India launched a rocket carrying 36 private internet satellites on early Sunday, stepping in to keep the orbital constellation growing after a monthslong interruption related to the war in Ukraine.

The liftoff from southern India was the first launch for London-based OneWeb since breaking with the Russian Space Agency in March because of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We have accomplished the orbit very accurately, now the rocket is in its intended orbit,” said S. Somanath, the chairperson of India’s space agency. He said 16 satellites were put into orbit and expressed optimism that “the remaining 20 satellites will get separated as safely as the first of the 16.”

OneWeb now has 462 satellites flying — more than 70% of what the company said it needs to provide broadband services around the world. Despite this year’s disruption, OneWeb said it remains on track to activate global coverage next year with a planned constellation of 648 satellites. It’s already providing service in the northernmost latitudes.

Each OneWeb satellite weighs about 330 pounds (150 kilograms).

It was the 14th launch of OneWeb satellites and relied on India’s heaviest rocket, normally reserved for government spacecraft. All of the previous OneWeb flights were on Russian rockets; the first was in 2019.

The launch is important for India and reflects the gradual opening of its space agency to private customers, said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, a director specializing in space and security at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

Rajagopalan said India is an expert at launching smaller satellites and has been trying to corner this market, pitching itself as a satellite launch facility.

With the war in Ukraine still raging, it could open an opportunity for India as many countries shun Russian launch services.

“It could spur that trend in a big way,” she said.
…

Many preparations go into the celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, which starts Monday.

There’s cleaning and decorating the house, buying new clothes, visiting friends and family — and of course preparing and sharing food. And although the foods associated with Diwali vary from culture to culture, one central theme is snacks and sweets.

The holiday honors the goddess Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity. It celebrates light over darkness, new beginnings, and the triumph of good over evil.

Roni Mazumdar is the founder and CEO of Unapologetic Foods, a restaurant group that includes Dhamaka and Semma in New York City. He moved to the U.S. from Kolkata when he was 12 and misses the Diwali celebrations of his youth.

“In India, every single relative would be there, and that’s what made it Diwali to me,” he says.

The sweet that encapsulates the delight of the holiday for him is fresh rasgulla, a Bengali sweet with jaggery, a type of brown cane sugar.

“Imagine these little cheese dumplings that are dipped in a sweet jaggery syrup that you can just pop into your mouth all day long. It’s like a divine intervention of mankind,” he says.

The rasgulla he most associates with Diwali are made from nolen gur, a jaggery syrup made from the sap of date palms, which is harvested as Diwali approaches, when the weather gets cooler.

Milk is also a big part of the sweets from Kolkata and eastern India, he says. He loves kacha gulla, made from milk that has been curdled and has a loose texture “like ricotta cheese.” It’s used in many kinds of sweets.

Raghavan Iyer, a cookbook author and James Beard Award winner, has fond memories of Diwali celebrations in Mumbai, where he lived until age 21.

“The food itself is important, but it’s also about the exchange of foods with relatives and friends — that is the fun part of it,” he says. “Growing up, we always knew which neighbors to go to — the houses where the goodies would be really great.”

He remembers fondly a steamed-rice, flour-based dumpling called kozhukattai. His family made two versions: a sweet one made with fresh coconut and jaggery, and a savory one filled with lentils and chilies.

Iyer says Diwali always featured kaaju barfi, bars made from pureed cashews, ghee (clarified butter) and sugar. (Hint to his sister: He is hoping you send him some this year!)

And many desserts, he says, are finished by soaking them in a sweet syrup. One of his favorites is jalebi, which features chickpea flour. It’s dipped in sugar syrup laced with cardamom, saffron and lime.

Leela Mahase from Queens, New York, grew up in a Hindu family in Trinidad. Her Diwali sweets include ladoos, which she makes with a paste made from ground split peas and turmeric. It is fried in oil, then ground again, and combined with a syrup made from brown sugar, various spices and condensed milk. It’s formed into balls for eating.

Mahase also makes prasad, made by toasting flour in ghee, then adding cream of wheat. In a separate pot, she simmers evaporated milk with water, raisins, cinnamon and cardamom. This milk-based syrup is added to the cream of wheat mixture, and cooked until the liquid has evaporated. It has a texture she compares to mashed potatoes, and is eaten with the fingers.

Maneesha Sharma, a lawyer and mother of three in New York City, celebrates Diwali along the traditions of northern India, where her family is from.

“Diwali is celebrated with grandeur. You decorate the front door with lights, you put out your finery, and you eat delicacies you would not eat on a daily basis,” she says.

In India, she says, it is common to give others boxes and hampers with food and gold coins featuring images of gods, such as Ganesh and Lakshmi.

Sharma says that “as part of the prayer service when you light the flame, you make a food offering — always a sweet — to the gods.”

She says that including crushed nuts in desserts is a traditional way to both demonstrate wealth and offer respect. Pistachios and almonds are popular.

Here too, milk is featured in many desserts, she says, including phirni, a custard baked in a ramekin, sprinkled with pistachios and served cold. There’s also burfi, cut into small fudge-like squares.
…

The Taliban said Saturday their special forces had killed nine Islamic State operatives and captured two others in overnight raids in the capital, Kabul, and elsewhere in Afghanistan.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban government, said that intelligence information had led security forces to an “important hideout of Daesh” in Kabul late Friday. He used a local name for the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate, known as Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K.

Mujahid said the ensuing gunbattles killed six militants and one Taliban security force member. The raid came shortly after security forces had captured two key ISIS-K members in a separate operation in another part of Kabul, he noted without elaborating.

Separately, the Taliban-led Afghan Interior Ministry said Saturday that “on the basis of solid intelligence” government forces late last night assaulted an ISIS-K hideout in northeastern Takhar province, which borders Tajikistan. The raid in the Dasht Qala district killed three Daesh members, including an “important” commander, the statement said.

Mujahid claimed that all the six Daesh men killed in Kabul were linked to recent suicide bombings in the city, one on an educational center and the other on a mosque.

“They had plotted attacks on Kabul’s Wazir Akbar Khan Mosque, the Kaaj tuition center and other civilian targets,” Mujahid said.

The blast at the female section of the packed tuition center on September 30 killed 53 people, mostly girls and young women, and injured 110 people. It came just days after a bomb exploded at the main mosque in the heavily guarded Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, which houses key government offices and foreign diplomatic missions.

No group to date has claimed responsibility for either attack.

The Taliban seized power more than a year ago when all American and allied troops left Afghanistan after 20 years of involvement in the war. The Islamist rulers maintain they have since brought peace to much of the country and claim their operations against ISIS-K have largely degraded its ability to pose a serious security challenge.

But ISIS-K, which launched its extremist activities in early 2015, has intensified attacks in the country, mostly targeting members of the minority Shiite Muslim Hazara community, raising questions about Taliban claims.

US concerns

U.S. officials see ISIS-K as a growing threat in the crisis-ridden South Asian nation.

Thomas West, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, told VOA that in his meeting with the Taliban earlier this month in Doha, Qatar, the two sides discussed the emerging threat of Daesh.

“We discussed the Taliban’s efforts to fight Daesh. Daesh is a common enemy of the United States and all Afghans. The horrific attacks against Hazaras must stop,” West told VOA.

“The Taliban have made clear that this is their fight and effort, and they will fulfil their commitments outlined in the Doha agreement to ensure that terrorists do not threaten the United States or her allies,” the U.S. envoy said.

He referred to the February 2020 deal Washington signed with the then-insurgent Taliban, paving the way for all U.S.-led international forces to withdraw from Afghanistan in return of the Taliban’s counterterrorism assurances.

West described as “extremely concerning” the attacks by terrorists, ISIS-K in particular, launched from Afghan soil over the past year against neighboring Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Washington has a “definite interest in ensuring that those types of attacks are contained,” the U.S. envoy emphasized.

VOA’s Urdu Service contributed to this story.
…

Germany’s announcement that it will take in 1,000 at-risk Afghans with their families from Afghanistan will be challenging, an Afghan lawyer says, because it is becoming increasingly difficult for Afghans to leave Afghanistan.

In a joint statement, the German Foreign and Interior ministries announced the new humanitarian admission program on Monday.

“The plan is to approve around 1,000 Afghans at particular risk, along with their family members from Afghanistan for admittance every month,” said the statement.

“It is going to be very challenging,” said Abdul Subhan Misbah, former deputy head of Afghanistan’s Lawyers Union who has been involved in the efforts to evacuate judges and prosecutors from Afghanistan, adding that “it is not clear who would be included, and it won’t be easy to take people out of Afghanistan that is ruled by the Taliban.”

The German government said that the new program would evacuate at-risk women’s and human rights activists, former government officials, and civil society members. The program also includes those persecuted in Afghanistan because of their gender, sexual orientation, and/or religion.

Misbah said that many employees of the former government and members of civil society want to leave their country.

“Most of the people want to leave,” he said. “What are the criteria based on which people will be admitted? How are they going to help those at risk to get out of Afghanistan? These questions have to be answered.”

Besides the problems they face to get passports and visas, he said, Afghans must travel to a third country because there are no direct flights from Afghanistan to Germany.

“It should be something that the German government has to negotiate with neighboring countries to facilitate the process,” Misbah said.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Christopher Burger, told VOA that his government is working with the neighboring countries to help with the process.

“We will continue to work through all channels available to us in order to assure safe passage to the people that we want to bring to safety,” he said.

Germany has admitted 26,000 Afghans since Kabul fell and the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

Burger said to implement the new program, German authorities would work with organizations already on the ground and involved in helping at-risk individuals leave the country, but the German government would make the final decision on who is the “most vulnerable and most in need of admission to Germany.”

Local contractors

Burger said the program will continue until October 2025 and does not include 12,000 former German contractors who are “officially granted admission” to Germany but are still in Afghanistan.

“Simply, we are not able to bring people outside the country. They do not have a passport,” Burger said. “We are working with the neighboring countries on achieving that.”

He added that a “larger group” of Afghans had “some sort of association” with German organizations in Afghanistan and “are still in the proceedings to be recognized as former German contracts.”

Axel Steier, the founder of the German-based civil society organization Mission Lifeline, told VOA that his organization runs several safe houses for those who worked with the German government.

He added that these local contractors fear for their lives.

Steier said that “the Taliban want to kill them, and [we are] keeping them into safe houses and waiting for a decision from the German government to take them in.”

Difficult to leave

The German government said that Afghans who have left Afghanistan would not be considered under the new humanitarian admission program.

“So, this is a big issue,” said Steier, adding that many at-risk Afghans left Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power. Most of the individuals are staying in Pakistan, Iran or Tajikistan and are unable to return to Afghanistan.

He added that it is difficult for people to get passports and visas to leave the country.

“And for both, you need a lot of money. Because you can get a passport only if you pay $1,200 to $1,500,” he said. “Also, it is very difficult to get [a] visa for Iran. At the moment, it costs $500.”

“For people who are poor … [and have no] money for stuff like a passport or visa, it is almost impossible to come [to Germany],” Steier said. 
…

A global money laundering and terrorism financing monitor Friday removed Pakistan from a list of countries under the “increased monitoring” process after four years for addressing its “strategic deficiencies” to combat the crimes. 

The president of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) made the announcement after a meeting at its headquarters in Paris, boosting the reputation of the South Asian nation which is struggling to deal with a troubled economy, ravaged by this year’s catastrophic floods, and a balance-of-payment crisis.  

“Pakistan has made significant improvements to strengthen the effectiveness of its framework for combating terrorist financing … as well as asset confiscation outcomes and [the] investigation and prosecuting [of] money laundering,” T. Raja Kumar told reporters in the French capital.  

“So, because of all of this collectively, FATF has decided at its Plenary to remove Pakistan from increased monitoring, the so-called gray list,” Kumar said. 

Pakistan was added to the list in 2018 due to strategic deficiencies FATF had identified in the country’s anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing systems, giving Islamabad a wide-ranging reforms program to strengthen them.  

Kumar praised Pakistan for successfully completing a mutually agreed action plan, adding, “there is high-level commitment and capacity to sustain” the reforms, which he said “are good for the stability and security of the country and indeed the region.”  

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed Friday’s decision by the global monitor.  

“Pakistan exiting the FATF grey list is a vindication of our determined and sustained efforts over the years. I would like to congratulate our civil & military leadership as well as all institutions whose hard work led to today’s success,” Sharif wrote on Twitter.  

The reforms FATF had outlined for Pakistan were largely implemented under former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government, which took office in August 2018 shortly after the country was placed on the gray list.

Khan was removed from power in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April, enabling the then-opposition leader Sharif to replace him as the prime minister of a coalition government. 

Two large Pakistani banks, Habib Bank Limited (HBL) and National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), paid $225 million in 2017 and $55 million in 2022 respectively in fines imposed by regulators in the United States for compliance failures and anti-money laundering violations. 

FATF is comprised of 37 countries and two regional organizations, as well as a global network of international partners, including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 

The global monitor can call on international financial institutions to close their activities in, and association with, offending countries and push governments to apply financial sanctions if the country is downgraded from increased monitoring to the “high-risk” group, down to the FATF “blacklist.”  

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 

 
…

Pakistan’s election authorities Friday disqualified populist former Prime Minister Imran Khan from holding public office for allegedly concealing his assets, prompting his supporters to stage nationwide protests and fueling political turmoil in the country.

The ruling alleges that the former cricket star turned politician had made a “false statement and incorrect declaration” about his assets before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Khan “consequently ceases to be a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan [the lower house of parliament] and his seat has become vacant accordingly,” the ECP said.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders denounced Friday’s decision as politically motivated and vowed to challenge it in a high court, alleging the election commission transgressed its jurisdiction under pressure from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s coalition government.

Khan’s supporters took to the streets across major Pakistani cities to protest his disqualification, blocking major highways and clashing with police. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The case against the former prime minister centered upon a government department known as “Toshakhana”—which literally means “treasure house”—where gifts received by Pakistani leaders during foreign state visits are stored and displayed. 

Khan sold several expensive gifts, including luxury watches, he had received and retained, but he allegedly did not report the earnings to the ECP. The hugely popular former leader maintained the earnings in question had been included in his income tax returns and denied any wrongdoing 

Recipients are legally allowed to retain gifts above a certain value on payment of 50% of the value, a discount Khan raised from 20% while in office.

His lawyers argued “the election commission is not a court, therefore they can’t give a declaration to disqualify anyone.”

The former prime minister was ousted in a vote of no-confidence in April. He has long asserted, without evidence, his removal was orchestrated by the United States in collusion with Sharif and the powerful Pakistani military, which influences politics from behind the scenes. 

Both Washington and Islamabad deny this.

More than 130 PTI lawmakers, the largest group in the lower house of parliament, also resigned en masse in April over the ouster of their leader. Khan’s popularity has since surged, and tens of thousands of his supporters have turned out at his nationwide anti-government rallies to call for fresh elections in Pakistan.

Khan’s party has swept subsequent national and provincial by-elections. In the latest round of the election last Sunday, he himself contested seven of the eight National Assembly seats up for grabs and won six of them, underscoring his popularity across the country of about 220 million people. 

He has threatened to march with hundreds of thousands of supporters on the national capital, Islamabad, to force the Sharif government into holding early general elections for allegedly ruining the national economy and foreign policy. 

Khan has long accused Sharif and his family members, as well as leaders of his major coalition partner, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), of siphoning billions of dollars to offshore accounts from kickbacks and commissions they received while previously in power. 

Sharif and PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan’s current foreign minister, reject the corruption charges.

“The election commission delivered justice in the Toshakhana reference. The nation has seen that the post of prime minister has been made a source of personal income through corrupt practices,” Sharif tweeted Friday while commenting on the ruling against Khan.

“He who would spread lies about alleged corruption of his political opponents has been caught red-handed,” Zardari wrote on Twitter. 

The election panel in its decision also directed officials “to initiate legal proceedings and take follow-up action” against Khan. 

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah vowed later at a news conference the government would immediately abide by the ECP direction and launch court proceedings against the ousted prime minister. 

Friday’s developments come as Pakistan’s economic troubles have deepened following this year’s catastrophic floods. Analysts say increased political instability will likely add to the challenges facing Sharif and his coalition government in addressing rising inflation and balance of payments amid Pakistan’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves.
…

Across Southeast Asia, online scam centers are stealing money from people around the world. But what you may not know is that many of the scammers are victims themselves. Dave Grunebaum has the story. Warning: This video contains images and content that is graphic and disturbing.
…

For over a decade, The Kashmir Walla has provided weekly political insight and news from Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Founded by Fahad Shah when he was 22 and still in college, the news portal strives to give young audiences a better understanding of life in the disputed territory.

“The idea was to cut through the filters of national and international lenses. Shah believed that the story of Kashmir should be told by Kashmiris based in Kashmir,” said Yashraj Sharma, the site’s interim editor.

But those plans are now on hold. Shah is currently in prison after being accused of terrorism and secession.

Shah was first summoned by police in Pulwama district on February 4 and questioned about The Kashmir Walla’s coverage of a gunfight in the south Kashmir area on January 29.

Police charged Shah with sedition, public mischief, and unlawful activities. He was detained for 22 days before a special court released him on bail.

His freedom was short-lived.

Police in the district of Shopian had opened a separate case and that same day, February 26, Shah was detained again.

A Shopian magistrate on March 5 freed Shah but again that night, police in Srinagar detained him. On March 14—one day before the bail hearing in that case—he was ordered detained under the public safety act.

“Everything has changed since February,” said Sharma, “We don’t know whether Shah will come back or not.”

Accusations of terrorism and repeat arrests are not uncommon for Kashmiri journalists. Media have been under increased pressure since India revoked the disputed territory’s special autonomous status in 2019.

“It has become a thing that this happens in Kashmir,” Sharma said, referring to the media arrests and police summonses. “Now, I don’t remember how many times [Shah] had been summoned.”

‘Alternative voice’

The current situation for The Kashmir Walla is a far cry from the optimism with which it was founded.

When Shah founded it in 2011, based on a blog he had started under the same name a few years earlier, it was an innovative product: “the first digital magazine to come out of Kashmir,” said Sharma.

“At that time there were not many professional digital news websites in the valley. Even established media outlets were not focused on online versions,” he told VOA.

Shah had wanted to provide an alternative voice to the youth. “A lot of young journalists were joining Shah and contributing to The Kashmir Walla on contributory and voluntary basis,” Sharma said.

For the first few years, the news website was not updated regularly, while Shah attended university in London on a scholarship.

But when he returned in 2018, Shah rented an office in Srinagar, bought equipment, and hired staff.

Audiences in the region were just getting used to internet access and the digital age when The Kashmir Walla started out, Sharma said.

The audience is mostly “young Kashmiris and that entire generation has grown up with us,” Sharma said.

Independent media like The Kashmir Walla are important, particularly in conflict regions, where many sides are trying to prioritize their take on events, said U.S.-based journalist Amelia Newcomb.

Newcomb, the managing editor of The Christian Science Monitor, told VOA via email that Shah reported for her publication for several years.

“He’s been very attentive to the kind of journalism the Monitor does,” Newcomb said. “While most of his stories for The Christian Science have been from Kashmir, he has also written from elsewhere in India and has supported visiting Monitor writers in their work.”

Newcomb said The Kashmir Walla is objective in its reporting—including in the article that led to Shah’s arrest.

The Kashmir Walla had interviewed the family of a teenager killed in a gunfight between authorities and suspected militants.

“The story was balanced, including comments from the police and the army, in addition to the family. Yet it was categorized by police as part of a body of work glorifying terrorist activities,” Newcomb said.

“Without balanced reporting, people have little opportunity to judge events fairly,” Newcomb added, “And the lack of such work undermines democracy, which thrives only when independent media can provide accurate information and hold officials accountable.”

‘Major challenge’

Shah is not the only Kashmir Walla journalist detained this year. Police in January detained one of its contributors, Sajad Gul. A police statement said that the 26-year-old had “uploaded objectionable videos with anti-national slogans.”

In an interview with VOA at the time, Shah described the arrest as a “brazen violation of freedom of press [that] threatens the very core of people’s rights.”

Gul, like Shah, remains in detention.

Police in April also raided the news website’s offices and Shah’s home in Srinagar, confiscating laptops and phones.

But arrests and raids are not the only challenges.

When the Indian government shut down internet access in August 2019, after revoking Kashmir’s autonomy, the website was forced offline.

Steady revenue is another issue. The website operates on donations and advertising revenue. But frequent disturbances in the region and the coronavirus pandemic lockdown hit revenue.

“That is where we came up with the idea of crowdsource funding, but that too is not sustainable,” Sharma said.

“The major challenge,” Sharma said, “is we can’t focus on the one things. We are short of funds, facing legal challenges and reporters are always off the track,” meaning they are often too distracted to report.

The founder’s predicament has taken a toll on The Kashmir Walla and its team.

“The people who are supposed to manage [the] newsroom are juggling between the court and police stations,” Sharma said.

Shah’s presence in the newsroom is missed, Sharma said. “He was a mentor for all of us. He taught us journalism. It is a big void for all of us at [The Kashmir Walla]. You can’t do anything to fill it and it is a gutting feeling at the same time.”
…

Pakistan has experienced a spike in militant attacks, killing more than 450 people, mostly security forces, in the first nine months of this year. Officials dismiss the violence as “isolated incidents of terrorism.”  

Islamabad attributes the resurgence in militancy to the Taliban takeover of the conflict-torn Afghanistan, where anti-Pakistan militants have taken refuge and continue to direct cross-border attacks from there.  

Officials have confirmed the death of nearly 350 soldiers and personnel of other law enforcement agencies in hundreds of attacks in the first nine months of 2022.  

The outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed or is blamed for many of the attacks.  

Security officials told VOA that the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan, has experienced the highest number of TTP attacks, killing 96 soldiers and wounding at least 280 others. Separately, the provincial police department has confirmed the deaths of 82 police personnel.  

The remaining casualties in 2022 occurred elsewhere in Pakistan, largely in southwestern Baluchistan province, where ethnic Baluch insurgents have stepped up deadly ambushes and gun attacks against security forces. The natural resources-rich province borders Afghanistan and Iran.   

Pakistani security forces have also continued their push against militants and claimed killing hundreds of them. 

A Pakistani military official refuted suggestions that militancy is on the rise in Pakistan, saying years of counterterrorism missions instead have led to a marked improvement in the security situation across the country. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media. 

“Due to [the] peculiar security situation in Afghanistan and [the] use of Afghan soil as [a] safe haven by terrorists against Pakistan, sporadic and isolated incidents have been happening in the newly merged districts, which by no means can be counted as [a] surge in terrorist incidents, when compared to [the] scale and lethality of terrorist incidents [that] happened in the past,” the official told VOA.  

He referred to several Pakistani districts formerly and collectively known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA. The volatile region for decades was governed by special controversial laws and served as a safe haven for both local and foreign-based militant groups. 

However, sustained Pakistan military operations in recent years uprooted what officials described as a “terrorist infrastructure” in ex-FATA, merging the area into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through a constitutional amendment subsequently. 

The Taliban government in Afghanistan, in responding to growing terrorism-related concerns, brokered and hosted peace talks between Pakistan and Afghan-based TTP commanders in recent months.  

But the dialogue has failed to ease TTP-orchestrated violence and the process has apparently fallen apart over militant demands for restoring the traditional status of ex-FATA.  

Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief spokesman for the Taliban government in Kabul, told VOA in a recent interview they were determined to address security concerns of Afghanistan’s neighbors and would arrest for “treason” anyone using Afghan soil against Pakistan. 

“Whoever is present here [in Afghanistan], they aren’t allowed to carry out any such activities because they have assured us, they would not threaten another country. And if [they do] so, these people are committing treason against Afghanistan first. They must be hunted, arrested and punished,” Mujahid told VOA.  

Critics remain skeptical about the Taliban’s claims they are effectively blocking terrorist groups from threatening other countries. 

The rise in TTP extremist activities and the reemergence of its fighters in some of their former strongholds in northwestern Pakistan in recent weeks triggered a strong public backlash, with thousands of residents routinely taking to the streets demanding authorities restore security. 

The Islamabad-based Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), an independent research and advocacy think tank, in a recent report, described the TTP as an “ideological and operational” partner of the Afghan Taliban. 

“For Pakistan, the perils of a militant regime in Kabul have become unmistakably clear as the country has witnessed a mindboggling 51% increase in the number of terrorist attacks in a single year since the Taliban takeover,” the PIPS wrote in its report.  

“The Taliban regime avoids decisive action against the TTP probably as a strategy to extract concessions from Pakistan in bilateral affairs,” the report noted.  

Landlocked Afghanistan heavily relies on Pakistani overland and sea routes for bilateral as well as international trade. Islamabad has stepped up trade links with the Taliban government over the past year, hoping it would encourage the Islamist rulers to address Pakistani concerns in return for more economic incentives.  

The revelation that al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri had been staying in a safe house in the heart of Kabul and his killing in a U.S. drone strike last July has also cast doubt on counterterrorism pledges by the Taliban and promises that they would cut ties with terrorist groups. 

No country has yet recognized the Taliban government over human rights and terrorism-related concerns.   
…

Across Pakistan this summer, flooding has displaced close to 8 million people and affected 33 million, including hundreds of thousands of pregnant women. VOA Urdu Service reporter Sidra Dar visited a medical camp in southern Pakistan’s Sindh province, where pregnant women from some of the worst-hit areas in the country come to seek help. Sarah Zaman narrates. Videographer: Khalil Ahmad.
…

On Thursday, journalists from different parts of the world will attend the 2022 Pulitzer Prize ceremony in New York, but one female award winner will be absent. 

Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a Kashmiri photojournalist who shares this year’s Feature Photography award with three other Indian journalists for their coverage of the COVID-19 crisis in India, was barred from boarding her flight to New York on Monday. 

“I was stopped at immigration at Delhi airport and barred from traveling internationally despite holding a valid US visa and ticket,” Mattoo tweeted, adding it was the second time this year that she was denied traveling outside India.

Indian authorities have not explained why they have imposed a ban on Mattoo’s travel out of the country. 

“We are disappointed that Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a contributor to Reuters, has not been allowed to travel to the United States to receive her Pulitzer Prize in New York alongside her peers,” a Reuters spokesperson told VOA. “We believe that journalists should be able to travel freely.” 

Despite her absence, Matto will be awarded her share of the $15,000 prize to be divided equally among four Reuters journalists, including Danish Siddiqui who was killed in Afghanistan in July 2021. 

“[Mattoo’s] absence due to the Indian government preventing her travel abroad will be noted,” Marjorie Miller, Pulitzer Prizes administrator, told VOA, adding that Mattoo is the only journalist prevented from attending this year’s award ceremony. 

Widespread condemnations 

Journalists and free press advocates have condemned the Indian travel ban on Mattoo. 

“This decision is arbitrary and excessive. Indian authorities must immediately cease all forms of harassment and intimidation against journalists covering the situation in Kashmir,” said Beh Lih Yi, Asia program coordinator at Committee to Protect Journalists, in a statement on October 18. 

“In India, arbitrary travel bans have increasingly become the principal tactic of the authorities to silence independent and critical voices in the country,” Amnesty International said in a statement on the same day. 

In July, Aakash Hassan, another Kashmiri journalist, said Indian immigration authorities barred him from traveling to Sri Lanka without giving him a justification. 

Earlier this year, a group of U.N.-affiliated human rights experts called on the Indian government to stop systemic harassment against a prominent Muslim Indian journalist.

Since stripping Kashmir of its symbolic autonomy in 2019, the Indian government has reportedly imposed various heavy-handed tactics to stifle dissent among the majority Muslim Kashmiri population. 

Indian authorities say the measures are aimed at tackling Islamic terrorism and sedition in Kashmir, but human rights and free press groups say the policy is repressive and discriminatory. 

“The Indian government and nationalist groups are escalating intimidation and attacks against journalists, from trumped up arrests and legal charges to coordinated online and offline abuse,” Suzanne Nossel, chief executive officer at PEN America, told VOA. 

“The Indian government not only condones but encourages this abuse, especially against journalists raising the alarm about the rising tide of discrimination and hatred against Muslim communities.” 

India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index this year dropped to 150th place from previous year’s 142nd rank out of 180 nations, in which 1 is the freest, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, 

 
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India’s main opposition Congress Party has elected a new leader from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family for the first time in more than two decades as it tries to improve its political fortunes that have tumbled dramatically since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in 2014.     

Mallikarjun Kharge, a party veteran and former federal minister, will take charge from interim president Sonia Gandhi.   

The 80-year-old leader received more than 80 percent of the votes cast by at least 9,300 Congress Party delegates, easily trouncing his rival, Shashi Tharoor, a member of parliament and former United Nations diplomat.    

India’s “Grand Old Party” is historically led by the Gandhi family but has faced a leadership vacuum since Rahul Gandhi, son of Sonia Gandhi, quit as president in 2019 after the party suffered a crushing defeat in general elections for a second time.   

The downslide of the once-dominant party that ruled India for nearly six decades has continued in recent years with losses in a string of state elections. It now governs only two of India’s 28 states.    

It remains to be seen whether Kharge can provide the charismatic leadership the dispirited party needs to mount a credible challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has emerged as one of India’s most powerful leaders in recent decades, say analysts.     

After Wednesday’s election, Kharge said that the Congress Party had always strengthened the country’s democracy and protected the constitution. “Now when democracy is in danger, the constitution is being attacked and institutions are being threatened, the Congress Party has set an example by holding a democratic election for president,” he said.   

Political analysts said the election for the top post does offer an opportunity to the party. “This is an important moment in the Congress Party,” said Rahul Verma, fellow at New Delhi’s Center for Policy Research. “At the same time, just electing a new leader does not mean that the party can come out of the crisis it is facing very soon. It is a long haul and will depend on what Kharge brings to the table. What the party needs is clarity on its big ideological message that resonates with India.”  

Shedding Gandhi image 

Analysts say the BJP has gained ground not just due to its own popularity, but due to the absence of an effective opposition capable of offering voters a credible alternative. In particular, Rahul Gandhi was not seen as an effective challenger to Prime Minister Modi. 

The election for the top post was aimed at helping the Congress Party shed its “dynastic” image – an accusation that the ruling BJP has levied against it. Senior BJP leaders often refer to Rahul Gandhi as an “entitled prince” and portray him as the ineffectual scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

Those allegations may not entirely be put to rest by the election for the top post. Political analysts say that the Gandhis will continue to remain a powerful force in the party, as Kharge is seen as being a Gandhi family loyalist.    

“His victory was a foregone conclusion. It was widely thought he had the support of the Gandhis, even though Sonia Gandhi had said they were not backing either of the two candidates,” according to Neerja Chowdhury, a political analyst. Kharge had been dubbed the “unofficial official candidate” of the Gandhis by local media.   

Shashi Tharoor, who said he stood for bringing “change” to the Congress, had complained of an “uneven playing filed” in the runup to the poll and pointed out that senior party leaders had openly backed Kharge.   

“Still, it is an important step that somebody other than the Gandhi family will be in the saddle,” Chowdhury pointed out. “At least they will not be leading from the front.”  

In recent years, several senior Congress leaders have quit in frustration over the party’s failure to overhaul itself under Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, who have been at the helm of the party since 1998.   

Any signs of the party’s revival will only be known in the coming months when several states hold local polls.  

“For any leader, the challenge is to win elections and we will see whether the party can put up a good performance, particularly in the southern state of Karnataka, to which Kharge belongs,” said Verma. “In the runup to the 2024 general elections, they will have to win some states.”   

 
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As the cold season starts in landlocked Afghanistan, concerns are mounting about widespread hunger, particularly in the rugged parts of the country where the first snowfall blocks the roads.

This year there is hope that 30,000 metric tons of wheat coming from another war-torn country, Ukraine, will mitigate the hunger for some Afghans. The U.N. says hunger is nearly universal in Afghanistan with 97% of its population now living below the poverty line.

“Despite its own suffering in the face of Russia’s brutal invasion, Ukraine has donated 30,000 metric tons of grain through the WFP to alleviate Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis,” U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, tweeted last month.

The World Food Program says the wheat is being milled into flour in Turkey and will be then shipped to Pakistan from where it will be delivered to Afghanistan by trucks.

A spokesperson for WFP told VOA the aid shipment is funded by the U.S. “It is not a donation from Ukraine,” said the spokesperson, Annabel Symington.

VOA asked the State Department whether the U.S. offered any financial incentive to Ukraine for the wheat. The answer: No.

“The U.S. did not play a role in Ukraine’s decision to donate this 30,000 metric tons of wheat to Afghanistan and commends Ukraine for its generosity despite the trying circumstances imposed upon it by Russia’s unjust invasion,” the State Department spokesperson said.

Ukraine sells

In August, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced it was giving $68 million to the WFP to buy 150,000 metric tons of wheat from Ukraine to feed needy countries in Africa and Asia.

“Before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was one of WFP’s top suppliers of grain and the fourth largest commercial exporter of wheat. Opening the Ukrainian market is a vital step forward in our emergency response,” USAID said in the statement.

Under a deal brokered by Turkey, Ukraine has exported more than 6.4 million metric tons of wheat and other food items in the past two months, according to the U.N.

The Ukrainian shipments have gone to different countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, where food prices have gone up markedly since Russia embarked on its war against Ukraine in February.

The U.S. has also provided aid to Ukrainian farmers to improve their agricultural products, such as spraying pesticides by drones.

“USAID is supporting the farmers of Ukraine in their efforts to continue feeding Ukrainians and feeding the world,” said Samantha Power, the USAID administrator, while visiting a farm in Ukraine on October 6.

In addition to humanitarian aid, the U.S. has given more than $17.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, according to figures from the State Department.

Why give credit to Ukraine?

While Ukraine has sold the wheat to WFP, why has the U.S. been praising Ukrainian “generosity” and “donation” rather than claiming credit for its own financial sponsorship of the wheat aid to Afghanistan?

“Ukraine is the source of this food,” James S. Gilmore, a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told VOA. “The goal here is to allow Ukraine to engage in international commerce. And, once that’s permitted, over top of this war, then I do think that the American people who are funding it and financing it ought to be given credit for that.”

Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, said the U.S. might have preferred to give credit to Ukraine in order to blunt Russia’s onslaught.

“At the moment, Russia is on the diplomatic offensive in among many developing nations, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, scoring points by saying that the U.S. has been imposing various conditionalities on aid and its double standards, etc. And the U.S. is very keen that Ukraine, with which it is allied, is seen in a more positive light among those developing countries,” de Waal told VOA.
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Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a Pulitzer Prize Winner photojournalist from Indian-administered Kashmir, declared Tuesday on Twitter that she had been stopped by immigration authorities in New Delhi from boarding a flight to New York to receive her award.

“I was on my way to receive the Pulitzer award in New York but I was stopped at immigration at Delhi airport and barred from traveling internationally despite holding a valid U.S. visa and ticket,” Mattoo, tweeted.

“This is the second time I have been stopped without reason or cause,” she added. “Despite reaching out to several officials after what happened few months ago but I never received [any] response. Being able to attend the award ceremony was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me.”

“This is a huge shame,” commented Geeta Seshu, founder of the Free Speech Collective, an independent organization that advocates press freedom, in reaction to Matoo’s tweet. “Totally condemnable. It is incomprehensible. What on earth does the Indian government fear!”

VOA has reached out to the Pulitzer Organization for a comment but did not immediately receive a reply.

Mattoo posted a photograph of her passport with a U.S. visa and her ticket with a red stamp indicating that her travel had been canceled “without prejudice.” The same thing happened in July when she was blocked from traveling to Paris for a book launch and the Arles Rencontres photography festival in France.

Mattoo won the Pulitzer Prize for a feature photography for her coverage of the COVID-19 crisis in India.

Earlier this year, Kashmiri journalist Aakash Hassan was blocked from flying to Sri Lanka and in 2019 Gowhar Geelani was stopped from traveling to Germany.

According to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index this year dropped to 150th place from previous year’s 142nd rank out of 180 nations, in which 1 is the freest.

“The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in ‘the world’s largest democracy,’” RSF said.
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A new investigative report accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers of executing 27 opposition fighters in custody during last month’s military operations in the turbulent northern province of Panjshir.

Afghan Witness (AW), an open-source project run by the U.K.-based nonprofit Center for Information Resilience, studied the allegations and published its findings Tuesday, which contradict earlier Taliban claims of killing the men in battlefield clashes.

The victims were said to be affiliated with the National Resistance Front (NRF), which has been waging an armed resistance against the Taliban since the Islamist group seized power more than a year ago.

AW researchers analyzed dozens of social media videos and photographs to “conclusively link” a group of Taliban fighters to the extrajudicial killings of 10 men in Dara district area.

“Five men—one facing the executioners on his knees, the others sitting facing away, all blindfolded with hands bound behind their backs—are repeatedly shot for 20 seconds… accompanied by celebratory cries from the large group of [Taliban] fighters,” the report said, adding that the group of Taliban fighters could be identified with five more men who were later executed.

AW researchers had gathered “credible evidence of a further 17 executions and 30 deaths as a result of the Taliban offensive in Panjshir, bringing the total to 57 victims,” the report noted. 

The summary execution allegations date back to mid-September, when the Taliban declared in a statement that their forces had killed 40 armed rebels and captured at least 100 others as part of a “large-scale clearance operation” in several districts of mountainous Panjshir, including Dara. NRF officials at the time had confirmed the death of at least eight of their fighters, dismissing the Taliban claims as inflated.

Taliban officials also announced a defense ministry team had been tasked with investigating allegations of summary executions of resistance fighters, but no details have been shared to date.

AW team leader David Osborn told The Associated Press their findings give the “most clear-cut example” of the Taliban carrying out an “orchestrated purge” of NRF fighters.

Taliban authorities did not immediately comment on the report. 

The radical group is under fire from the international community for not governing Afghanistan through an inclusive political system and for restricting women’s rights to work and education. No foreign government has yet recognized the legitimacy of the Taliban government.

The NRF, which is led by Ahmad Massoud — an ethnic Tajik leader — has in recent months regularly claimed guerrilla attacks against Taliban forces, mostly in and around Panjshir, the country’s smallest province located just north of the capital, Kabul.

Critics are skeptical whether the NRF could pose a serious threat to the new Taliban rule. But they see ISIS-K, the Afghan-based affiliate of the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group, as a bigger security challenge for nascent Taliban rule.

ISIS-K has routinely carried out major bombings across Afghanistan, targeting minority Shiite Afghans and security forces, killing hundreds of people in recent months. However, the Taliban downplay the threat, saying their forces have significantly degraded ISIS-K’s presence in the country.

On Tuesday, the Taliban-led Afghan secret agency, known as the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), said its special forces raided a key ISIS-K hideout in the northeastern city, Kunduz, killing some militants. The claim could not be verified from independent sources.

Earlier this week, the GDI announced the arrest of two “important” ISIS-K members, saying they were involved in recruiting fighters and plotting attacks on Afghans.
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A large group of women activists in Afghanistan’s capital Tuesday staged a protest rally against the expulsion of dozens of female students from a Kabul University hostel by Taliban authorities.  

The demonstrators, including students, gathered outside the university campus, chanting, “Education is our red line” and “silence is treason.”  

Rally participants accused the Islamist Taliban-led ministry of higher education of expelling at least 40 female students over the past few days from the school, one of the country’s oldest and most revered institutions.

A ministry statement confirmed on Sunday that several women had been removed from the dormitory for violating university regulations, but it shared no further details.

“The students were punished for attending a protest rally against the attack on the Kaaj education center,” Lilia Baseem, who attended Tuesday’s rally, told VOA.  

She referred to the September 30 suicide bombing of the private school in a western Kabul neighborhood that killed 53 people, including 46 girls and women. Another 110 people, mostly women, were wounded.   

The carnage outraged female activists and students who had taken to the streets in several major cities, including Kabul, shortly after the attack to condemn it and seek justice for the victims.  

The Taliban said an investigation was under way, but the Islamist rulers have not yet shared its outcome and no group has claimed responsibility.  

The Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in August 2021 and subsequently formed a men-only interim administration to govern the war-torn country. The regime, however, has yet to be formally given legitimacy by any country mainly over human rights concerns and a lack of political inclusiveness.

The hardline group has imposed a series of restrictions on women since coming to power, limiting their access to work and education. Most public sector female employees have been instructed to stay at home and women journalists must appear on TV with a face covering.

While public and private universities across the country are open to women in a strictly gender-segregated system of education, the Taliban, in violation of their public pledges, have barred teenage girls in grades seven through 12 from attending school.  

The group reneged on repeated pledges that it would lift the ban in March. The backtracking prompted the U.N. Security Council weeks later to reinstate foreign travel restrictions on two Taliban education ministers. Dozens of members of the government have long been subjected to targeted U.N. travel and asset freeze curbs.  

Tuesday’s demonstration comes a day after reclusive Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada appointed Nada Mohammad Nadeem as the new acting minister of higher education. The official announcement gave no reason. Nadeem has replaced Abdul Baqi Haqqani, who was among the ministers barred by the United Nations from traveling abroad.  

The international community has persistently pushed the Taliban rulers to reverse policies and practices that are restricting the human rights of Afghans, particularly those of women and girls.  

The radical group has defended its polices, saying they are in line with Afghan culture and Islamic injunctions.

Last week, the United States announced a new visa restriction policy as punishment for current or former Taliban leaders and others “believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, repressing” Afghan women and girls through restrictive policies and violence. Washington called on its allies to follow suit.  

The Taliban rejected the U.S. move as an obstacle in the development of bilateral ties.  

Last week, Akhundzada reiterated in an audio message apparently in response to new U.S. sanctions that his government “is ready to engage with the world within the within the framework of Sharia and the interests of our people.” Sharia is Islamic law.

He added that regardless of foreign pressure, Afghan scholars are reviewing all laws introduced over the past 20 years by former U.S.-backed rulers in Kabul to bring them in line with Sharia.

Taliban officials said their supreme leader was speaking to a gathering in the southern city, Kandahar, regarded as the group’s ideological headquarters.

The Taliban government has also blocked young girls from taking university entrance exams this year for a wide range of subjects, including civil engineering, journalism, veterinary studies, agriculture and geology, deeming them difficult for women to handle.  

The education system in Afghanistan has worsened since the Taliban returned to power more than a year ago, jeopardizing children’s futures, particularly girls, according to the latest report by Save the Children. “The majority of secondary school girls — about 850,000 out of 1.1 million — are not attending classes,” the organization said.
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Nearly a decade ago, farmers in India began growing a staple grain that was fortified with iron and zinc to address a longstanding health problem – anemia among women and children. Since 2018, its cultivation is also expanding in Africa. 

Now millions of people consume the grain, helping ward off malnutrition that results, not only from how much people eat, but what they eat.   

Pearl millet has long made up the bulk of diets of rural communities in drought-prone regions of India and Africa. But while the grain fills stomachs, it lacks crucial vitamins and minerals resulting in what is called “hidden hunger” among people who cannot afford balanced diets.   

Mahalingam Govindaraj, an agricultural scientist based in Hyderabad city, told VOA it took nearly a decade of research to develop the biofortified pearl millet. He will be awarded the 2022 Norman E. Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application on October 19 by the World Food Prize Foundation for his “outstanding leadership in mainstreaming biofortified crops, particularly pearl millet, in India and Africa.”  

Govindaraj is a senior scientist with Washington-based HarvestPlus, the Alliance of Biodiversity International, and The International Center for Tropical Agriculture, that have focused on fortifying staple crops with vitamins and minerals to address micronutrient deficiency.  

The son of a farmer, Govindaraj was the first in his family to graduate from college and was excited to learn what impact science could have on agriculture. The biofortification of staple crops had emerged on the horizon and he began work on millets. “It was an emotional choice for me because before my father switched to rice, my family used to grow millets,” he recalled. “The idea is not to replace what is traditionally eaten, but to make it more nutritious.”

Packed With Iron

Pearl millet is a hardy grain grown widely in arid regions of India and Africa. Govindaraj’s farming background equipped him to know exactly what farmers would want. “We had to ensure that its maturity period should be short, it should be a high yielding variety and the grain color should be good, because otherwise they would not grow it,” he said.  

Iron-enriched pearl millet seeds, called “Dhanashakti,” were first given to farmers in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Initially, seed companies used vans with loudspeakers in villages to popularize it.   

Now, about 120,000 Indian farmers grow the grain known as “bajra” across India’s central and southern regions. By 2024, an estimated nine million people will eat a traditional flatbread called “roti” made with this grain.   

Its benefits: 200 grams of this grain provide women with about 80 percent of their recommended daily allowance of iron, thus providing a cheap source of the micronutrient in a country where nearly 60 percent of the children below five and over half the pregnant women are anemic.     

In the last four years, farmers in the drought-prone areas of the Sahelian zone of West Africa in countries like Niger and Senegal have also begin growing iron biofortified pearl millet known as “Chakti.”     

“Biofortification is gaining momentum because it can ensure better nutrition to the coming generation and is cost effective,” points out Monika Garg at the National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute in Mohali, India. “If nutrients are added to the crop itself, it reaches the masses easily and is cheaper. While giving artificial supplements is possible, it is far harder to reach the rural poor with these interventions.”   

Grain Addresses “Hidden Hunger”

The benefits of the fortified pearl millet are already evident. A study by Britain-based BMC Public Health in India’s Maharashtra state showed that a diet of iron-rich pearl millet given to a group of adolescents for six months reversed iron deficiency and also improved memory, attention and physical activity levels.    

The scale of “hidden hunger” is huge – an estimated two billion people, or nearly one in four persons, suffer from vitamin and nutrient deficiencies, according to the World Health Organization.   

Govindaraj points out that the benefits of biofortified crops were also highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic when tens of thousands of people grappled with reduced food portions because they lost incomes. There are also concerns that climate change and food inflation as a result of the Ukraine conflict are exacerbating malnutrition.     

In recent years biofortification of key food crops to tackle malnutrition has emerged firmly on the radar of India and many other developing countries.     

In India, several government agricultural institutes are working on it. Besides pearl millet, crops such as wheat and rice have also been fortified with micronutrients.   

The next challenge is to mainstream those biofortified crops by ensuring that all farmers plant seeds containing micronutrients. The Indian government has already stipulated minimum standards of zinc and iron that all varieties of pearl millet should contain.  

“This is a major milestone,” says Govindaraj. “A beginning has been made and as its cultivation gets scaled up over the next five or six years, it will ensure that every person consuming pearl millet gets micronutrients along with their energy needs.”  
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Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the Booker Prize on Monday for his second novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, about a dead war photographer on a mission in the afterlife.

Karunatilaka received a trophy from Queen Consort Camilla at the English language literary award’s first in-person ceremony since 2019. He also gets a 50,000 pound ($56,810) prize.

Set in 1990 Sri Lanka during the country’s civil war, Karunatilaka’s story follows gay war photographer and gambler Maali Almeida, who wakes up dead.

Time is of essence for Maali, who has “seven moons” to reach out to loved ones and guide them to hidden photos he has taken depicting the brutality of his country’s conflict.

“My hope for Seven Moons is that in the not-too-distant future … it is read in a Sri Lanka that has understood that these ideas of corruption, race baiting and cronyism have not worked and will never work,” Karunatilaka said in his acceptance speech.

“I hope it is read in a Sri Lanka that learns from its stories and that ‘Seven Moons’ will be in the fantasy section of the bookshop and will … not be mistaken for realism or political satire.”

This year’s shortlist of Booker Prize contenders included British author Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker, Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory, Small Things Like These by Irish writer Claire Keegan, U.S. author Percival Everett’s The Trees and Oh William! by U.S. author Elizabeth Strout.

“This is a metaphysical thriller, an afterlife noir that dissolves the boundaries not just of different genres, but of life and death, body and spirit, east and west,” judges chair Neil MacGregor said of Karunatilaka’s book.

“It is an entirely serious philosophical romp that takes the reader to ‘the world’s dark heart’ — the murderous horrors of civil war Sri Lanka,” MacGregor added. “And once there, the reader also discovers the tenderness and beauty, the love and loyalty, and the pursuit of an ideal that justify every human life.”

Past winners of the Booker Prize, which was first awarded in 1969, include Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Yann Martel.
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Pakistani Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said he would not approach China any differently than he would other countries as his government seeks to reschedule debt, and he expressed confidence in Pakistan’s ability to repay loans despite a struggling economy ravaged by devastating rains and floods.

Dar was in Washington to participate in annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Finance ministers from many countries and multilateral lenders gather in the U.S. every year to discuss the state of the global economy.

Speaking to VOA, Dar said, “God willing, there will be no possibility. Pakistan will not default.”

Credit rating company Moody’s recently downgraded Pakistan, casting doubt on the country’s ability to make loan payments. Dar, however, told VOA that he’s sure Pakistan can meet its financial obligations.

“I am very confident. … We are mobilizing resources; we are having commitments,” he said. “That was the reason I [came] here, to engage the multilateral donors, the bilateral donors,” he said.

While the finance minister expressed openness to rescheduling Pakistan’s debt, he said he would not go to multilateral donors and would instead work with bilateral donors or individual countries, emphasizing that he would not seek any reduction in debt principal, calling it “morally and contractually wrong.”

Asked if he has discussed debt rescheduling with China, to which Pakistan owes the biggest chunk of its external debt — roughly $30 billion — Dar said he was not worried about the size of that debt.

He said that there was a lot of speculation that Pakistan might do a “special deal or soft handling with China and some other countries,” but he aimed to have the same understanding with all bilateral creditors.

“We’ll talk to all bilaterals, you know, creditors and lenders. But the treatment will be based on the principles of just [justice] and equality,” he said.

According to a Reuters report, Pakistan is planning to reschedule nearly $27 billion of its debt.

Pakistan’s external debt is more than $130 billion, and its debt-to-GDP ratio is close to 75%. Its current foreign reserves of $13.25 billion are barely enough to support the import-reliant economy for a few weeks. Its currency, the rupee, however, has bounced back a bit after losing almost 30% of its value against the U.S. dollar this year.

In August, the IMF approved a much-needed $1.17 billion loan disbursement after tough negotiations to prevent Pakistan from defaulting on loan repayments. Additional support from traditional allies such as China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates also helped stave off the crisis.

Monsoon, flood costs

But just as Pakistan barely managed to meet its financing needs of almost $35 billion for its fiscal year ending in June 2023, unusually heavy monsoon rains in the summer caused billions of dollars in damages, devastated 4 million acres of crops, displaced almost 8 million people and affected nearly 15% of the country’s population of 220 million.

At a news conference in Washington, Dar said he had seen an initial joint report by the World Bank and the U.N. Development Program that puts Pakistan’s flood-related damages at $32.4 billion and estimates the country will need over $16 billion for recovery.

A recent report released by the World Bank said Pakistan’s economy is expected to grow by a mere 2% this year because of the floods, and 5.8 million to 9 million people could be pushed into poverty “without decisive relief and recovery efforts to help the poor.”

The World Bank pledged to provide $2 billion in aid to Pakistan after the bank’s vice president for South Asia, Martin Raiser, had visited the country last month. The IMF told VOA it would send a mission to Pakistan next month.

During Dar’s visit, IMF and World Bank officials expressed sympathy for Pakistan, but they discouraged its government from providing untargeted subsidies to deal with the effects of the floods and urged it to reform its energy sector, which loses millions of dollars annually because of subsidies.

Dar took office barely three weeks ago, after his predecessor had been forced to resign five months into the job largely because of high energy prices due to the tough reforms Pakistan had promised in order to secure the $1.17 billion loan tranche from the IMF.

The installment was part of a roughly $6 billion deal reached with the international lender in 2019 and due to finish in June 2023.

Dar said that the IMF had not responded to Pakistan’s request to ease the conditions of that loan in the wake of the floods. However, the three-time finance minister said that he was committed to completing the program.

This is Pakistan’s 13th bailout program with the IMF. The country completed only one such program successfully by bringing necessary reforms in 2016, when Dar was the finance minister. Overall, Pakistan has gone to the international lender 23 times since becoming a member in 1950.

But Dar doesn’t have much time. Pakistan’s parliament completes its term in August, leaving him with less than a year to fix a plethora of problems, and perhaps even less time if elections are called sooner.

Dar is serving an unpopular coalition government that took the reins after removing the populist Prime Minister Imran Khan in a parliamentary vote of no confidence in mid-April. Since then, Khan has held massive rallies, pressuring the government to hold elections soon.

Despite Pakistan’s political instability and bleak economic outlook, Dar expressed hope for the country’s recovery. His government’s unpopularity is the price it’s paying to save the state, he said, and his aim is to stop the downward economic trend in the brief time he has.
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The Taliban have imposed yet more restrictions on girls’ education in Afghanistan as the group barred girls from choosing certain subjects in the country’s national university entrance exam this year.

The form given to female students at the exam, received by the VOA Afghanistan Service, shows that female students did not have the option of choosing civil engineering, journalism, veterinary, agriculture and geology in this year’s exam held at the beginning of this month.

“I wanted to pursue journalism and looked to pick it, but it was not an option,” said 19-year-old Haseena Ahmadi, who took this year’s university entrance exam in the western Herat province.

Ahmadi added that omitting the subjects is a “tactic” used by the Taliban to stop women from pursuing higher education.

The Taliban, who seized power last year, banned girls’ secondary education in the country, but female students were allowed to return to universities and continue their studies in gender-segregated classes.

According to Save the Children, 80% of secondary school girls in Afghanistan were denied attending school.

“The majority of secondary school girls — about 850,000 out of 1.1 million — are not attending classes,” the report said.

The United Nations called the Taliban’s ban on secondary education “shameful” and called on the group to reopen the girls’ school.

Abdul Qadir Khamosh, the Taliban’s head of the university exam, acknowledged that some of the subjects were excluded.

In an interview with the BBC’s Pashto service, Khamosh claimed that “in some of the regions, women did not show interest in these subjects, and that is why the decision was made.”

Female students who took the exam, however, told VOA that the subjects they wanted to choose were not among those listed during the exam.

“I wanted to select engineering, but it was not an option, and I had to choose another subject,” said 18-year-old Huda, who did not want to reveal her real name for fear of reprisals.

“We were very stressed,” she said.

Nargis Mommand Hassanzai, a former lecturer at Kabul University, told VOA that these restrictions are “affecting girls’ mental health and forcing families to leave their country.”

She added that “a student can only succeed in a field that she likes to pursue.”

Hassanzai said the Taliban use religion or culture as an “excuse” to justify women’s rights violations.

Before the Taliban’s takeover, some 3.5 million girls were going to schools, and about 30% of the civil servants and around 28% of parliamentarians were women.

However, the Taliban’s return to power curbed women’s rights and freedoms.

Gender apartheid

Human Rights Watch called the Taliban’s new limitations on female students “concerning.”

“It’s deeply concerning to hear reports that the Taliban are now limiting what subjects girls and young women can study at [the] university level, and [are] banning girls and young women from most subjects,” Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch told the VOA Afghan Service.

She added, however, that this is not “surprising.”

Since seizing power last year, the Taliban have barred women from working in most government agencies and restricted them from working in the private sector in Afghanistan.

“Unfortunately, this new policy seems consistent with the type of gender apartheid that the Taliban are imposing increasingly across the country,” said Barr.

The U.S. announced last week a visa restriction on some of the current and former Taliban members who are “responsible for, or complicit in, repressing women and girls in Afghanistan through restrictive policies and violence.”

The Taliban called the new U.S. sanctions an “impediment to the development” in their relations with the Taliban.

More pressure

Afghan women’s rights activists have repeatedly called on the international community to use its political leverage to pressure the Taliban to grant women their rights.

Shukria Barakzai, former Afghan ambassador to Norway, told VOA that the world should stand with Afghan women protesting for their rights.

“I think we, Afghan women, are not receiving the political support that is needed,” Barakzai said. “In the past year, Afghan women’s protests did not stop for a single day. They are raising their voices every day.” 

She added that “the world does not want to hear those voices anymore.” 
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Pakistan’s deposed former Prime Minister Imran Khan has swept a key by-election, reinforcing his opposition party’s call for the embattled coalition government to announce early general elections in the country.

Khan was a candidate for seven of the eight seats up for grabs in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, in Sunday’s vote, calling it a “referendum” on his popularity.

The 70-year-old politician grabbed six of the seats while the other two were taken by the Pakistan Peoples Party, a major coalition partner in current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government.

Candidates can stand in multiple seats in Pakistan elections and must choose which seat to surrender if they win more than one.

The victory suggested Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party remains the most popular political force in the South Asian nation of about 220 million people.

The former cricketer-turned-populist politician was removed from power in April through a parliamentary no-confidence vote advanced by the opposition alliance led by Sharif. Khan was accused of mismanaging the country’s economy and foreign policy, charges he rejected.

Since his ouster from office, Khan has addressed dozens of nationwide anti-government rallies drawing tens of thousands of supporters in his bid to press for snap national elections, accusing Sharif’s government of plunging Pakistan into political and economic turmoil.

The PTI has already scored a series of by-election victories, and in July regained power in Punjab, the country’s most populous province. Khan’s party legislators resigned from parliament in April in line with his orders to protest over the PTI government’s removal. Elections for those seats are being held in phases.

However, the deposed Pakistani leader maintained that contesting these by-elections was not meant to return his party to parliament but to show that the incumbent government lacks public support and confidence.

“I have repeatedly said that it’s not a simple election, it’s a referendum,” Khan told reporters in Islamabad after Monday’s thumping victory.

“The results show that the nation wants fresh elections, and they don’t accept this imported government for being an outcome of foreign conspiracy,” the opposition leader asserted.

Khan alleges without evidence that the no-confidence vote was orchestrated by the United States in collusion with Sharif and the Pakistani military. Both Washington and Islamabad deny the accusation.

The opposition leader warned that his party plans to march on Islamabad to push the government to immediately announce early elections.

“They still have time to announce elections, and if they don’t, I will begin my march, and my preparations are almost complete,” Khan said.

Pakistani Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb rejected Khan’s demand, saying the government and parliament cannot be dictated by him. She alleged that Khan’s march on the federal capital was meant to “create anarchy in the country.”

Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, president of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, an independent group promoting democracy, noted that the outcome of Sunday’s by-elections showed a significant increase in the PTI vote bank.

‘The increase in PTI combined vote share in eight constituencies from 37% in [the] 2018 general election to [a] whopping 49% yesterday is remarkable!” Mehboob said on Twitter.

Sharif’s government has been under growing public pressure and criticism for being unable to contain soaring inflation and oil prices, and overcome other economic challenges, including rapidly depleting foreign exchange reserves.

The financial crisis has deepened since mid-June when unprecedented floods hit Pakistan, forcing more than 8 million people from their homes and causing what officials estimate are billions of dollars in economic losses.

Khan’s party won the 2018 general elections in Pakistan on a populist platform to combat rampant corruption and introduce social reforms, accusing his predecessors of siphoning away billions of dollars to their foreign bank accounts while in power. But his ousted government had faced sustained criticism for failing to deliver on his promises.
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About 150 refugees from Afghanistan are camped out in the main airport of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s financial capital and most populous city. Many more are expected to arrive in the coming months but aid workers say the government has no plans for a wide-scale response to the growing crisis. For VOA, Yan Boechat has this report from Sao Paulo, Brazil with Heather Murdock in Istanbul. Videographer: Yan Boechat
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India’s main opposition Congress party voted to elect a new president Monday, with members of its dominant Nehru-Gandhi dynasty staying out of the race.

Sonia Gandhi, the interim party president, was among the nearly 9,000 party delegates who were entitled to vote on the matter.

“I have been waiting for this for a long time,” she said after voting in the party’s New Delhi office.

Although the party has historically been led by the family, Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul Gandhi, decided to bring in a new face after suffering crushing defeats in national and state elections since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party came to power in 2014. 

Eighty-year-old Mallikarjun Kharge from southern Karnataka state appears to be the frontrunner with the party’s top leaders backing him during campaigning ahead of the vote. He has been described by Indian media as the “official candidate.” His main challenger is Shashi Tharoor, 66, who spent nearly 30 years at the United Nations before joining the Congress party in 2009.

“I believe the revival of the Congress has begun,” Tharoor said after casting his vote.

Tharoor, however, complained to the party’s election authority that he has been denied a level playing field as some senior party leaders, including Ashok Gehlot and Siddaramaiah, issued appeals to party delegates urging them vote for Kharge.

Madhusudan Mistry, who heads the party’s election board, is yet to announce his decision on Tharoor’s complaint.

The election to the top party post is a major step toward ending the party’s struggle to find a new leader after dismal results in the 2019 national elections and Rahul Gandhi’s subsequent resignation as party president.

Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi said last month that no one from the Gandhi family will be in the race this time. Vote-counting and results are scheduled for Wednesday.

Modi has denounced Congress’ dynastic politics.

The party has been led by non-family members in the past, but Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have been at the helm of party affairs since 1998.

The family has produced three of India’s 15 prime ministers since independence, starting with his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was the country’s first. Two of them — his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and father, Rajiv Gandhi — were assassinated. The party governed India for more than 60 years after India gained independence from British colonialists in 1947.

Rahul Gandhi is on a 3,500-kilometer (2,185-mile) walking tour of Indian cities, towns and villages over the next four months as he attempts to rejuvenate the party and win the people’s support ahead of key state legislature elections in Himachal Pradesh state and Modi’s home state of Gujarat. The results are likely to impact the country’s next national elections, due in 2024.
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The first five months of Shakeela Bibi’s pregnancy were smooth. She picked out a name, Uthman, and made him clothes and furniture. She had regular checkups at home and access to medicine. Then an ultrasound revealed the baby was upside down. The doctor told Bibi to take extra care and rest. 

And then came this summer’s massive floods. Bibi’s home in the southern Pakistani city of Rajanpur was inundated. 

When she spoke to The Associated Press last month, she was living in a camp for displaced families. With her due date approaching, she was afraid over the possibility of a breech birth with almost no health care accessible. 

“What happens if my health deteriorates suddenly?” Shakeela said. She has a blood deficiency and sometimes low blood pressure, but she said she can’t have a proper diet in the camp. “I’ve been in a camp for two months, sleeping on the ground, and this is making my situation worse.” 

Pregnant women are struggling to get care after Pakistan’s unprecedented flooding, which inundated a third of the country at its height and drove millions from their homes. There are at least at least 610,000 pregnant women in flood-affected areas, according to the Population Council, a U.S.-based reproductive health organization. 

Possible Death, Disability, and Disease

Many live in tent camps for the displaced, or try to make it on their own with their families in flood-wrecked villages and towns. Women have lost access to health services after more than 1,500 health facilities and large stretches of roads were destroyed. More than 130,000 pregnant women need urgent care, with some 2,000 a day giving birth mostly in unsafe conditions, according to the United Nations. 

Experts fear an increase in infant mortality or health complications for mothers or children in a country that already has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Asia. They also warn of dangerous, long-term repercussions for women, such as an increase in child marriage and unwanted pregnancies because of the disruptions in the lives and livelihoods of families. 

Rasheed Ahmed, a humanitarian analyst at the U.N. Population Fund, said the health system was already poor before, and he warned now of “death, disability, and disease” if the health of pregnant women is ignored. 

“The biggest shortage is female health care workers, medical supplies and medicine,” he said. “Resources are another challenge. What are the government’s priorities? Are they willing to spend the money?” 

At camps in the flood-hit towns of Fazilpur and Rajanpur, pregnant women told the AP they had received no treatment or services for their pregnancies since arriving at the camps nearly two months ago. Clinics handed out medicines for minor ailments, but nothing for mothers-to-be. The next day, after the AP visited a local medical center to alert their plight, female health workers went to check on the women and distribute calcium sachets and iron supplements. 

Shakeela Bibi and her family eventually left the camp, taking their tent with them and setting it up close to their wrecked home. Authorities gave them a month’s worth of flour, ghee, and lentils. She is now past her due date, but doctors have assured her that her baby is fine and don’t think she will need a Caesarian. 

Perveen Bibi, an 18-year-old who is five months pregnant and not related to Shakeela, said the lack of health facilities in the camp forced her to travel to a private clinic and pay for an ultrasound and check-up. But she was prescribed medicine she can’t afford to buy. 

“I used to have a good diet, with dairy products from our livestock,” she said. The family had to sell their livestock after the floods because they had no place to keep them and no way to feed them. 

“We need female doctors, female nurses, gynecologists,” said Bibi, who has one daughter and is expecting a boy. She had a son around a year ago, but he died a few days after his birth. “We can’t afford ultrasound or IV. We’re just getting by.” 

Groups, Individuals Offer Support

In the camps, families of five, seven or more eat, sleep, and spend their days and nights in one tent, sometimes with just one bed between them. Most sleep on floor mats. Some survivors only have the clothes they fled in and rely on donations. 

Outdoor taps are used for washing clothes, washing dishes, and bathing. The pregnant women said there were shortages of clean water and soap. They were scared of infections because of open defecation at the camps. A bathroom was set up, but it has no roof and tents surround it. 

Amid the devastation, organizations and individuals are doing what they can — the UNFPA is delivering supplies for newborn babies and safe delivery kits across four flood-hit provinces. 

A Karachi-based NGO, the Mama Baby Fund, has provided 9,000 safe delivery kits, which include items for new-borns, across Sindh and Baluchistan provinces, as well as antenatal and postnatal check-ups for 1,000 women. The Association for Mothers and Newborns, also based in Karachi, has provided more than 1,500 safe delivery kits, mostly in Sindh. 

Ahmed from the UNFPA says pregnant women have different needs to the rest of the displaced population, needs that aren’t being met by state efforts. 

“The government’s response is very general, it’s for the masses. It’s about shelter, relocation,” Ahmed said. “I’ve heard about women miscarrying because of mental stress, the physical stress of displacement and relocation.” 

Long-lasting effects

The health crisis triggered by the flooding will reverberate among women because it will take long to rebuild health facilities and restore family planning, according to Saima Bashir from the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. 

“Women and young girls are very vulnerable in this situation,” said Bashir. She pointed to increasing reports of child marriage. 

Even before the floods, 21% of Pakistani girls were married before the age of 18, and 4% before the age of 15, according to U.N. figures. 

The rate is increasing for several reasons. Some parents marry off their daughters as a way to obtain financial support from the boy’s family so they can rebuild their homes. Others fear for the safety of their girls in displaced camps and believe marrying them off will protect them from abuse or secure their future. Also, the destruction of schools in the floods closes off other options; some girls who would have gotten an education or possibly gone on to work will stay at home instead. 

In the next few years, those girls will get pregnant, Bashir said, especially given limited access to contraception. 

“There will be more unwanted pregnancies,” she said. “This is … compounding this crisis, and it’s adding to the population.” 
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