The effects of the war in Ukraine are extending beyond Moscow and Kyiv, and may be impacting not only people but also wildlife. VOA’s Bilal Hussain reports from Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir. VOA Mandarin Service contributed to this report.
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The World Health Organization has issued an alert warning against the use of two Indian cough syrups blamed for the deaths of at least 20 children in Uzbekistan.

WHO said the products, manufactured by India’s Marion Biotech, were “substandard” and that the firm had failed to provide guarantees about their “safety and quality.”

The alert, issued Wednesday, comes after Uzbekistan authorities said last month at least 20 children died after consuming a syrup made by the company under the brand name Doc-1 Max.

India’s health ministry subsequently suspended production at the company and Uzbekistan banned the import and sale of Doc-1 Max.

The WHO alert said an analysis of the syrup samples by the quality control laboratories of Uzbekistan found “unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and /or ethylene glycol as contaminants.”

Diethylene glycol and ethylene are toxic to humans when consumed and can prove fatal.

“Both of these products may have marketing authorizations in other countries in the region. They may also have been distributed, through informal markets, to other countries or regions,” WHO said.

The products were “unsafe and their use, especially in children, may result in serious injury or death,” it said.

Marion Biotech officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

It is the second Indian drugmaker to face a probe by regulators since October, when the WHO linked another firm’s medicines to a spate of child deaths in Gambia.

Maiden Pharmaceuticals was accused of manufacturing several toxic cough and cold remedies that led to the deaths of at least 66 children in the African country.

The victims, mostly between 5 months and 4 years old, died of acute renal failure.

India launched a probe into Maiden Pharmaceuticals but later said the investigation had found the suspect drugs were of “standard quality.”
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Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban indicated Thursday they may ease a ban on women’s education, saying work is underway to resolve “this temporary step.” 

The statement came in response to a call by an alliance of Muslim-majority countries for the Islamist group to reverse its bans on girls’ education and Afghan female aid workers.

The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, or OIC, based in Saudi Arabia, convened an “extraordinary meeting” of its executive committee Wednesday to discuss the Taliban curbs on women. 

A post-meeting OIC declaration described the bans as violations of Islamic law and “the methodology” of Prophet Muhammad, urging the Taliban to reconsider decisions banning women from education and work.

The OIC “expresses its disappointment over the suspension of female education in Afghanistan and the decision ordering all national and international nongovernmental organizations [NGOs] to suspend female employees until further notice,” the statement said.

Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in his response Thursday said that his government welcomes the OIC meeting and its declaration. But in a statement issued to media, Mujahid urged the international community “not to interfere in internal affairs” of Afghanistan.

“The concern of this organization regarding women’s education is understandable,” he said. “But [the] Islamic Emirate has taken a temporary step and is working to create conditions to resolve the issue,” Mujahid said, using the official title for the men-only Taliban administration in Kabul. He did not elaborate.

The OIC said on Wednesday it also had decided to send its special envoy for Afghanistan to Kabul to deliver the organization’s message to the Taliban leadership directly.

The Taliban have imposed wide-ranging restrictions on women since returning to power in August 2021, banning teenage girls from secondary schools and blocking many women from work.  

Last month, the Islamist rulers abruptly ordered an indefinite ban on female university education and forbade Afghan women from working for NGOs, saying they were not wearing the Islamic headscarf or respecting other official Shariah rules.

The NGO ban has forced major international humanitarian groups to suspend their operations in Afghanistan, saying they cannot work without female staff.   

The Norwegian Refugee Council, or NRC, which has also halted its programs, warned earlier this week that the ban on female staff could push as many as 6 million Afghans into famine.  

NRC Secretary-General Jan Egeland said in a statement that a continued ban of female workers at NGOs could leave 13.5 million people without a safe water supply and 14.1 million people without protection services.

No foreign government has granted formal legitimacy to the Taliban administration, mainly over human rights concerns and treatment of Afghan women. The Taliban have repeatedly defended their policies, insisting they are governing Afghanistan strictly in line with local culture and Sharia.
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Afghanistan’s cricket board and top players have criticized a decision by Cricket Australia to cancel a planned series with the Afghan team.

Cricket Australia on Thursday announced it was pulling out of the one-day international (ODI) series with Afghanistan, which was scheduled to take place in the United Arab Emirates in March, because of the Taliban’s policies against women.

The announcement prompted criticism throughout Afghanistan’s cricket community.

The Afghanistan Cricket Board “is extremely disappointed by the pathetic decision” of Cricket Australia, the Afghan group tweeted.

“I am really disappointed to hear that Australia have pulled out of the series to play us in March,” said Rashid Khan, an Afghan cricket star who currently plays in commercial games in Australia, echoing the sentiment of many fans.

“Fans and people of Afghanistan who have suffered immensely due to conflict for the past 42 years don’t want politics brought into sports,” Hashmatullah Shahidi, Afghan ODI and Test captain, tweeted. “Cricket is the most loved sport in the country and one of the main sources of happiness.”

Managed by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the ODI series steers the path for national teams to qualify for the Cricket World Cup games. The ICC has not yet reacted to Cricket Australia’s decision and whether it could impact Afghanistan’s ability to qualify for the upcoming Cricket World Cup in India.

Afghanistan is the only ICC member country with no female team, which has annoyed the international cricket body.

“It is a concern that progress is not being made in Afghanistan and it’s something our board will consider at its next meeting in March,” said ICC’s chief executive, Geoff Allardice.

Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have disbanded women’s sports teams and imposed serious restrictions on women’s education and work.

The Islamist regime has been widely condemned for its misogynistic policies — even by fellow Muslim-majority nations — while Taliban officials say their policies are based on Islamic law.

Some information in this report came from Reuters. 
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Pakistan’s government has rejected British media reports that a uranium-contaminated cargo shipment seized at London’s Heathrow Airport originated from the South Asian nation.  

“No information to this effect has been shared with us officially. We are confident that the reports are not factual,” Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswomen Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told VOA on Thursday.

British police said in a statement earlier this week they had detected “a very small amount of contaminated material after routine screening within a package incoming to the UK” on December 29.  

Police have reported no arrests in connection with the incident.

British tabloid The Sun, which first reported the incident, said the shipment was destined for Iranian nationals in the United Kingdom, originated from Pakistan and arrived on a flight from Oman.  

Richard Smith, head of London police’s Counter Terrorism Command, noted on Wednesday that the amount of radioactive substance was extremely small and posed no threat to public health or public safety.  

Smith added that further inquiries into the incident were underway.  

“We will, of course, follow every avenue to see what the background of this was and satisfy ourselves that there’s no further threat,” he said.

Low-enriched uranium can be used to fuel civilian power generation plants. Its highly enriched form is a key ingredient in nuclear weapons.

Pakistan is a declared nuclear weapons state and runs several China-built civilian nuclear power generation plants.  

Islamabad maintains it has developed a “robust” security and safety system for its nuclear development programs.   

Syed Muhammad Ali, a Pakistani author of several books and research publications on nuclear issues, described as “very irresponsible” media outlets for naming Pakistan without independent and technical investigations.  

“It is technically not possible to verify the origin of any radioactive material unless the investigators already have samples of that material from the same source, which is obviously not the case or possible for any UK department to have record or access to the samples of radioactive sources of the countries, which are being alleged as involved,” Ali said.  

He noted that the IAEA is the only institution with the technical capacity and mandate to independently verify such incidents.  

 
…

Human Rights Watch is voicing concerns about “violence and repression” ahead of Bangladesh’s general elections this year, as attacks against opposition political leaders and workers continue to rise.

“The ruling Awami League is promising free and fair elections in response to increased international scrutiny but is belying those claims by ramping up repression,” Meenakshi Ganguly, the organization’s South Asia director said in the group’s World Report, published Thursday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party was widely alleged to have massively rigged the electoral process during 2018 general elections.

Now with general elections due late this year, but not yet announced, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the country’s largest opposition party, has been insisting that AL should not be in power when the polling takes place. The BNP held sit-in demonstrations January 11 in major cities across the country seeking Hasina’s resignation and the installation of a neutral caretaker government, among other demands, before the next general elections are held.

“The AL formed the governments twice by fraudulently winning general elections in 2014 and 2018. If the party remains in power during the next general elections, it will resort to a massive level of rigging again. This government has to be unseated ahead of the next general election,” BNP leader AKM Wahiduzzaman, told VOA.

“Over the coming months, we will hold scores of peaceful rallies, highlighting our political demands in the interest of free, fair and peaceful general elections,” he said.

Wednesday, Hasina called opposition leaders extremists and said that they would not topple her government from power that easily.

“They are living in a fool’s paradise if they think that they will give us a push and we will collapse,” Hasina said.

Demanding the installation of a neutral caretaker government ahead of the general election, among other things, the BNP has been campaigning for some months. The party has held many political rallies across the country during this period, highlighting its demands.

According to the BNP, the law enforcement agencies tried to stop most of its rallies, and over 9,000 of its leaders and workers have been arrested in the past five months. In addition, at least eight BNP activists participating in political rallies were shot dead by police during the period, the party alleged.

Ganguly added that the last two Bangladeshi general elections were “not free and fair, marked by violence, the crackdown on the opposition, intimidation of voters and opposition candidates.”

“The ruling Awami League-led government is once again telling its international friends that it is committed to democracy, but a spate of politically motivated cases and arrest of opposition leaders and supporters present facts to the contrary,” Ganguly told VOA.

In recent months, the United Nations, the United States and other countries and rights groups have urged the Hasina government to hold the next national election in a free and fair manner.

Bangladeshi Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen said earlier this week that his party always came to power through “fair electoral processes.”

“Our party has already promised that all parties will participate in the next general elections and it will be a free and fair election. And, it will be acceptable to all,” he told reporters in Dhaka.

However, the opposition leaders say they do not trust the Awami League.

Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, another senior BNP leader said that “a neutral, nonpolitical caretaker government must be in power in Bangladesh” when the next general election takes place.

“In no situation, shall we take part in the general election if the current government stays in power and conducts it,” Roy told VOA.
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International aid agencies, frustrated with the failure of more than a year of international isolation to budge the Taliban from their hard-line and misogynistic policies, are saying it is time for Western nations to send their diplomats back to the Afghan capital, Kabul.

All countries have refused to recognize the Taliban administration that seized power in Kabul in August 2022, demanding that the de facto leaders first form an inclusive government, respect the rights of women and ensure their territory does not become a base for terrorists.

But 16 months later, the Taliban have become even more committed to their hard-line policies, progressively imposing ever harsher restrictions on women’s right to travel and gain an education and refusing to open their administration to the nation’s minorities.

For the aid groups, seeking desperately to address the hunger and poverty that have accompanied the cutoff of international aid, the last straw came with an order last month forbidding Afghan female staff from working for national and international NGOs.

“We need the West to send their diplomats back to Afghanistan to engage with the country’s new rulers,” Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), tweeted Sunday after meeting Taliban officials in Kabul.

“We are too alone here in an increasingly dire situation,” added Egeland, who warned earlier this week that the ban on female aid workers could push 6 million people into famine and leave 600,000 children without education.

Adam Combs, Asia & Europe director at the NRC, reinforced the point in an interview with VOA, saying, “We feel very strongly that isolating the Taliban’s de facto authorities is not the answer.”

“By having diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, it will help to improve and help to facilitate the humanitarian response.”

There are concerns that reopening Western embassies in Kabul would convey a sense of legitimacy to the Taliban regime.

“The Taliban would almost certainly see the return of U.S. diplomats as a signal that the U.S. was moving toward recognition. Other countries would also be encouraged to send back their diplomats,” Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, told VOA.

Unlike the United States and most of its Western allies, China, Iran, Russia and some other countries have kept their embassies open in Kabul without officially recognizing their Taliban hosts, even while Beijing, Tehran, Moscow, Islamabad and Pakistan have accepted Taliban representatives.

Last week, Wang Yu, the Chinese ambassador to Kabul, attended the signing ceremony of a major oil extraction contract between the Taliban government and a Chinese company.

Inaccessible leader

U.S. and European officials accuse Taliban leaders of reneging on their previous commitments to women’s education and work rights.

There are also reports of internal disagreements among the Taliban regarding some of the controversial edicts of their supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Akhundzada runs everything in the Taliban’s so-called Islamic Emirate from Kandahar province, about 500 kilometers away from the capital city. He is inaccessible to the public and foreign diplomats, and recently refused to meet a delegation from the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

Even if Western diplomats return to Kabul, experts say, the reclusive leader will be an unlikely interlocutor hear their concerns and calls for greater rights for women.

“I do not believe that returning foreign diplomats to Kabul will have any important results with regards to the disagreements with the Taliban over the issues of women, inclusive government or counterterrorism,” Neumann said.

However, he acknowledged that reopening the U.S. embassy would have some benefits, saying, “The U.S. could do a much better job of processing visas for asylum, and diplomats could look out for other consular interests.”

Isolated and pressed by international sanctions, the Taliban harbored al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. There are growing concerns that the Taliban are now unable or unwilling to fulfill their counterterrorism commitments made in a 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement that paved the way for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in 2021.

A spokesperson at the U.S. Department of State told VOA there are no plans to reopen the U.S. embassy in Kabul “at this time.”

Asked why U.S. diplomats were not traveling to Afghanistan to directly engage Taliban officials, the spokesperson said, “We have nothing further to add.”
…

A bomb explosion near the foreign ministry in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Wednesday killed at least five people and wounded at least 40 others.  

Khalid Zadran, a spokesman for the Kabul city police, confirmed the death toll and condemned what he called a “cowardly act” targeting Afghan civilians.

An Italian-based charitable EMERGENCY hospital in Kabul is treating many of the wounded.

“We have received more than 40 patients in the hospital; it is difficult to draw up a final number. We are continuing to respond,” said Stefano Sozza, the country director of the charity.

“This is the first mass casualty in 2023, but certainly one of those with the most patients since the beginning of 2022. So much so that we have also set up beds in the kitchens and canteen,” Sozza added.  

Zadran did not say whether the attack was the work of a suicide bomber or a planted device caused the blast. The violence took place in a heavily fortified area housing several embassies and Afghan ministries.  

“The perpetrators will be found and punished for their subversive actions,” Zadran told VOA in written comments shortly after the attack took place.  

No group immediately claimed responsibility.

Kabul has experienced a spate of high-profile attacks in recent weeks, mostly claimed by the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group, known as Islamic State-Khorasan.  

The violence included an assassination attempt on Pakistan’s ambassador in the country, a gun-and-bomb raid on a downtown Kabul hotel that injured five Chinese nationals staying there, and a suicide bombing at the entrance to the military airport in the city, which reportedly killed several Taliban security forces.  

The Islamist Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August 2021 and have since conducted repeated counterterrorism operations against hideouts of Islamic State-Khorasan.

Last week, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said their special forces had raided several hideouts of the terror group in the Afghan capital and beyond, killing 11 militants and capturing seven others.

Mujahid announced the details in a statement, saying the slain men included several foreigners, and that they played a role in attacks on the Pakistani diplomat, Chinese nationals and the military airport, claims that could not independently be verified.

No country has yet formally recognized the Taliban government. Several regional countries, including China, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, and Turkey, have kept their embassies open in Kabul. Western nations, including the United States, moved their diplomatic missions to Qatar’s capital, Doha, just days before the Taliban takeover and withdrawal of all international forces from Afghanistan.
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Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif praised the international community Wednesday for pledging $9.7 billion at this week’s conference in Geneva supporting Islamabad’s recovery efforts from devastating climate-induced summer floods.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Sharif co-hosted the day-long conference on Monday, with delegates from dozens of countries, international financial institutions and private donors in attendance.

Sharif told a news conference in Islamabad the final tally of pledges had exceeded a target for foreign donors to meet half of the $16.3 billion needed over the next three years to recover and rebuild from flooding. He said the rest of the funds would come from domestic resources.

The Islamic Development Bank, the World Bank, Saudi Arabia, France, the United States, China and the European Union were among some of the biggest donors. Pakistani officials said almost 90% of committed pledges are project-financing loans.

The flooding, triggered by unprecedented erratic monsoon rains between June and August last year, affected 33 million people, displaced 8 million, killed more than 1,700, and pushed an additional 9.1 million people below the poverty line, according to U.N. and Pakistani officials.

“The faster we can design and create feasibilities and impress [donors], the faster these pledges will materialize,” the prime minister said when asked how soon Pakistan expects to receive the money.

Sharif thanked the U.N. chief Wednesday for his “pivotal” role in making the Geneva conference a “resounding success” and fighting for the flood victims “like a Pakistani.”

Guterres opened Monday’s event with an impassioned plea for aid on behalf of millions of Pakistanis whose lives and livelihoods were upended by the flooding. He described the crisis as a “climate disaster of monumental scale” and noted that one-third of Pakistan remained under water more than six months after floods hit the country.

Sharif reiterated that effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms will be put in place to ensure transparency in funding allocation and spending, which will be combined with public communications on the recovery progress.

Critics note that pledges made at international conferences often do not entirely materialize because of multiple factors, including inflated project costs, corruption and fraud by authorities in recipient nations.

Previous independent investigations in Pakistan have confirmed massive corruption and fraud in relief programs that were undertaken after a devastating earthquake in 2005 and a 2010 monsoon flooding disaster.

Britain’s independent charitable organization Oxfam commissioned an investigation into one of its programs in flood-hit southern Sindh province and concluded there was a loss from fraud of up to $220,000. “Invoices were found to be falsified; and there was extensive manipulation of checks to suppliers,” the organization said in its study released in August 2011.
…

In India, hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes in a Himalayan town where officials say the land is sinking. Experts say the crisis underlines the risks posed by unsustainable development in a fragile mountain region. Anjana Pasricha has this report. Camera: Masood Najem
…

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan advocated Tuesday for a cooperative bilateral relationship with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, warning mutual tensions could turn his country’s counterterrorism efforts into a “disastrous forever war.”

Khan spoke at a seminar in the capital, Islamabad, as a new wave of terrorism grips Pakistan, particularly its northwestern districts near the Afghan border, killing hundreds of security personnel and civilians.

Much of the violence is blamed on or claimed by militants linked to the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) insurgent group, known as the Pakistani Taliban. The militants, including TTP leadership, have taken shelter in Afghanistan after fleeing Pakistani counterterrorism operations and conduct terrorist attacks from there.

The violence has strained Islamabad’s otherwise good ties with Kabul and prompted Pakistani authorities to repeatedly urge the Taliban administration to stop TTP militants from using Afghan soil to plot cross-border terrorist raids.

Khan blamed the government of his successor, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, for issuing “dangerously irresponsible” statements against the de facto Afghan Taliban authorities and causing strains in bilateral ties rather than seeking cooperation in combating the TTP-led terror threat.

“If the government of Afghanistan stops cooperating with us or if you spoil the relations with them, then this war against terrorism in Pakistan will become endless and turn into a major disaster for us,” the former prime minister said.

The TTP is known to be an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban, providing shelter and recruits to the latter for their two decades of successful insurgency against the U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan. The Islamist insurgents seized power in August 2021 as all U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew from the country.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah suggested last week in a television interview that the Pakistani military might launch cross-border strikes against TTP targets. His statement triggered a strong backlash from Afghan authorities and a resolve to defend against any such action.

Sanaullah later retracted his remarks and the foreign ministry subsequently ruled out any cross-border military action, saying that as a responsible member of the United Nations, Pakistan will always respect the “territorial integrity and political independence” of Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s sustained operations against TTP bases in border areas over the past decade or so forced the militants to flee into their Afghan hideouts.

Officials in Islamabad maintain that TTP leaders and commanders have been roaming and operating with greater freedom since the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban reject allegations they are allowing any groups, including the TTP, to threaten Pakistan or other foreign countries in line with their counterterrorism pledges to the world. Critics question those claims, citing the killing of Egyptian-born al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in a residential compound in Kabul last year.

Khan, who was ousted in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence last year, said Tuesday that around 30,000 Pakistanis, including TTP fighters and their families, have taken shelter on Afghan soil.

The former prime minister urged the Sharif government to engage with Kabul authorities to encourage repatriation of the refugees and resolve the problem through peaceful means rather than military power.

Sharif and his aides alleged that Khan’s decision to open talks with the TTP encouraged the group to unleash its recent wave of terrorism in Pakistan.

Khan’s ousted administration opened peace talks with the TTP, brokered and hosted by the Afghan Taliban. But the process fell apart last November when the group ended a cease-fire, accusing the government of violating terms of the deal.

Khan also advised Islamabad in his speech Tuesday against seeking Washington’s security assistance in counterterrorism efforts, saying it would intensify terrorism in Pakistan. He warned, citing intelligence information from his time in office, that battle-hardened TTP militants are now equipped with weapons that U.S. and NATO forces left behind in Afghanistan.

The former prime minister noted Pakistani police are comparatively ill-equipped and lack training to deal with the threat.

The TTP, listed as a global terrorist organization by the United States, emerged in Pakistan’s border areas in 2007. All its chiefs and key commanders were killed in U.S. drone strikes against their hideouts on both sides of the border when American forces were stationed in Afghanistan.

Analysts say TTP fighters are openly issuing threats and statements against Pakistan and mainstream politicians because they appear confident they will receive some kind of support from the ruling Taliban in return for services they rendered to the Afghan insurgency against U.S.-led forces.

Ejaz Haider, a Pakistani defense and foreign policy expert, wrote in an article this week in the local online BOL NEWS outlet that even a new round of military operations against the TTP could pose serious challenges for the troops.

He noted that when Pakistan previously launched operations against TTP bases in border areas, the Afghan Taliban were busy battling foreign troops on the other side and hiding from U.S. drone strikes at the same time.

“Now, the situation is different. The foreign troops have left, and Afghanistan is controlled by the TTA [the Afghan Taliban],” Haider said. “The TTP is being — and will be — supported by the TTA,” he added.
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In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Rohingya Muslim refugee Anwara Begum, 55, choked back tears as she tried to cajole her 7-year-old granddaughter, Umme Habiba, into swallowing a morsel of food.    

Habiba was unconsolable, wailing in grief for her 27-year-old mother, Hatemon Nesa, and her 5-year-old sister, Umme Salima. The family had recently learned that the engine of the Malaysia-bound ramshackle wooden boat the two were on had broken down at sea.  

The approximately 200 passengers aboard the boat that had left Bangladesh on November 25, all of them Rohingya refugees, had run out of food and water.    

Begum told VOA in a telephone interview, “Nesa told us that people were dying out of starvation and dehydration on the boat as it drifted aimlessly. I feared that my daughter and granddaughter would follow suit.”    

“I cried a lot, but never in front of Habiba. I told her that Allah would save her mother and sister, somehow. I kept praying.”   

Hundreds of kilometers away, on the sea, a worn-down Nesa also held herself together for a young child.    

“As soon as we knew that the boat was not moving in the direction of Malaysia, the women, including me, became anxious,” Nesa told VOA in a call. “When the boat drifted into Indian waters, many of the around 30 children onboard began crying out of hunger and thirst. Seeing the children in pain, their mothers began sobbing, too.”   

Nesa refused to shed a tear, fearing it would frighten Salima. “I held my daughter as she fell sick after I made her drink salty seawater. I comforted her, saying that Allah would surely help us reach our destination,” Nesa said.   

Among about 740,000 others, Nesa had fled to Bangladesh in 2017, after a brutal crackdown by the military in Myanmar on its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority. Her husband had deserted her in Myanmar shortly after the birth of their second daughter.   

“The congested, unsanitary Rohingya refugee camps of Bangladesh are like prisons,” the single mother of two said. “As long as we are in the camps, our movements are restricted by authorities and our children do not have access to formal education. The future looks bleak in Cox’s Bazar.”   

Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh usually study in a Maktab, a traditional Islamic elementary school where they are taught to read and recite the Qur’an.    

“So, I decided to take my children to Malaysia. They would get a better education there, and grow up to be strong women,” Nesa said. “I could not afford to travel with both of my daughters this time, so I only brought Salima along. I was hoping Habiba would join us later, somehow.”   

As the boat engine broke down 10 days into the sea journey, anxiety spread among the passengers. Matters only became worse when 19 of them jumped into the water after seeing another boat, hoping to procure help. No one came to their aid, and they drowned in the sea, unable to swim back to their own boat.   

Nesa’s brother, Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, occasionally spoke to her over the phone from Bangladesh. “I told my sister and the other passengers to ask for help by waving their hands while holding pieces of cloth, whenever they saw another boat. It broke our hearts at home when we heard that none came to their rescue,” Khan told VOA over the phone.    

As Begum prayed for her daughter’s boat to wash ashore anywhere in the world as long as she would survive, hope dwindled in Nesa and her co-passengers. 

“The constant screaming and waving for help, with no food or water for 13 days, depleted our energy completely. 26 of the passengers had died,” Nesa said. “At one point, all of us gave up on trying to get help. We went into the cabin and lay there silently. It went unsaid, but perhaps everyone was waiting to die on the boat. I did not stop praying.”   

The answer to Begum’s prayers came in the form of a video call from Nesa on December 26. Nesa, her daughter and around 172 others had just been rescued by fishermen and local authorities in Aceh, Indonesia, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Begum broke into tears of relief.    

“My faith in Allah has strengthened after surviving this ordeal,” Nesa said. “I believe I will reach Malaysia soon.” 

These days, Malaysia is very strict with the Rohingya. The country is not allowing refugee boats to land on its shore. So, boats carrying Rohingya aim to reach Indonesia. From Indonesia, with the help of the traffickers, using secret routes, the refugees sneak into Malaysia. For some months, they have been following this strategy to enter Malaysia. Indonesia is not the refugees’ final destination. Since Malaysia is very close to Indonesia, like all other refugees, Nesa thinks that she has almost reached Malaysia.   

Back in Bangladesh, Nesa’s family are fearful of sending Habiba on an illegal and treacherous boat journey akin to her mother’s.    

Nesa’s brother recounted a phone call she recently made to him from Indonesia.    

Ardently, Nesa had said, “Speak to people from Bangladesh. I am talking to them from Indonesia, with one question: how can our family reunite?   

“My daughter is only 7. She cannot undertake this illegal sea journey fraught with dangers. I implore the international community to make arrangements so that Habiba can legally travel to Malaysia from Bangladesh and reunite with Salima and me. This is a mother’s appeal,” Nesa said. 

 
…

A major international conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan, co-hosted by the United Nations and Pakistan, is seeking $16 billion to support Pakistan’s multi-year effort to recover from last year’s unprecedented floods.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the conference with an impassioned plea for aid on behalf of millions of Pakistanis whose lives and livelihoods were upended by the disaster.

He described the crisis as a climate disaster of monumental scale, noting that one-third of Pakistan remained submerged under water more than six months after floods struck the country.

“A terrifying wall of water killed more than 1,700 people, injured thousands more, and affected a total of more than 33 million, displacing eight million people,” Guterres said. “It swept over roads, ruined millions of acres of agricultural land, and damaged or destroyed two million homes.”  

He said nine million more people have been pushed to the brink of poverty, and they need and deserve international support.

Guterres added Pakistan, which represented less than one percent of global emissions, did not cause the climate crisis, yet was one of its biggest victims. Countries on the frontlines of climate catastrophe needed massive support, he said.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif agreed, saying a Post-Disaster Needs Assessment carried out in October estimated total damages and economic losses topped $30 billion. He said rehabilitation and resilient reconstruction needs were assessed at over $16 billion. Half that amount would come from Pakistan’s domestic and development budget, he said, and the other half from international support. 

“I am asking for a sustained international support plan to meet this daunting challenge,” Sharif said. “I am asking for a new lifeline for people who need to power our economy and re-enter the 21st century with a future that is protected from such extreme risk to human security.”

In response to this call, some countries have pledged significant sums of money. The United States, for example, has said it would provide $100 million. This brings the U.S. government’s total contribution to Pakistan since the middle of August to more than $200 million.

Speaking from Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron told the conference his country would mobilize more than $300 million for resilient reconstruction and climate adaptation.

Sharif noted that the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank had announced a figure of $4.2 billion, the largest contribution so far. 

 
…

A major humanitarian group warned Monday that a continued Taliban ban on women aid workers in Afghanistan could push 6 million people into famine and leave 600,000 children without education. 

Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General Jan Egeland issued the warning after talks with Taliban officials in Kabul.

He tweeted that a continued ban of female workers at nongovernmental organizations could also leave 13.5 million people without a safe water supply and 14.1 million people without protection services.

“We are not giving aid to the hundreds of thousands of people we serve here in Afghanistan,” Egeland said in a video he recorded Sunday in Kabul. “And it’s raining, it’s snowing, it’s miserable. And not to give them aid is so painful for us. But only if we are able to resume work with females according to all of the Afghan traditional values will we start work again, and I hope we will find a solution very soon.”

Last month, the hardline rulers abruptly forbade Afghan female staff from working for national and international nongovernmental organizations, saying they were not wearing the Islamic headscarf in line with official orders.

U.N. officials say the move has effectively suspended scores of humanitarian programs in a country where millions of people need urgent aid.

Markus Potzel, the U.N. envoy to Afghanistan, held back-to-back meetings with senior Taliban ministers in the capital, Kabul, urging them to lift bans on women’s education and work for aid groups, citing the country’s dire humanitarian conditions.

Potzel held his latest meeting Sunday with the Taliban minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, tasked with interpreting and enforcing the Taliban’s version of Islam.

The “latest discriminatory bans against women by Taliban prevent life-saving help reaching Afghans and will hit [the] Afghanistan economy,” Potzel’s office quoted him as telling Muhammad Khalid Hanafi.

A statement from Hanafi’s office quoted him as telling the U.N. envoy, “We are trying to establish a Shariah-based framework to ensure that life-saving aid reaches people because saving a human life is more important than anything else.”
…

Officials from the U.N. and an aid organization were meeting with the Taliban in Afghanistan amid intensified calls for the Islamist rulers to end what a U.N. official describes as a “dangerous campaign” to exclude women from public life.

The meetings come as Melissa Fleming, the U.N. chief communicator, said in recent comments that “the systematic campaign by the country’s de facto authorities to gradually erase women from public life and deny their contribution is an extraordinary act of self-harm.”

Fleming’s remarks came as Markus Potzel, the U.N. envoy to Afghanistan, held back-to-back meetings with senior Taliban ministers in the capital, Kabul, urging them to lift bans on women’s education and work for aid groups, citing the country’s dire humanitarian conditions.

Potzel held his latest meeting Sunday with the Taliban minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, tasked with interpreting and enforcing the Taliban’s version of Islam.

The “latest discriminatory bans against women by Taliban prevent life-saving help reaching Afghans and will hit [the] Afghanistan economy,” Potzel’s office quoted him as telling Muhammad Khalid Hanafi.

Last month, the hardline rulers abruptly forbade Afghan female staff from working for national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), saying they were not wearing the Islamic headscarf in line with official orders. 

U.N. officials say the move has effectively suspended scores of humanitarian programs in a country where millions of people need urgent aid.

Potzel’s discussions with Taliban officials in Kabul come as the U.N. Security Council prepares to meet privately January 13 to debate the ban on Afghan humanitarian aid workers in the improvised country.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) arrived in the Afghan capital Sunday for talks with Taliban authorities to seek a reversal of the ban on female NGO workers. 

Jan Egeland is the first chief of a major charity organization to visit the country since the directive went into effect December 24.

“Our offices are nearly empty, and all operations are paralyzed across Afghanistan,” Egeland wrote on Twitter. Without both female and male staff, we can’t resume our vital relief. We can’t reach women and children without female staff,” he added.

The Norwegian aid chief stressed that his organization respects “all traditional Afghan values for dress, travel and workplace.” He said that NRC’s 469 female colleagues “are essential for” its aid to 700,000 Afghans, females in particular in the wake of cultural sensitivities. 

“We must be allowed to resume work with all staff, or lives will be lost,” Egeland warned.  

The NRC has assisted about 850,000 people over the last year in Afghanistan in the fields of water, sanitation, shelter and education.

The Taliban have imposed sweeping curbs on women’s lives since returning to power in August 2021, barring them from many workplaces and from attending university and secondary school. Women are not allowed to visit public parks, gyms and bath facilities, and they must cover their faces while in public.

The U.N.’s Fleming also said, “No country can afford to exclude half of its population from society. Women and girls are crucial to the future of Afghanistan.”

The Taliban have rejected criticism of their governance and policies, saying the moves are strictly in line with Afghan culture and Islamic law, or Shariah.  
…

Pakistan and the United Nations are holding a conference in Geneva Monday to mobilize support for a resilient recovery of Pakistan from last year’s climate-induced catastrophic floods.

Organizers say delegates from 40 nations, including several heads of state, representatives of international financial institutions and development organizations, will attend the International Conference on Climate-Resilient Pakistan.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will co-host the event with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as they seek an estimated $16.3 billion to rehabilitate and rebuild damaged infrastructure in a climate-resilient manner.

“Millions of Pakistanis affected by unprecedented devastation look for compassion and solidarity to build back better,” Sharif said in a statement Sunday before leaving for Geneva.

“We will place [a] comprehensive post-disaster framework plan for recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction with resilience before development partners and friendly countries,” he said. “Bridging funding gap is key to restore critical infrastructure, rebuild lives and livelihoods and revive economy.”

The U.N. says that the 2022 flooding, caused by record-breaking monsoon rainfall, was Pakistan’s worst disaster in decades, leaving one-third of the country submerged, affecting 33 million people, killing at least 1,700 and displacing 8 million.

The ensuing floods rendered more than 2 million people homeless, wiped out crops and destroyed or damaged vital infrastructure, including thousands of kilometers of roads and railway.

Guterres visited Pakistan’s flood-hit regions in September and described the destruction as “climate carnage.”

U.N. Development Program Resident Representative in Pakistan Knut Ostby said in advance of Monday’s conference the disaster was caused by accelerating climate change across the world.

Most of the waters have now receded but an internationally backed post-disaster study estimates that $16.3 billion is needed to help the country’s rehabilitation and reconstruction over the long term.

Pakistani and U.N. officials say several million children are still living near contaminated and stagnant flood waters, putting their survival and well-being at risk.

“We estimate that up to around nine million people – additional people – could be pushed into poverty due to the flood impact,” Ostby said. He stressed that Pakistan’s flood crisis is a global problem and must be addressed as such, warning the disaster can happen to other countries affected by climate change.

Ostby noted that crops had been lost from the last harvest and from the missed planting season.

“Agricultural prices – food prices – are therefore increasing and could push, double the amount of people into food insecurity, increasing that number from seven to 14.6 million.”

Sharif’s government says the catastrophic flooding has added to the economic challenges facing Pakistan. The country of about 220 million people has struggled to pay for imports such as energy and food amid rapidly dwindling foreign exchange reserves, making it difficult for Islamabad to meet foreign debt obligations.
…

Pakistan and the United Nations are holding a major conference in Geneva on Monday aimed at marshalling support to rebuild the country after devastating floods in what is expected to be a major test case for who pays for climate disasters.

Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers in September displaced some 8 million people and killed at least 1,700 in a catastrophe blamed on climate change.

Most of the waters have now receded but the reconstruction work, estimated at around $16.3 billion, to rebuild millions of homes and thousands of kilometers of roads and railway is just beginning and millions more people may slide into poverty.

Islamabad, whose delegation is led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, will present a recovery “framework” at the conference where United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and French President Emmanuel Macron are also due to speak.

Guterres, who visited Pakistan in September, has previously described the destruction in the country as “climate carnage.”

“This is a pivotal moment for the global community to stand with Pakistan and to commit to a resilient and inclusive recovery from these devastating floods,” said Knut Ostby, United Nations’ Development Program’s Pakistan representative.

Additional funding is crucial to Pakistan amid growing concerns about its ability to pay for imports such as energy and food and to meet sovereign debt obligations abroad.

However, it is far from clear where the reconstruction money will come from, especially given difficulties raising funds for the emergency humanitarian phase of the response, which is around half funded, according to U.N. data.

At the COP27 meeting in Egypt in November, Pakistan was at the forefront of efforts that led to the establishment of a “loss and damage” fund to cover climate-related destruction for countries that have contributed less to global warming than wealthy ones.

However, it is not yet known if Pakistan, with a $350 billion economy, will be eligible to tap into that future funding.

Organizers say around 250 people are expected at the event including high-level government officials, private donors and international financial institutions.

Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Khalil Hashmi, said Islamabad was willing to pay for about half of the bill but hoped for support from donors for the rest. “We will be mobilizing international support through various means,” he said. “We look forward to working with our partners.”

An International Monetary Fund delegation will meet Pakistan’s finance minister on the sidelines of the conference, a spokesperson of the lender said Sunday, as Pakistan struggles to restart its bailout program.

The IMF is yet to approve the release of $1.1 billion originally due to be disbursed in November last year, leaving Pakistan with only enough foreign exchange reserves to cover one month’s imports.
…

A top U.N. envoy met with the Taliban-led Afghan government’s higher education minister Saturday to discuss the ban on women attending universities.

Taliban authorities on December 20 ordered public and private universities to close for women immediately until further notice. It triggered widespread international condemnation, including from Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Markus Potzel is the first international official to meet with Taliban Higher Education Minister Nida Mohammad Nadim since the ban was introduced last month.

Nadim has defended the ban, saying it is necessary to prevent the mixing of genders in universities and because he believes some subjects violate Islamic principles.

That ban was followed days later by a ban on Afghan women working for national and international non-governmental groups, another decision that caused global condemnation and the suspension of work by major aid agencies.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said that Potzel called for the urgent lifting of these bans in his meeting with Nadim, saying the country is entering a new period of crisis.

Nadim told Potzel the ministry was working for the development and improvement of Afghans, with the protection of Islamic and national values, according to information shared by ministry spokesman Ziaullah Hashmi.

He said opponents were criticizing the implementation of Islamic affairs, using education as an argument to achieve their “evil goals.”

“We need to make sure there is no place for them to criticize and, at the same time, fulfill the wishes of Afghans who have made sacrifices for Islamic rule and the implementation of Sharia rules in the country,” Nadim told Potzel at the meeting.

He also said Afghanistan’s rulers will not accept anyone’s demands in the form of pressure against Islamic principles.

Potzel thanked Nadim for his time, saying the higher education of any country has a direct impact on the economic situation of that country, according to the ministry spokesman.

The envoy promised to cooperate in the development of Afghanistan’s higher education and shared his plan for female education with Nadim.

Potzel has also met with Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, who issued the NGO ban; Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi; Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani and former President Hamid Karzai in recent days to discuss the crackdowns on women and girls.

The discussions come ahead of a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council on January 13 about Afghanistan.

Nadim, a former provincial governor, police chief and military commander, was appointed minister in October by the supreme Taliban leader and previously pledged to stamp out secular schooling. He opposes female education, saying it is against Islamic and Afghan values.
…

Authorities in an Indian Himalayan town have stopped construction activities and started moving hundreds of people to temporary shelters after a temple collapsed and cracks appeared in more than 600 houses because of sinking of land, officials said Saturday.

Residents of Joshimath town in Uttarakhand state say they started noticing cracks in houses, especially after 2021 floods in the region. No injury was reported in the temple collapse late Friday and those living nearby had vacated the area a day earlier.

Himanshu Khurana, a district administrator, said more than 60 families have been moved to government relief camps. The number is likely to go up to 600 families, media reports said.

Television images also showed cracks in roads, hampering the movement of vehicles.

Ranjit Sinha, a top state disaster management official, said the immediate cause of the cracks “seems to be the faulty drainage system, which has resulted in water seepage under the houses that has led to their sinking.”

The government will pay 4,000 rupees ($50) per month for six months to those rendered homeless in Joshimath, a temple town of around 25,000 people that sits at an altitude of 1,890 meters and falls on key Hindu pilgrim as well as trekking circuits, Khurana said.

A stop for pilgrims

Tens of thousands of devotees heading for Badrinath and Him Kund Sahib, key Hindu and Sikh pilgrimage sites, pass through Joshimath, 490 kilometers northeast of New Delhi. The huge flow of pilgrims and tourists saw the town expanding exponentially over the years with the massive construction of buildings and roadways, which some experts have linked to land subsidence.

The construction activities that were temporarily halted include the Chardham all-weather road — a flagship federal government enterprise to connect various Hindu pilgrimage sites, a project to set up trolleys pulled by ropes to carry pilgrims and tourists in nearby Auli, and hydropower stations.

Cloudburst, flooding, climate change

The region witnessed a devastating cloudburst — an extreme rainfall in a short time — that resulted in the death of hundreds in 2013 as well as severe flooding in 2021. Experts say fast shrinking glaciers, in part because of climate change, is also another reason the region is hit by repeated disasters.

“Between 2015 and mid-2021, at least 7,750 extreme rainfall and cloudburst instances have been noted in Uttarakhand. Such instances are detrimental to Joshimath as they may increase the number of impacted buildings, eventually exacerbating the vulnerability of the locals,” said Kavita Upadhyay, a water-policy expert who is currently a research associate in the Oslo Metropolitan University’s Riverine Rights project.

Upadhyay, who is from Uttarakhand and lives in the region, said unabated large-scale infrastructure projects as well as uncontrolled tourist inflow have also contributed to land sinking.

“The slopes of Joshimath are formed from landslide debris. This means that there’s a limit to which the town can be burdened by buildings or disturbed by activities such as the construction of big infrastructure projects like dams and roads.”

A study by the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority has warned that construction by removing boulders and blasting the hillside would lead to severe environmental damage.

In May last year, Meera Rawat, a resident, was startled while cooking in the kitchen when she heard a gurgling sound of water flowing underneath the floor.

“That day, I realized something bad was going to happen in our town of Joshimath. In September, I saw a small crack in the floor. In December, it widened, and we vacated the house,” Meera said.
…

For the 37,000 inhabitants of the Gurez Valley in Indian-administered Kashmir, winter is a time to get out or hunker down.

Nestled high in the Himalayas, the valley has only one road link to the outside world and that is closed by deep snow for almost six months of the year, leaving the residents no way in or out except by helicopter for medical and other emergencies.

More than half the residents — about 20,000 this year — chose to leave. For the rest, winter means settling into their homes in the valley’s 27 villages with a stockpile of canned goods, dried vegetables and firewood or coal, and waiting patiently for spring to arrive.

The long months of isolation are passed by working on handicrafts for sale the following summer, listening to Kashmiri music, feeding cattle and visiting each other. A limited amount of provisions are available at the valley’s stores, which stockpile huge quantities of non-perishable goods every fall.

For many of the residents, the greatest concern over the long winter is health care, which is overseen by 20 medical officers who handle most day-to-day issues from a network of primary and community health centers.

“It is difficult to live in extreme winters as the valley gets inaccessible through road and air connectivity is the only means to move out of Gurez. In a medical emergency, the valley lacks a proper health care system,” lamented Abdul Majeed, a longtime resident.

He said the valley’s 11 ambulances often have trouble navigating the roads in winter and airlifting patients to hospitals outside the valley is not always possible.

Dr. Tahira Nazir, the medical officer at a community health center who has been serving in Gurez for over a decade, told VOA that she and her medical team do the best they can with the limited resources at their disposal, but bemoaned the lack of a blood bank and noted that this winter the valley is lacking three specialists — a physician, a gynecologist and a pediatrician.

“I have informed the administration about this and until recently, we had a gynecologist on a rotation basis here; however, the replacement is yet to join,” she said.

Dr. Mir Mushtaq, spokesperson for the director of Health Services Kashmir, said in an interview that authorities stockpile adequate medical supplies in snowbound areas to last through the winter.

“We airlift patients to the nearby hospitals in case of emergency,” he added, noting that the department has recently issued an order deputizing eight gynecologists to the Gurez valley.

Their arrival will be too late for some of the residents.

Noorani Begum, a 60-year-old grandmother, told VOA that she delivered all her seven children at home without modern medical intervention but that her elder daughter’s pregnancy was not that easy. She was shifted before winter to Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital, because there was no gynecologist available in the valley at that time.

“Fearing road closure and on doctor’s advice, we had to move out of Gurez for my daughter’s pregnancy,” said Begum. “It was an expensive affair for us as the four family members had to stay in Srinagar near Lal Ded Hospital for six months. We sold cattle to manage our expenses and took some loan[s] as well.”

Another challenge: Keeping warm

Electricity shortages are another chronic problem in the winter, despite the completion in 2018 of a major hydroelectric power plant on the Kishanganga River, which runs through the valley.

The 330-megawatt plant is an important source of energy for the Indian power grid but not enough is fed back into the valley to light and heat its homes, leaving the residents to rely on diesel generators in their villages supplemented by firewood and coal to keep them warm.

Frustration at the situation is compounded by lingering anger over the construction of the dam, which impacted an estimated 610 residents and 171 families amid complaints about poor prices paid for confiscated land and broken promises about jobs.

Residents stay warm by staying close

Despite the problems and hardships, residents of the valley — especially the elderly — have developed resilience and accepted the challenges over the decades.

“Warmth inside our hearts survives us and we sometimes arrange get-togethers,” said Bashir Ahmad Teroo, a health department employee who has turned a portion of his house into a museum preserving antiques from Gurez.

“The songs and dance[s] reverberate [through] the whole valley even during the freezing weather.”
…

The Islamist Taliban joined British critics Friday to denounce Prince Harry for admitting to being responsible for the killing of 25 people in Afghanistan while serving as a military helicopter pilot there.

The British prince made the disclosures in his upcoming memoir, Spare, claiming the army had trained him to view members of the then-insurgent Taliban not “as people” but instead as “chess pieces” to be removed from the board.

Taliban foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi slammed Harry’s revelations.

“The western occupation of Afghanistan is truly an odious moment in human history and comments by Prince Harry is a microcosm of the trauma experienced by Afghans at the hands of occupation forces whom murdered innocents without any accountability,” Balkhi told VOA in written comments.

“Some of the recent reports highlighting the scale of murder by foreign airpower and raids including by UK forces is what Prince Harry also participated in,” Balkhi said.

Harry is quoted as saying that the death of the 25 people “wasn’t a statistic that filled me with pride but nor did it leave me ashamed.”

The 38-year-old Duke of Sussex said he killed the insurgents during his second deployment to Afghanistan in 2012, when he conducted six combat missions as an Apache helicopter co-pilot.

“Mr. Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return. Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes,” tweeted Anas Haqqani, a central Taliban leader.

Harry also came under fire from British media and former army officers for what they denounced as irresponsible disclosures by the prince, fearing they could endanger his personal security and expose British soldiers serving overseas to revenge attacks by Taliban sympathizers.

“Love you #PrinceHarry but you need to shut up!” Ben McBean, a former Royal Marine who served with Harry in Afghanistan, tweeted Thursday. “Makes you wonder the people he’s hanging around with. If it was good people, somebody by now would have told him to stop.” 

Harry’s autobiography is scheduled for publication in Britain on January 10. It showed up on bookshelves in Barcelona, Spain, on January 5. 

More than 240,000 people, most of them civilians, died as a direct result of the war in Afghanistan since the U.S. invaded the country to topple the Taliban in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S.

The U.S. and its NATO allies lost the lives of 3,586 soldiers, including 2,442 Americans, according to figures released by the Brown University’s Costs of War project in 2021.

“I don’t expect that the [International Criminal Court] will summon you or the human rights activists will condemn you, because they are deaf and blind for you. But hopefully these atrocities will be remembered in the history of humanity,” Haqqani wrote.

Haqqani is the younger brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the interior minister in the interim Taliban administration.

The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in August 2021 from the then internationally backed government as the United States-led western troops withdrew from the country after 20 years of war with the insurgents.

The Taliban themselves were accused of committing war crimes while waging insurgent attacks against foreign forces and their Afghan partners.

The elder Haqqani led and trained a large group of militants, plotting high-profile attacks in support of Taliban insurgents and killing hundreds of people, including foreign nationals.

“The Haqqanis killed some Americans, yes. But they killed vastly more Afghans—the same people, with the same humanity, that he’s lecturing Harry about,” tweeted Jonathan Schroden who directs the U.S.-based Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the CNA Corporation.

The U.S. still lists the so-called Haqqani Network of militants as a global terrorist organization and carries a multimillion-dollar bounty for information leading to the arrest of its head, the current Taliban interior minister.

The Islamist rulers have rolled back the human rights of Afghans and placed restrictions on women’s access to public life, as well as education since taking control of Afghanistan.

The Taliban have reintroduced their strict interpretation of Islamic law or Shariah to govern Afghanistan, regularly carrying out public flogging of alleged criminals, including women, in defiance of global calls for halting the punishment. The group also staged its public execution of a convicted murder last month, triggering a global outrage.

The Taliban have rejected calls for reversing bans on women and other polices, effectively deterring the international community from formally granting legitimacy to the de facto rulers in Kabul.
…

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Tuerk has warned about what he sees as the “systematic countering of women’s rights and gender equality” around the world.

In an exclusive interview Wednesday with Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, Tuerk said he was very concerned about the “backsliding and the pushbacks” he has seen against women recently, particularly on social media.

“We see it in social media, for example, where misogynistic, sexist comments seem to be allowed in a way, and thriving, which is very concerning,” he said.

Tuerk cited Afghanistan and the ruling Taliban as the “worst of the worst,” and called their repression of women “unparalleled.” Last month, the Taliban banned women from working in nongovernmental organizations and had previously reneged on promises to allow women and girls to receive university and secondary education.

The human rights chief called on the international community to “act in utmost solidarity with the women and the girls of Afghanistan, and we need to make sure that this cannot be the norm in the future.”

Tuerk has also sought to visit Iran, where protests have rocked the country since September, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody after she allegedly violated the country’s strict dress code for women. He said the Iranian authorities had yet to respond to his request.

Tuerk said if he is allowed to go, he would again call for a repeal of “discriminatory practices against women and girls” and raise the subject of the authorities’ brutal crackdown on the protests. He expressed particular alarm at the use of the death penalty in connection with the protests.

He said, the death penalty “must absolutely not be used in this type of context under any circumstances.”

Oslo-based monitor Iran Human Rights says nearly 500 people have been killed in the crackdown, while thousands have been arrested.

Beyond the systematic actions taken by states, Tuerk called for a “global consensus” on how to address misinformation and hate speech, how to counter it on social platforms, how to make sure they act responsibly and “don’t add fuel to the fire, to conflict situations … or the backlash that we saw on gender issues.”

Overall, the U.N. human rights chief interpreted these acts of misogyny as “a last attempt by patriarchy to show its force,” against a worldwide movement toward the empowerment of women and gender equity.

He said, “They cannot prevent the new world from giving birth, and I’m very, very confident that this will be a thing of the past because patriarchy is not for the future. It’s something that has to be put into the history books.”

Information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
…

India has announced a $2.3 billion plan to promote “green hydrogen” — hydrogen produced with renewable energy — which experts say could be the clean fuel of the future.

The initiative could help the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases reach its goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2070. 

A series of incentives are aimed at making green hydrogen affordable by bringing down production costs of a technology that has yet to become commercially viable.  

While India has been rapidly expanding renewables such as solar energy, these will not be enough to meet climate goals in a country whose energy needs are expected to grow more than anywhere in the world over the next two decades. India’s current reliance on carbon-emitting coal, its primary source of electricity, has raised concerns on how it will switch to clean energy.

The government is hoping that investments under what is called the National Hydrogen Mission, will provide the answer.

“For lot of heavy industries like steel, cement and oil refining, green hydrogen can be a better solution to make them cleaner. Their massive energy requirements cannot be met by other renewable sources such as solar and wind,” Vibhuti Garg, South Asia director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said.

 “But much will depend on the cost economics” he said. 

Green hydrogen is made by using electricity from renewable sources to split hydrogen from water. The energy it produces creates no carbon emissions. But in an industry still in its infancy, the key lies in significantly lowering production costs. 

“The goal is to bring down its cost over the next five years,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said this week while announcing the initiative. He said it will also help India reduce its emissions and become a major exporter in the field.   

Some experts are optimistic. “In the last one year there has been a drop in green hydrogen prices from roughly $4 per kilogram to $3 now,” said Hemant Mallya at the Council for Energy, Environment and Water, a public policy think tank in New Delhi.

He said increased use will bring down costs further. “The eventual target is $1 per kilogram because that is when you start becoming competitive with coal. But even before that if we can hit $2 per kilogram, it will compete with gas currently imported from Russia and that is pretty much achievable with scale and technological advancement.”

The hope is that just as costs for solar power have dropped substantially in recent years and are now lower than that of electricity generated by coal plants, the cost of producing green hydrogen will also reduce over time. 

India’s goal is to produce 5 million tons of green hydrogen per year by 2030. Experts call it an “ambitious” target and point out that at the moment India only has a handful of pilot projects in the sector. 

However, India wants to ensure that it is not left behind in a technology that is now being looked at with much more hope as the world grapples with a climate crisis. In giving a push to green hydrogen, India is following other countries like the United States and those in the European Union that have also approved incentives worth billions of dollars for its development. 

“I think India does not want to miss the bus and is putting the building blocks in place,” said Garg. She pointed out that in the solar energy sector for example, China took the lead in manufacturing the most cost-competitive components for solar panels, leaving most countries, including India, dependent on Chinese imports. “In green hydrogen, India wants to be a pioneer and not wait for other countries to become the lead players.” 

As the government offers financial incentives, some of India’s biggest firms have made commitments to invest in green hydrogen. They include conglomerates like the Adani Group and Reliance Industries and state-owned energy companies.  

Still, experts say there are many challenges ahead in developing the nascent industry. India will have to scale up domestic manufacturing of electrolyzers, which are a key component to develop green hydrogen and also ensure that there is enough renewable energy available to make it. The investments needed will be huge. Domestic industries might have to be incentivized to switch to using green hydrogen.  

India is also eyeing exports of green hydrogen by becoming a cost-competitive source.

“Our aim is to establish India as a global hub of green hydrogen,” Thakur said. “We will make efforts to get at least 10% of the global demand for green hydrogen.” 

Hopes that export markets will emerge if green hydrogen becomes viable have risen after the disruption in global energy markets in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We need to broaden the horizon and look at exports because the premium on the price of green hydrogen might be a problem domestically, but internationally it is not that much of a challenge for someone in Europe to pay it. And because of the Ukraine crisis for example, countries in Europe, will want to transition quicker than anticipated from natural gas,” according to Mallya.  

 
…

As Islamabad increasingly voices concern about the alleged sheltering of a Pakistani insurgent group in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, there is speculation whether the Pakistani military might strike targets in the neighboring country and how that would impact the region’s fragile security.

Observers say the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021 appears to have revived the armed insurgent group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan — known as the TTP — which has sought the establishment of an Islamist government in Pakistan like the Afghan Taliban, but has been weakened by intense Pakistani military operations over the past decade. Afghanistan has faced accusations it has been harboring the TTP.

After months of inconclusive talks facilitated by the Afghan Taliban in 2022, the government of Pakistan and TTP appear headed back to war between each other.

This past week, top Pakistani military and civilian leaders convened to discuss options for countering TTP threats, which they now claim emanate from Afghanistan.

“No country will be allowed to provide sanctuaries and facilitation to terrorists and Pakistan reserves all rights in that respect to safeguard her people,” said a statement issued by the government of Pakistan after the meeting on Monday.

Pakistan has the right to self-defense against terrorism, Ned Price, spokesman for the U.S. Department of State, said on Tuesday, without mentioning whether the right included Pakistani military action inside Afghanistan.

The TTP poses significant security threats in Pakistan but the group is not a nationwide insurgency capable of bringing down the Pakistani government, experts say.

“The latest developments have given Pakistan little choice but to launch military operations,” Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at the Wilson Center, told VOA.

“If the threat continues to mount and attacks keep increasing, foreign investors could be scared away. And that’s the last thing Pakistan needs at a moment of acute economic stress.”

The Taliban deny harboring the TTP and groups that pose security threats to other countries, but the United Nations says several foreign terrorist groups are present in Afghanistan. 

Friendless Taliban

Despite holding firm control over all of Afghanistan for more than a year, the Taliban have failed to earn recognition from any country and are widely condemned for their undemocratic governance, particularly for violating women’s rights.

Domestically, the Taliban have refused to form an inclusive government and have faced relentless attacks from Islamic State and other groups that oppose the Taliban.

However, for a Pakistani military that has waged several extensive military operations against the TTP in Pakistan, tackling the group in Afghanistan would be more challenging and even counterproductive, experts say.

“The Pakistani military is not designed nor optimized for fighting the likes of TTP in the tribal areas of the country. I suspect, as they have done in the past, that its leaders will do everything they can to avoid another large military conflagration of that kind,” Jonathan Schroden, a military operations analyst with the research organization CNA, told VOA.

Airstrikes by Pakistani forces inside Afghanistan will carry “significant risks, particularly that of accidental civilian casualties, and there are the obvious sovereignty issues, which could lead to open conflict with the Afghan Taliban,” said Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Pakistani military actions, meanwhile, could embolden Islamic State and other militant groups in Afghanistan, creating a favorable environment for international terrorism and criminality.

Sanctioned and isolated, the Taliban in 1996-2001 sheltered al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan. In 2023, the group is even more isolated and at odds with the rest of the world.

“I do think the U.S. and Pakistan are facing a similar challenge in Afghanistan in that they both confront terrorist threats there that the Taliban have been unwilling or unable to curb. I’m not sure that Washington is hoping Islamabad will launch cross-border operations – more instability on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border doesn’t serve U.S. interests,” said Kugelman.

For the Afghan Taliban, making an enemy of the strong Pakistani military would be devastating.

“They can’t afford to completely alienate Pakistan,” said Schroden, adding that the Taliban are already hurting themselves, domestically and internationally, through their policy choices.

A ploy?

Speaking at a U.N. Security Council meeting in December, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the Indian foreign minister, called Pakistan “the epicenter of terrorism.” For years, India has accused its neighbor of harboring and promoting armed groups that launch attacks inside India – charges Pakistan rejects.

For some, Pakistan’s demonstrated frustration with the Afghan Taliban is a staged ploy aimed at whitewashing Pakistan’s alleged longstanding support for violent Islamic extremism in the region.

“The endgame for Pakistan is to turn the Afghan Pashtun belt into their new tribal area,” Hamdullah Mohib, national security advisor to the former Afghan government, tweeted this week.

“This strategy would also most likely gain support from other regional powers, who all would like the freedom to target their enemies inside Afghanistan without global objections.”

The Taliban waged a successful insurgency in Afghanistan largely because of the hideouts and support they received in Pakistan, but a weak Taliban government in Afghanistan, isolated from the rest of the world, might be more desirable and easier for Pakistan to handle.

“Pakistan’s current situation and insecurity are, to a larger extent, the results of Pakistan’s own policies,” Hamid Karzai, former Afghan president, tweeted on Tuesday.

As the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan in 2004, Karzai tried for more than a decade to persuade Pakistani officials to quit support for the Taliban.

Now as a former president living under Taliban rule, Karzai offers the same advice to Pakistan: “Deeply reconsider and change your policy of the past several decades, avoid [using] threats and violence, and adopt a path for civilized and noble relations with Afghanistan for the consolidation of peace and stability in the region.”
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