DRULAP

London — The European Parliament overwhelmingly passed an emergency resolution Thursday condemning the Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghurs and urging China to immediately and unconditionally release detainees, including Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti and Gulshan Abbas.

The resolution is fueled by widespread concern from the international community and highlights its continued concern about the human rights situation in Xinjiang.

The resolution, which was adopted by a vote of 540 in favor, 23 against and 47 abstentions, strongly condemns China’s “repression and targeting of Uyghurs with abusive policies, including intense surveillance, forced labor, sterilization, birth prevention measures and the destruction of Uyghur identity, which amount to crimes against humanity and a serious risk of genocide.”

The European Parliament’s resolution pays attention to the cases of two high-profile Uyghurs. Ilham Tohti, a 54-year-old economist, was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 on charges of “separatism.” Tohti has long worked to promote dialogue between Uyghurs and the Han Chinese and is considered a moderate intellectual. In 2019, the European Parliament awarded him the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought for his efforts to uphold human rights.

Gulshan Abbas, a 62-year-old retired doctor, was detained in 2018 and sentenced to 20 years in prison on terrorism-related charges. Abbas’s sister, Rushan Abbas, is a Uyghur human rights activist in the United States.

Ziba Murat, daughter of Gulshan Abbas, told the nonprofit group International Services for Human Rights, “My mother was a medical professional who dedicated her life to helping others and saving lives. She is a non-politicized, warm-hearted and loving mother. The accusations against her are absurd and baseless. My mother is suffering only because her family in the United States has spoken out against the Chinese government’s unfair treatment of Uyghurs. This is an obvious example of kinship punishment and transnational repression.”

Rushan Abbas told VOA, “The adoption of this resolution by the European Parliament signifies more than symbolic recognition; it is a decisive step toward accountability and justice for the countless Uyghur lives devastated by China’s oppressive policies, including my sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas and Ilham Tohti. It is imperative that EU member states not only recognize their moral duty but also seize this political moment to implement sanctions that reinforce this resolution. Our collective demand for justice and the protection of human rights must manifest in substantive measures.”

Rahima Mahmut, executive director of the group Stop Uyghur Genocide, told VOA, “I welcome this decision that is so important. In my opinion, especially for Ilham Tohti’s 10th anniversary this year, and then along with so many thousands of intellectuals, linguistics, artists, scholars, religious leaders and many, many imprisoned unlawfully, serving long-term prison sentences. They are all innocent people, never committed any crime in any standard, even under the Chinese constitution.”

Raphaël Viana David, program manager of International Service for Human Rights, told VOA, “There is indisputable evidence that when governments and U.N. experts press Beijing publicly, in a coordinated and sustained fashion, the wall will eventually crack. It is now the moment for global actors to step up pressure in calling out acts of transnational repression by Beijing, and to call for the release of Dr. Abbas.”

Mahmut said, “I believe the EU and countries, especially democratic countries like the U.K., should impose sanctions against China for illegally detaining millions of people, putting people on forced labor. This is not a new thing anymore. It’s not news anymore.

“There are so many other things that the EU and the U.K. government can do to really show their support to the Uyghurs and the Tibetans and the Hong Kongers. We are suffering under this regime for too long,” she added.

Michael Polak, an international criminal lawyer from London’s Church Court Chambers who is involved in a universal jurisdiction case concerning Uyghurs in Argentina, said, “Five hundred and forty out of 610 members of the European Parliament voted to recognize the repression of the Uyghur people and particularly the continued detention of well-known individual Uyghur leaders.”

He emphasized the legal implications of the vote and said, “This is the biggest Parliament in the world, as far as I’m concerned, to recognize what’s happening to the Uyghur people, which are crimes against humanity and genocide.”

David said, “In the last June session of the Human Rights Council, the high commissioner [the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights] also called out a ‘pattern emerging of transnational repression’ in Southeast Asia ‘whereby human rights defenders seeking refuge in neighboring countries have been subject to rendition and refoulement or disappeared and even killed,’ making implicit reference to the unlawful refoulement of lawyer Lu Siwei from Laos to China. Just today, we received reports that Lu Siwei has been arrested: Governments have to firmly condemn this and urge his release.”

Rushan Abbas said, “I urge each EU member state to not only support this resolution but to actively enforce sanctions against Chinese officials and entities directly responsible for the detention and persecution of Uyghurs. … It is crucial that these sanctions are robust and targeted towards CCP [Chinese Communist Party] officials that aid and abet human rights abuses.

“EU member states should enforce strict compliance with the new EU forced labor regulations. Companies operating within their borders must be transparent about their supply chains and ensure they are not complicit in the exploitation of the Uyghur people,” she added.

The human rights situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has been the focus of international attention in recent years. Several Western countries and human rights groups have accused China of setting up “re-education camps” in Xinjiang and mass detaining Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. Human Rights Watch reports that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs may have been held in so-called “re-education camps” since 2017. Analysis of satellite imagery from the Australia Strategic Policy Institute shows many suspected detention facilities in Xinjiang.

However, the Chinese government firmly denies those allegations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson has repeatedly said that Xinjiang’s measures are aimed at combating terrorism and extremism and ensuring regional security and development.

The Chinese government has not yet officially responded to the European Parliament’s decision.

The Chinese Mission to the European Union did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — A new source of tension in the South China Sea — until now focused on fisheries, resource extraction and freedom of navigation — is beginning to get attention: the undersea fiber-optic cables that crisscross the strategic waterway and carry almost all of the region’s internet and other telecommunications traffic.

Since 2020, according to published reports, the United States has been urging countries in the region to avoid using a Chinese company to repair or lay new cables at the bottom of the sea out of concern that China could intercept and monitor sensitive communications passing through the cables.

It has also been urging companies to route new cables around the perimeter of the sea, avoiding the central part of the waterway claimed by China based on historic maps showing a 10-dash line that infringes on the exclusive economic zones of several other countries.

In what may be an act of retaliation, according to a Washington Post report this month, China has been delaying — sometimes for months — its approval of permits for companies to repair or lay new cables under the sea. The delays have been particularly troublesome for countries such as Vietnam, which is anxious to replace five aging cables that have failed repeatedly, slowing internet traffic in the country.

In the past four years, the U.S. government has blocked at least three cable projects that would have linked the United States to Hong Kong because of concerns that China could spy on or sabotage communications, the Post reported.

Concerns were also raised at last month’s U.N. General Assembly meetings, where the U.S. and other countries, including Australia, France, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the U.K., issued a joint statement calling for undersea cables to be kept secure from risks that included surveillance, intentional damage and compromise of data and communications.

“There is a risk of surveillance and snooping in by the Chinese telecom companies, and similar kind of surveillance risk exists also for undersea cables,” said Sameer Patil, director of the Center for Security Strategy and Technology at the Observer Foundation.

The kind of data that the Chinese military could gather in real time through undersea cables includes information about U.S. military personnel, the movement of U.S. naval warships and other military assets, Patil told VOA.

Although the U.S. and some other countries have undersea cables that are exclusive for military use, countries in the Indo-Pacific do not have the financial means to maintain dual sets of cables, said Patil, who is based in New Delhi and has been closely following the issue.

This means these countries may transmit sensitive military data and civilian data over the same sets of cables, he said.

At the center of the concerns is China’s HMN Technologies, the latest entrant into the specialized field of cable laying that previously was dominated by just three companies: U.S.-based SubCom, French firm Alcatel Submarine Networks and Japan’s Nippon Electric Company.

HMN Technologies was once owned by Huawei and is still considered by the U.S. to be an affiliate of the Chinese tech giant, whose equipment has been banned in the United States and other countries over fears that it can be used to facilitate Chinese espionage.

Reuters news agency reported exclusively last month that the United States is pressing Vietnam to avoid using HMN Technologies in its plans to build 10 new undersea cables by 2030. It said U.S. officials and companies have held at least a half-dozen meetings with Vietnamese and foreign officials and business executives on the matter this year.

Reuters also quoted multiple sources saying U.S. officials have separately shared intelligence about possible sabotage of Vietnam’s subsea cables.

The Post said concerted U.S. lobbying has led to three other U.S.-financed transpacific cable projects being routed through the coastal waters of Indonesia and the Philippines to avoid Beijing-claimed waters, driving up the costs of the projects.

Meanwhile, according to executives at seven cable companies cited by the Post, permits for cable work that were once approved by China in less than 10 days now are taking up to four months and are sometimes rejected with little justification.

While China’s claim to most of the South China Sea has been rejected by an international tribunal, the companies say they are unwilling to risk working in the area without Beijing’s approval.

“What we’re seeing is China essentially retaliating by delaying permits that it can grant,” said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

“The U.S. government is concerned about China listening in on existing cables,” and Beijing is retaliating against the U.S. for trying to dissuade countries from using Chinese companies, Braw told VOA.

Beijing rejected that interpretation in response to questions this week from VOA.

“The Chinese government has always welcomed and supported the laying of international submarine cables by other countries and telecommunications companies in waters under China’s jurisdiction,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

“Over the years, China has actively promulgated relevant laws and regulations to clarify the rights and obligations of all countries to lay submarine cables in waters under China’s jurisdiction” to “provide a sound legal guarantee for the transit of international submarine cables in waters under China’s jurisdiction,” he said.

Erin Murphy, a senior fellow for the Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told VOA that China may have its own concerns about espionage or sabotage operations when cable-laying ships from the United States or other Western countries operate in areas it claims as being under its jurisdiction.

“There’s also the economic competition angle. Preventing non-Chinese companies from operating in their perceived backyard is one way to continue to dominate the network, providing ongoing business for its companies and fulfill its digital Silk Road ambitions,” she said.

Braw at the Atlantic Council said Chinese companies, while relatively new to the field, have become highly competitive with Western cable-laying companies by offering to build and repair subsea cables at cheaper costs.

An estimated 400 to 600 fiber-optic cables crisscross the world’s seabed with a total length of 1.4 million kilometers, according to TeleGeography, a research firm monitoring the telecommunications industry. That is enough to wrap around the earth’s circumference about 35 times.

These cables carry more than 95% of global data, including voice communications, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U.S. Commerce Department.
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Bangladesh is busy reforming institutions after an uprising in July and August ended Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule. As VOA’s Sarah Zaman reports from Dhaka, Hasina’s brutal crackdown on the mass protests left deep scars. Videographer: Rubel Hassan
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LONDON — Climbers believe they have found the partial remains of a British mountaineer who might — or might not — have been one of the first two people to climb Mount Everest, a century after their attempt on the world’s highest peak, according to an expedition led by National Geographic. 

Ahead of the release of a documentary film, the television channel said Friday that the expedition found a foot encased in a sock embroidered with “AC Irvine” and a boot that could be that of Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, who disappeared at the age of 22 along with his co-climber, the legendary George Mallory, near Everest’s peak on June 8, 1924. 

The pair, who were seeking to become the first people to conquer Everest, were last seen around 800 feet (245 meters) from the summit. Their fate has been debated by climbers and historians alike, with some postulating that they had stood atop of the world before disappearing on the way down. 

In his final letter to his wife, Ruth, before he vanished on Mount Everest a century ago, the 37-year-old Mallory, who once famously said he wanted to conquer Everest “because it’s there,” tried to ease her worries even as he said his chances of reaching the world’s highest peak were “50 to 1 against us.” 

Mallory’s body was found in 1999 but there was no evidence that could point to the two having reached Everest’s summit at 29,032 feet (8,849 meters). 

There is still no such evidence, though the apparent discovery of Irvine’s remains could narrow the search for a Kodak Vest Pocket camera lent to the climbers by expedition member Howard Somervell. For mountaineers, it’s the equivalent of the Holy Grail — the possibility of photographic proof that the two did reach the summit, almost three decades before New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay got there on May, 29, 1953. 

The sock and boot were found at a lower altitude than Mallory’s remains, on the Central Rongbuk Glacier below the North Face of Mount Everest. 

“This was a monumental and emotional moment for us and our entire team on the ground, and we just hope this can finally bring peace of mind to his relatives and the climbing world at large,” said climb team member and National Geographic explorer Jimmy Chin. 

Chin did not say exactly where the remains were found because he wants to discourage trophy hunters. But he’s confident that other items — and maybe even the camera — are nearby. 

“It certainly reduces the search area,” he told National Geographic. 

The Irvine family has volunteered to compare DNA test results with the remains to confirm his identity. 

His great-niece and biographer, Julie Summers, said she reacted emotionally when she found out about the discovery. 

“I have lived with this story since I was a 7-year-old when my father told us about the mystery of Uncle Sandy on Everest,” she said. “When Jimmy told me that he saw the name AC Irvine on the label on the sock inside the boot, I found myself moved to tears. It was and will remain an extraordinary and poignant moment.” 

The find, made by Chin along with climbers and filmmakers Erich Roepke and Mark Fisher, was reported to the London-based Royal Geographical Society, which jointly organized Mallory and Irvine’s expedition along with the Alpine Club. 

“As joint organizer of the 1924 Everest expedition, the society deeply appreciates the respect Jimmy Chin’s team has shown Sandy Irvine’s remains and their sensitivity toward Sandy’s family members and others connected to that expedition,” said Joe Smith, director of the society. 

The partial remains are now in the possession of the China Tibet Mountaineering Association, which is responsible for climbing permits on Everest’s northern side.
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Seoul, South Korea — North Korea on Friday accused South Korea of sending drones to drop anti-regime leaflets over Pyongyang, an accusation that Seoul immediately denied.

According to the state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s foreign ministry said South Korean drones have entered Pyongyang at night on three occasions since October 3, scattering “numerous” leaflets.

The ministry called the alleged incursion a “grave political and military provocation” that requires retaliation, warning that the situation could lead to an armed conflict or even war.

South Korea’s military denied involvement, stating it did not send any drones but that it would investigate whether private groups may have launched the leaflets, reported the South’s Yonhap news agency.

In recent months, North Korea has launched thousands of trash-filled balloons into South Korea as retaliation against activists who float anti-Pyongyang leaflets northward across the border.

While South Korean activists have recently employed more advanced types of balloons to send leaflets into North Korea, there are no known reports of them using drones.

The leaflets often criticize North Korea’s human rights abuses or mock its leader Kim Jong Un and are sometimes accompanied by valuable items like dollar bills or USB drives.

North Korea is governed by a third-generation hereditary dictatorship that views virtually all outside information as an existential threat.

In the past, North Korea has used the leaflets as a justification to ramp up cross-border tensions.

When the North began sending waste-filled balloons to the South in May, some analysts cautioned that Kim may be preparing to conduct a more serious cross-border confrontation.

In one particularly provocative move, North Korea in late 2022 sent five small reconnaissance drones across the border, with one making it all the way to the northern edge of the capital, Seoul.

In response, South Korea’s military said it sent a drone into North Korea on a reconnaissance mission. There have been no subsequent reports that South Korea’s military has flown drones into the North.
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Islamabad — The United Nations expressed “a great deal of sorrow” Friday over the continued ban on girls’ secondary school education in Taliban-led Afghanistan as the world body marked the International Day of the Girl Child. 

Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, renewed her appeal to Taliban leaders to “change course” by lifting the restrictions. She lamented that over 1,100 days have passed since the de facto Afghan authorities imposed the ban on educating girls over the age of 12.  

“This is more than three years of lost opportunity – not just for millions of girls, but for families, communities, and the entire country,” Otunbayeva stated.  

”As each day passes, even greater damage is being done to the lives of women and girls. Afghanistan is being taken backwards, not forwards, in its quest for peace, recovery, and prosperity,” the U.N. envoy added.  

Otunbayeva pledged that her organization will continue to advocate for Afghan women and girls, even in the face of attempts to silence them. 

The Taliban have enforced their strict interpretation of Islamic law since regaining control of the impoverished country in 2021.  

Girls ages 12 and older are barred from attending school, making Afghanistan the only country with that restriction. Female students have been prohibited from attending universities, and most Afghan women are banned from working in both public and private sectors, including the U.N. They are also forbidden from visiting public places such as parks and gyms. 

Islamist leaders enacted contentious “vice and virtue” laws last month, which solidified existing restrictions on women’s freedoms and deemed the sound of a female’s voice in public as a moral violation.  

The decree requires women to cover their entire bodies and faces when outdoors and forbids them from looking at men to whom they are not related and vice versa, sparking a global outcry and calls for reversing the curbs.  

The Taliban government, which is officially not recognized by any country, defends its policies as being aligned with Sharia and Afghan customs, rejecting international criticism as an interference in the internal affairs of the country.  

The United Nations recognizes October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child to acknowledge girls’ rights and the challenges they face worldwide.  
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NEW DELHI — The half-brother of Ratan Tata was appointed on Friday as the head of the powerful and influential philanthropic arm of India’s Tata group, giving him indirect control of the $165 billion conglomerate.  

Tata Trusts said Noel Tata, 67, will be its new chairman after the death this week of Ratan Tata, one of India’s best-known corporate titans.  

The decision followed “many old-timers” in the group wanting him to lead the venture, said one Tata executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity.  

The parent company, Tata Sons, oversees 30 firms across consumer goods, hotels, automobiles and airlines and has become a global juggernaut over the years, with brands such as Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley Tea in its stable.  

It owns Tata Consultancy Services, Taj Hotels and Air India and counts Starbucks SBUX.O and Airbus as partners in India.  

Tata Trusts has a 66% ownership of Tata Sons, giving it power over big investment, philanthropic and strategic decisions by the conglomerate, company executives say.  

Noel Tata, who is half-French, was already among the many trustees of the philanthropic arm, and also chairman of Tata’s retail fashion brand Trent as well as vice chairman of Tata Steel TISC.NS.  

The trust earns dividends from Tata Sons but has no direct say over its operations. However, it appoints a third of the directors to Tata Sons who have veto power over board decisions.  

The chairman of Tata Trusts “is powerful enough to decide board and key personnel” appointments at Tata Sons, a second senior company executive said.  

While Tata Sons is not compelled to seek advice or guidance from the philanthropic arm, it’s an “unsaid understanding” that there is consultation between leadership on both sides, the first executive added.   

Noel’s journey   

The Tata group was set up in 1868 by Ratan’s great grandfather, Jamsetji Tata.   

A few years later, Jamsetji started charity work that has since expanded to sectors such as healthcare and sports, through many of the trusts in the philanthropic arm.  

Ratan Tata started working at the family firm in 1962 and became the chairman of Tata Sons in 1991, taking the group to new heights while gaining a reputation as an extremely shy, soft-spoken executive with sharp business acumen.  

Noel Tata is a graduate of Sussex University who has been associated with the group for more than 40 years. He serves on the board of various Tata companies.  

As a previous managing director of Tata International, Noel grew the turnover of the trading arm to more than $3 billion from $500 million, a Tata Group website said.  

The Tatas belong to the tiny Parsi community, which has included some of India’s biggest business names, top nuclear scientists, world-class musicians and senior military officers.  

Parsis follow the Zoroastrian faith, an ancient pre-Islamic religion of Iran. Some of its tenets, such as charity and doing good to others, have long been woven into the Tata heritage and business ethos.   

Much of the dividend paid out by Tata Sons gets funneled into charitable trusts involved in philanthropic work.   

Although the trusts’ influence over the group is not often on display, the starkest such example was in 2016, when Ratan Tata had a falling out with Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry that led to the latter’s ouster.  

Mistry, another Parsi billionaire whose family owns a stake of about 18% in Tata Sons, died in a car accident in 2022.  

One of his former advisers told Reuters this week that the Tata Trusts “without a doubt” exert unparalleled power over Tata Sons’ functions, adding that they “work behind a veil.”   

Noel is an Irish citizen married to Mistry’s sister. 
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seoul, south korea — South Koreans flocked to bookstores Friday and crashed websites in a frenzy to snap up copies of the work of novelist Han Kang in her home country, after her unexpected win of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature.

However, the author herself was keeping out of the limelight.

The country’s largest bookstore chain, Kyobo Book Centre, said sales of her books had rocketed on Friday, with stocks almost immediately selling out and set to be in short supply for the near future.

“This is the first time a Korean has received a Nobel Prize in Literature, so I was amazed,” said Yoon Ki-heon, a 32-year-old visitor at a bookstore in central Seoul.

“South Korea had a poor achievement in winning Nobel Prizes, so I was surprised by news that (a writer of) non-English books, which were written in Korean, won such a big prize.”

Soon after Thursday’s announcement, some bookstore websites could not be accessed due to heavy traffic. Out of the current 10 bestsellers at Kyobo, nine were Han’s books on Friday morning, according to its website.

Han’s father, well-regarded author Han Seung-won, said the translation of her novel The Vegetarian, her major international breakthrough, had led to her winning the Man Booker International Prize in 2016 and now the Nobel prize.

“My daughter’s writing is very delicate, beautiful and sad,” Han Seung-won said.

“So, how you translate that sad sentence into a foreign language will determine whether you win … It seems the translator was the right person to translate the unique flavor of Korean language.”

Han’s other books address painful chapters of South Korean history, including Human Acts which examines the 1980 massacre of hundreds of civilians by the South Korean military in the city of Gwangju.

Another novel, We Do Not Part, looks at the fallout of the 1948-54 massacre on Jeju island, when an estimated 10% of the island’s population were killed in an anti-communist purge.

“I really hope souls of the victims and survivors could be healed from pain and trauma through her book,” said Kim Chang-beom, head of an association for the bereaved families of the Jeju massacre.

Park Gang-bae, a director at a foundation that honors the victims and supports the bereaved families and survivors of the Gwangju massacre, said he was “jubilant and moved ” by her win.

“The protagonists in her book (Human Acts) are people we meet and live with every day, on every corner here, so this is deeply moving,” Park said.

Han’s father told reporters on Friday that she may continue to shun the limelight after giving no separate comments or interviews and eschewing media scrutiny since Thursday’s win.

“She said given the fierce Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine wars and people dying every day, how could she celebrate and hold a joyous press conference?” her father said.

Han Kang received the news of her win about 10 to 15 minutes before the announcement, her father said, and was so surprised that she thought it might be a scam at one point.
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QUETTA, Pakistan — Gunmen killed 20 miners and wounded another seven in Pakistan’s southwest, a police official said Friday, drawing condemnation from authorities who have ordered police to trace and arrest those who are behind the killings.

It’s the latest attack in restive Balochistan province and comes days ahead of a major security summit being hosted in the capital.

Police official Hamayun Khan Nasir said the gunmen stormed the accommodations at the coal mine in Duki district late Thursday night, rounded up the men and opened fire.

Most of the men were from Pashtun-speaking areas of Balochistan. Three of the dead and four of the wounded were Afghan.

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but the suspicion is likely to fall on the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, which often targets civilians and security forces.

The group committed multiple attacks in August that killed more than 50 people, while authorities responded by killing 21 insurgents in the province. Those killed included 23 passengers, mostly from eastern Punjab province, who were fatally shot after being taken from buses, vehicles and trucks in Musakhail district in Baluchistan.

The latest attack drew a strong condemnation from Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister in Balochistan, who said the “terrorists have once again targeted poor laborers.”

He said the attackers were cruel and had an agenda to destabilize Pakistan. “The killing of these innocent laborers would be avenged,” he said in a statement.

The province is home to several separatist groups who want independence. They accuse the federal government in Islamabad of unfairly exploiting oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan at the expense of locals.

On Monday, a group called the Baloch Liberation Army said it carried out an attack on Chinese nationals outside Pakistan’s biggest airport. There are thousands of Chinese working in the country, most of them involved in Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative.

The explosion, which the BLA said was the work of a suicide bomber, also raised questions about the ability of Pakistani forces to protect high-profile events or foreigners in the country.

Islamabad is hosting a summit next week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a grouping founded by China and Russia to counter Western alliances.

Authorities have beefed up security in the capital by deploying troops to prevent any acts of terrorism.

The Ministry of Interior this week had alerted the country’s four provinces to take additional measures to enhance security as the separatist groups and Pakistani Taliban could launch attacks at public places and government installation. 
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