was postponed by COVID-19. Without an actual door-to-door count for more than a decade, sample surveys have filled in the gaps to help demographers and India itself understand its population, said Alok Vajpeyi of the New Delhi-based non-government organization, Population Foundation of India. 

Among the most important is the Sample Registration System, India’s large-scale demographic survey that gathers data on such things as births, deaths, fertility and more. 

Andrea Wojnar, the United Nations Population Fund’s representative for India, said the agency is confident in the survey’s numbers “because it uses a very robust methodology.” 

Why is India moving ahead? 

China has an aging population with stagnant growth even after the government seven years ago retreated from a one-child policy, and just two years ago said couples could have three children. 

India has a much younger population, a higher fertility rate and a decrease in infant mortality over the last three decades. 

India has more babies born each year than in any other country, while China has joined many European countries in having more deaths each year than births, said Dudley Poston Jr., an emeritus professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. 

Why does this matter? 

There are more than bragging rights at stake over which nation is the world’s most populous — there are social and economic consequences. In India, that means a growing labor force and growth that sparks economic activity. In China, that means fewer working-age adults able to support an aging population. 

Once a country hits a low fertility level, it’s often hard to recover population growth, even with changes in government policy to encourage more births, said Toshiko Kaneda, technical director of demographic research at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. 

“Psychologically, it will be tough for China, especially given the rivalry in other areas between the two countries,” Gietel-Basten said. “It is a big moment in human history as the baton is passed to India.” 
…