epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Monday, April 15, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
Heavy rains set off flash floods, killing 33 people in Afghanistan (AP)
AP [4/14/2024 8:29 PM, Staff, 22K, Negative]
Heavy flooding from seasonal rains in Afghanistan has killed at least 33 people and injured 27 others in three days, a Taliban spokesman said Sunday.

Abdullah Janan Saiq, the Taliban’s spokesman for the State Ministry for Natural Disaster Management, said Sunday that flash floods hit the capital, Kabul, and several provinces.

He added more than 600 houses were either damaged or destroyed while around 200 livestock died.

The flooding also damaged around 800 hectares of agricultural land, and more than 85 kilometers (53 miles) of roads, Saiq said.

Western Farah, Herat, southern Zabul and Kandahar are among the provinces that suffered the most damage, he added.

The weather department forecast more rain in the coming days in most of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
Facebook Restrictions The ‘Last Nail In The Coffin’ For Free Speech In Afghanistan (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/14/2024 9:09 AM, Omid Marzban and Michael Scollon, 223K, Negative]
Facebook users in Afghanistan fear the Taliban’s plans to block or restrict access to the popular social-media platform will deal a death blow to what is left of free speech in the country.

It is unclear what exactly the "finalized" policy announced last week will entail or how it will be implemented and enforced, but Afghans are bracing for the worst-case scenario.

"This is really the last nail in the coffin of freedom of speech," Fatema, a Facebook user in Afghanistan, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.

"Facebook was the only source where most of the news that is censored in the Afghan domestic media was published without censorship," she said, providing only her first name due to fear of retribution from the Taliban’s hard-line Islamist government.

In announcing the impending move to counter what it called the distracting influence of social media, the Taliban cited the need for young people to focus on their education.

"Our youth are in a situation where they are academically weak and the majority of them are illiterate, yet they continue to waste their time and spend money on these things to the benefit of the company and the detriment of the nation," Najibullah Haqqani, the Taliban’s minister of telecommunications and information, said in an interview with the private Tolo News channel on April 6.

Facebook has emerged as a major social-media platform in Afghanistan, with an estimated 4.5 million users in the country of some 40 million people. Many rely on Facebook for unfiltered information and, particularly for women and girls, to continue their pursuit of an education denied to them by the Taliban.

Media watchdogs say that any effort to curtail access to Facebook would have a devastating effect in an already heavily censored media landscape.

"The Taliban’s plan to restrict or block access to Facebook would be a further blow to freedom of information in Afghanistan," Beh Lih Yi, Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said in a statement. "Social-media platforms, including Facebook, have helped to fill a void left by the decline of the Afghan media industry since the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover and the ensuing crackdown on press freedom."

The CPJ statement said that when questioned, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the U.S.-based media watchdog that "Facebook will not be banned, but restrictions will be imposed on it."

In any event, the CPJ said, the proposal "highlights the worsening censorship by the Taliban."

The Taliban’s Telecommunications and Information Technology Ministry did not respond to questions from Radio Azadi asking for specifics about the new policy and when it will come into force.

Since regaining power, the Taliban has reversed the free-media gains that were made after the first Taliban regime was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Despite its early promises to protect the independent media, the Taliban has waged a violent crackdown on dissent. Television and radio stations have encountered sustained pressure to end entertainment and educational programming that does not fit with the hard-line leadership’s strict interpretation of Islamic law. Female television presenters are required to wear face masks on air and are barred from conducting interviews with male government officials or from participating in press conferences without a male chaperone.

Women and girls have meanwhile seen their access to education severely impeded, again despite the Taliban’s early pledges. Girls are not allowed to attend school past the sixth grade, while women have been banned from going to university.

Female teachers are barred from teaching male students, and encounter difficulties leaving their homes for work at all due to the Taliban’s restrictions on women being in public without a male escort.

With many teachers and journalists fleeing the country due to the obstacles to their work, many Afghans turned to inclusive radio and television programs that provided students a lifeline to continue their studies and for unrestricted media and discussion of social issues. Facebook, by providing access to outside news and educational courses often catered to women and girls, became a crucial tool.

The Taliban has already taken steps to curtail traditional media from continuing with such programming. In February, for example, police in the eastern Khost Province banned girls from contacting local radio and television stations and warned such outlets against taking calls from girls.

The Taliban cited the potential for such outreach to promote "inappropriate behavior" among audiences as justification for the move, which was enforced with warnings of punishment and shutdowns against media that did not comply.

Now the Taliban appears to have focused its attention on Facebook, which hosts a wealth of pages dedicated to women’s rights and education, Afghan news and society, and allows for discourse among users.

Spozhmai Gharani, a Facebook user, said the social-media platform is one of the few ways for Afghan girls to continue their education, and "should not be shut down."

Homa Rajabi, from Kabul, said that without the ability to share views and collect information on Facebook, life in Afghanistan "will become more limited and narrow."

Kamal Sadat, who served as a deputy minister of information and culture in the previous, Western-backed government, told Radio Azadi that any restrictions on Facebook would be a "strong blow to freedom of expression."

The move, he said, would cut the Afghan people off from a crucial and increasingly rare way to "express their voices to the world, Afghan authorities, and international organizations."

Facebook has blacklisted the Taliban for years, and since the militant group took power in 2021, the platform has reportedly maintained a loose ban on Taliban content. References and posts that promote the Taliban are removed, while official Taliban posts that serve the public good, such as the de facto Health Ministry’s directives related to natural disasters, have been allowed.

Asif Ashna, a frequent critic of the Taliban’s unrecognized government, took to a social-media platform that the Taliban itself relies on heavily to promote itself to air his criticism of the new policy. Ashna suggested that the Taliban may have targeted Facebook in retaliation for restrictions the U.S.-based social-media company has placed on its content.

"Why is this ignorant group hostile to Facebook?" Ashna asked in a post that included a clip of Haqqani’s Tolo News appearance. "The bottom line is that Facebook has blocked thousands of official and pseudonymous accounts related to the Taliban and put this group on its blacklist."

"Now the Taliban has decided to do the same thing to Facebook," Ashna wrote. "The rest of the arguments [made by the Taliban for targeting Facebook] are bullshit."

Whether the Taliban can actually succeed in banning or curtailing Facebook is open to debate.

Experts say that the Taliban does not have the technological infrastructure in place to cut Afghanistan off from the global Internet and force its citizens to use a domestically designed "intranet," as Iran and China have attempted to do.

"No, never. They cannot do that," Jamil Nematyar, a cybersecurity expert who worked for the former Afghan government told Radio Azadi in a video interview. "It is not possible for them. The existing infrastructure is not capable of this."

Instead, Nematyar and other experts say the Taliban must rely on pressuring private companies to enforce any policy decisions or laws that would target Facebook.

The Taliban’s control over the country’s telecommunications infrastructure does give its government leverage in this regard by forcing mobile telecoms operators or Internet service providers (ISPs) to block specific websites, and by filtering the domain name system (DNS) that determines specific Internet protocol (IP) addresses.

"It is common to use the worldwide web to control the flow of information" in Afghanistan, Agha Malok Sahar, founder of Darrak, a GPS tracking and software company that works in Afghanistan, told Radio Azadi.

There is precedent for banning foreign news outlets in the country, including the websites of Radio Azadi, the Afghan service of the congressionally funded RFE/RL. But as CPJ notes, the Facebook pages of Radio Azadi and other foreign news outlets such as Britain’s BBC and Germany’s Deutsche Welle are still accessible to readers inside the country despite being officially banned.

Sahar said that in the event of a complete ban, the Taliban authorities could also go after individuals and media outlets that are active on Facebook by "monitoring their activities, potentially harassing or penalizing them."

Such an approach, Sahar said, could "involve arrests or other forms of intimidation to discourage the use of Facebook" and be accompanied by Taliban propaganda efforts "to discredit these outlets or individuals."

But restricting or outright banning Facebook would be a tough task for the Taliban. "This would be a difficult law to actually enforce," Darren Linvill, co-director of the U.S. Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, told RFE/RL in written comments.

"There are a large range of ways individuals have to skirt such restrictions. Any teenager can learn to pretend their computer is somewhere in the EU so that they can get different options out of Netflix," he said. "China has difficulty enforcing the Great Firewall. I’m sure Afghanistan would face similar problems."

Elsewhere around the world, people have found a workaround to local restrictions by using virtual private networks (VPNs) that allow users to mask the area or country they are in.

Ultimately, Nematyar said, "people will go to VPNs and it will make more headaches for the nation and the current regime" in Afghanistan.

"Facebook will be working, through VPNs," Nematyar said, although Afghans’ use of the social-media platform might be closely followed by the Taliban authorities.
Russia’s plan to form ties with Taliban edges U.S. out of region (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [4/13/2024 5:56 AM, Khudai Noor Nasar, 293K, Negative]
Russia’s plan to remove the Taliban from its list of banned terrorist organizations signals it wants closer ties with the regime as it tries to edge out U.S. influence in the region, analysts said.

Moscow said this month it was speaking with Taliban leaders and working on making that change, weeks after gunmen stormed a concert hall and set off explosions, killing around 140 people. Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, and the U.S. and other Western countries had laid the blame at its Afghan branch, known as ISIS-Khorasan Province or ISIS-K. Moscow, however, had sought to point the finger at Ukraine and Washington.

The Taliban government has struggled to fight ISIS-K, which has gained a stronghold in Afghanistan. The day before the Moscow attack, ISIS-K militants killed at least three Afghans and wounded dozens in Kandahar. The Moscow attack has given both the Kremlin and Taliban impetus to work together to fight not just ISIS-K but also the U.S., which they see as a common threat, analysts said.

"When terrorists attack Russia, Russians tend to believe that the terrorists are secretly aided or supported by the U.S.," Barnett Rubin, director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, said in an interview. This was despite the U.S. having warned Moscow of a potential attack from an Afghanistan-based group in the days before.

Rubin, who is an adviser to the U.S. government on Afghanistan and Pakistan, added that the Taliban, while desiring better relations with Washington, is also unwilling to cave to any U.S. demands. As such, recognition by Russia suits its purposes.

"I imagine that the Taliban are looking to the Russians like reliable partners in trying to keep the U.S. away from their borders," Rubin said.

A former Afghan diplomat in Pakistan, Zardasht Shams, said that Russia’s move is a boost to the Taliban’s status in the region.

"The delisting would certainly boost Taliban morale and their international prestige and will challenge U.S. world order, which traditionally decides who are the good guys and who are bad guys," Shams said.

But whether they could jointly take on ISIS-K is doubtful. Since the Taliban came back to power in Afghanistan through a peace deal with Washington in 2021, many have raised concerns about the potential for extremist forces to regroup in the region.

The U.N. pointed to the cozy relationships it shares with extremist groups such as al-Qaida and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, also known as TTP.

"The Taliban have quietly reached out requesting intelligence and logistical support to fight ISIL-K, offering itself as a counter-terrorism partner," said the U.N. in a report published in May last year, referring to ISIS-K. "Given the close relationship the Taliban enjoys with al-Qaida, TTP and other terrorist groups, there is significant risk in allowing the Taliban to define against which terrorist groups it will act and against which it will not."

A former Afghan diplomat said that Afghanistan was in a vicious cycle under Taliban rule, which isn’t recognized by any other government.

"In such a situation where the Taliban is not recognized by anyone, the Afghans are suffering badly from economical issues, Afghanistan will suffer further," Najeeb Nangyal, who had represented Afghanistan in Washington, said. "Whether the Taliban wants it or not, the terrorist organizations will have safe havens in Afghanistan."

Analysts said there will not be any plans for any Russian troops or personnel to be stationed in Afghanistan, but simply for Moscow to support the Taliban in its fight against ISIS-K and other terror groups from Central Asia.

"I don’t think Russia will form a joint force with the Taliban against ISIS-K," said Nangyal. "The Taliban will also not accept it because it would question their independence and religious cause. ISIS-K would then label them as allies of Russia and other non-Muslim countries, using this against them to recruit foot soldiers."

For now, the public relations coup from Russia’s move could be enough for the Taliban. A top Taliban official, who did not want to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media, told Nikkei Asia, "Of course we are happy and we believe that not only Russia but all regional countries must form an alliance against terrorism."
American hostages: A look at three US citizens being wrongfully detained overseas (Washington Examiner)
Washington Examiner [4/13/2024 12:23 PM, Misty Severi, 554K, Negative]
There are approximately eight Americans still being held by Hamas since it started a war with Israel last October, but roughly 50 Americans are being wrongfully held by foreign governments worldwide.

One of the most famous cases of Americans being held overseas is Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained by Russia in 2023. He was accused of espionage while on a reporting assignment in Russia, despite having full press credentials in the former Soviet country.

Although Gershkovich’s story is not common, 48 other Americans are also still wrongly convicted and detained, and some have been imprisoned for more than a decade. At least one has been sentenced to death.

Here are the stories of three of those prisoners as told by their families.

Mark Swidan: Imprisoned by China since 2012

Texas native Mark Swidan was arrested by China in 2012, for allegedly trafficking illegal drugs. He was tried a year later and given the death penalty, which was upheld by an appeals court in 2023. His mother, Katherine Swidan, has been passionately pleading for his release since the arrest.

Katherine Swidan said the last time she spoke to her son was in March, when a phone call came in the middle of the night for Texas. She was told by her son that United States officials were underplaying his situation and that he was losing hope of ever being rescued by his home country.

“I feel like one woman against all of China,” Katherine Swidan told the Washington Examiner. “But I need the president to do his job, and make it clear to President Xi, that my boy has to come home. And nobody mentions my son’s name. They talk about the American hostages in Gaza. They talk about the Wall Street Journal guy. And they talk about Paul Whelan, who’s been there, I think five years. They never mentioned Mark’s name. I think it’s because China has a lot of stuff on President Biden and Hunter, so that makes Mark a political prisoner. He’s a pawn. Every time Biden opens his mouth, he makes it worse because he calls him a dictator and he puts all these sanctions, but he doesn’t get tough, saying ‘I want him released and I want him released now.’”

Katherine Swidan said her son has threatened suicide if he is not rescued soon, and that her son, who was in China to purchase flooring and furniture at the time of his arrest, is in bad condition with a swollen knee due to it being dislocated while in the prison, along with previously having both hands broken while being held by China.

“I am convinced the Biden administration is just letting him die,” Katherine Swidan said. “I pray for him, as do people all over the world. I continue to fight for him on social media, in letters and phone calls. Something has to happen to get the attention of America.”

Before the phone call, it had been six years since she had spoken to her son, who is now 49.

Katherine Swidan also said she cannot travel to China to visit her son in person because she is 74 years old, and has health conditions that make it impossible to travel so far.

Mark Swidan is just one of several Americans who are wrongfully detained in China. Kai Li from New York, and California Pastor David Lin are also wrongfully detained in China.

Kai Li: Detained in China since 2016

Kai Li’s son Harrison said his father has been wrongfully detained in China since 2016, after he was arrested in China on espionage charges, and for allegedly stealing state secrets. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but his family is hoping he will be released sooner.

“It’s been challenging to be without my dad for so long,” Harrison Li said in an email to the Washington Examiner. “He missed my college graduation in 2018 — now six years later, I’m worried he won’t be able to see me graduate from my doctoral program next summer. We need President Biden to make the difficult but necessary decisions to bring home my dad and the other Americans home from China — it’s simply been far too long.”

Harrison Li also pleaded with the Biden administration to come speak with him and other families of Americans who are wrongfully detained. Harrison is part of the “Bring Our Families Home” campaign, which is made up of family members of the detained Americans, and other U.S. hostages.

“It’s been tough getting the attention of the officials at the very top of the White House. We’ve seen that the administration has definitely given certain hostage families more attention than ours,” Harrison Li said. “Those who are famous, well-connected or serve a political purpose, for example, have gotten meetings with President [Joe] Biden. Yet our family’s repeated requests have gotten ignored, along with those of many of the others in the campaign. That’s not to say that those families that have gotten the meetings don’t deserve them — they do, and then some — we just ask for the same treatment.”

Harrison Li said his father has experienced an irregular heartbeat, shingles, and other health conditions while being detained in China, and went three years without an in-person visit because of protocols put in place from the COVID-19 pandemic. Visits were resumed in 2023.

Ryan Corbett: held by the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2022

Ryan Corbett has been held by the Taliban since August of 2022, on no specific charge, according to his wife Anna Corbett, who has actively campaigned for his release.

Ryan and his family had left Afghanistan when the Taliban took over in 2021, but he kept his business going from a distance. He returned to the country in January of 2022, to renew his visa, but when he returned for business that August, he was arrested.

Anna Corbett claimed that her husband’s physical and mental health have been deteriorating since being held by the Taliban, and that her husband is losing hope that he will ever be back with his family.

“He’s been lied to since he’s been there since he’s been held, and told that his country doesn’t care. They’re not trying to release him,” Anna Corbett told the Washington Examiner. “They’re also telling him, you’ll be released soon, and then nothing happens. Obviously, he’s still being held. And sadly, it seems like he’s just starting to lose hope that his country truly is going to get him home. And he’s believing their lies. That’s really scary.”

Anna Corbett said the separation from her husband was also something their three teenage children felt. Ryan Corbett is expected to miss his daughter’s high school graduation in June. Anna Corbett also claimed the Taliban has not allowed any video calls with the family, only audio, but that they received a photograph of her husband in December in which it was clear he had lost a lot of weight.

Anna Corbett said she has seen widespread support from members of Congress, who have called for her husband’s release. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released a joint resolution on Monday that called for Ryan Corbett’s release.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) has also been supportive of the family and has repeatedly called on the Biden administration to help get Ryan Corbett, Mark Swidan, and other Americans back home safely.

“The Biden administration must stop ignoring requests to meet with Ryan Corbett’s family and take urgent action to secure his release from the Taliban,” McCaul said in a recent statement. “Ryan’s worsening condition is a tragic yet predictable consequence of the administration’s disastrous withdrawal – Americans becoming collateral damage and victims of the Taliban monsters. I want to assure Ryan’s friends and family that we will continue to fight every day until we bring him home. This will send a strong message to the Taliban that America, both Republicans and Democrats alike, will not tolerate [the] illegitimate detention of American citizens.”
Pakistan
Saudi foreign minister to visit Pakistan on Monday (Reuters)
Reuters [4/14/2024 1:37 PM, Gnaneshwar Rajan, 11975K, Neutral]
A Saudi Arabian delegation, led by foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, will visit Pakistan on Monday and Tuesday as part of efforts to boost economic cooperation, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The visit takes place to expedite follow-up on the understanding reached between Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during their recent meeting in Makkah Al Mukarramah to enhance economic cooperation between the two countries, the foreign ministry said.

Sharif met with the crown prince last week and discussed expediting a planned $5 billion investment package, which cash-strapped Pakistan desperately needs to shore up its current account deficit and signal to the International Monetary Fund that it can continue to meet requirements for foreign financing that has been a key demand in previous bailout packages.

Pakistan has lately also been trying to secure Saudi investment in industries ranging from agriculture to mines, minerals and aviation.
Saudi foreign minister to visit Pakistan for wide-ranging talks (VOA)
VOA [4/14/2024 6:26 PM, Ayaz Gul, 761K, Neutral]
Pakistan will host high-level meetings with Saudi Arabia on Monday and Tuesday to enhance economic and energy cooperation between the two allied nations.

Officials said that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan will lead his delegation, which will include officials from the ministries of water and agriculture, energy, investment and industry and mineral resources.

“This visit is aimed at lending positive impetus to enhanced bilateral cooperation and mutually rewarding economic partnerships,” according to a Pakistani foreign ministry statement.

The visit comes more than a week after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif traveled to Saudi Arabia for wide-ranging bilateral talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

A joint statement issued after the visit said that both leaders had “affirmed their commitment to expediting the first wave of the investment package worth $5 billion, which was discussed previously.”

Sunday’s Pakistani statement said that the talks with the Saudi delegation are scheduled “essentially to follow up on the understanding reached” during Sharif’s meeting with the Saudi crown prince on April 7.

Cash-strapped Pakistan is seeking Saudi investments to strengthen its current account deficit. Additionally, it must signal to the International Monetary Fund that Islamabad can meet the foreign financing requirements, which have been a key demand from the global lender in previous bailout programs.

Critics remain skeptical about official claims of imminent Saudi investments resulting from this week’s talks between the two countries. They say various figures for Saudi investments have been officially cited several times in recent years, but nothing has materialized to date.

Middle East tensions

Analysts predict that escalating tensions in the Middle East will be a key topic of discussion in the talks between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which shares a 900-kilometer (559-mile) border with Iran.

Israel announced Sunday that Iran launched 320 warheads against it in “an unprecedented attack” but that its air defenses, along with those of the United States and other supportive countries, shot down 99% of them. The Iranian attack was a response to a suspected Israeli strike on Tehran’s embassy in Damascus two weeks ago.

The meetings between Pakistani and Saudi officials “likely originally envisaged to focus on economic and energy cooperation will take on a decidedly more geopolitical focus,” Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Pakistan said Sunday it was watching with “deep concern” the developments in the Middle East.

“Today’s developments demonstrate the consequences of the breakdown of diplomacy. … It is now critically urgent to stabilize the situation and restore peace. We call on all parties to exercise utmost restraint and move towards de-escalation,” a foreign ministry statement said in Islamabad.
Pakistani police search for gunmen who abducted bus passengers and killed 11 in the southwest (AP)
AP [4/13/2024 3:40 PM, Abdul Sattar, 1071K, Negative]
Pakistani police searched for gunmen who killed nine people after abducting them from a bus on a highway in the country’s southwest. The same attackers earlier killed two people and wounded six in another car they forced to stop.

The abductions took place on Friday in Baluchistan province, which has long been the scene of an insurgency by separatists fighting for independence.

The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack.

It said it had information from sources that plain-clothed spies were on the bus, according to a statement from the group. The gunmen killed the nine men after checking their ID cards to ensure they were intelligence officers.

The group offered no evidence to support the allegation that spies were on the bus.

Earlier Saturday, deputy commissioner of police Habibullah Mosakhail said the gunmen had set up a blockade, then stopped the bus and went through the passengers’ ID cards. They took nine people with them, all from the eastern Punjab province, and fled into the mountains, he said.

Police later recovered nine bodies under a bridge about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the highway.

On Friday, the same gunmen had opened fire at a vehicle that failed to stop for their blockade, killing two and wounding six, police said.

A search for the perpetrators was underway, Mosakhail said. The bus was heading from the provincial capital of Quetta to Taftan, a town bordering Iran.

Witness Sajjad Ahmed, who was a passenger on the bus, said there were 70 people on board. Masked men stopped the vehicle near the city of Nushki, took away nine people and told the driver to continue the journey, he told reporters.

“We heard the armed men open fire on those people as we drove away,” said Ahmed. “We heard the sounds of firing. The driver took the bus to the closest police station. We didn’t know if those people were alive or not.”

Another passenger, Mohammad Tahir, said the gunmen who boarded the bus had targeted people from Punjab. “They said, ‘Get up from your seats whoever is from Punjab,’” said Tahir. They asked the standing passengers if they were from that province and then swore at them. “‘You kill our children,” said Tahir, quoting the gunmen. ‘“You do bad things to us.’”

An initial police report said that 19 of the passengers were traveling to Iran on their way to Western countries as migrants. The report, shared with The Associated Press, said that two of those abducted and killed were human smugglers. Punjab has emerged as a hotspot for Pakistanis trying to make the perilous journey to Europe hoping for a better life there.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack, expressing his “deep sorrow and regret over this shocking incident.” He offered his condolences to the families of the victims and said he stood by them in their hour of grief, according to a statement from his office.

“The perpetrators of this incident of terrorism and their facilitators will be punished,” Sharif said.

Abductions are rare in Baluchistan, where militants usually target police forces and soldiers or infrastructure.

Although the government says it has quelled the insurgency, violence in Baluchistan has persisted and the bus attack is the latest incident in the restive region.

Authorities are also struggling to contain militancy in other parts of the country.

In the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the army said Saturday that two soldiers were killed in a gunfight with militants in Bunar district.

In a statement, the army said a high-profile Pakistani Taliban commander was also killed. He was involved in activities against security forces, extortion and the targeted killing of civilians, according to the statement.

A spokesperson for the Pakistani Taliban, Muhammad Khorasani, paid tribute to the slain commander.
Militants Block Highway In Southwest Pakistan, Kill 11 (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/14/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 235K, Negative]
Unidentified gunmen have killed 11 people in separate incidents on the same highway in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province.

Noshki district police chief Ilahi Bakksh said that the nine victims in the second attack, in which laborers were abducted from a bus traveling from the provincial capital of Quetta to a town near Pakistan’s border with Iran, appear to have been killed execution-style.

"Militants blocked the highway leading to Taftan, bordering Iran, at midnight on April 13 in the Sultan Charai area near Noshki city," Bakksh told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal.

"Their bodies were later found under a bridge 2 kilometers from the highway having been fired upon at point-blank range."

Earlier, the same gunmen opened fire on a vehicle that failed to stop for the blockade, killing two people and injuring five, Bakksh said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility or the attacks, and police said there was no ransom demand or known motive.

Police said they were searching for the perpetrators.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attacks and expressed his "deep sorrow and regret over this shocking incident."

Sharif offered his condolences to the families of the victims, according to a statement from his office, adding that "the perpetrators of this incident of terrorism and their facilitators will be punished."

Balochistan is a mineral-rich province that borders both Afghanistan and Iran and is regularly targeted by Islamist militants, sectarian groups, and Baluch separatists fighting for independence.

The Pakistani government has said it has quelled the insurgency in the province, but violence has persisted, often targeting police forces, the Pakistani military, or infrastructure.

Abductions are rare in the restive region.
Pakistan investigating the shooting death of a suspect in the 2013 killing of an accused Indian spy (AP)
AP [4/14/2024 11:56 PM, Staff, 6902K, Negative]
Pakistani authorities are investigating the shooting death of a man who had been acquitted of killing accused Indian spy Sarabjit Singh in a Lahore prison in 2013, a police official said Sunday.

Pakistan has previously accused India’s intelligence agency of being involved in killings inside Pakistan, saying it had credible evidence linking two Indian agents to the deaths of two Pakistanis last year.

The man who died in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Sunday was Amir Tamba. He was a suspect in the death of Sarabjit Singh, an Indian national who was convicted of spying in Pakistan and handed a death sentence in 1991.

But Singh died in 2013 after inmates attacked him in a Lahore prison. His fate inflamed tensions between the two South Asian nuclear-armed rivals.

Tamba and a second man went on trial for Singh’s death but were acquitted in 2018 due to lack of evidence.

The deputy inspector general of police in Lahore, Ali Nasir Rizvi, said gunmen entered Tamba’s house and shot him. They fled the scene on a motorbike. Officials from Pakistan’s army and intelligence agency reached the site and removed Tamba’s body, taking it to the city’s Combined Military Hospital.

Rizvi said a case had been lodged against unidentified assailants but gave no further information about the case, including a possible motive for the attack.

There was slow coverage of Tamba’s death in Pakistan’s media. However, Indian outlets were quick to report on the shooting. There was no immediate comment from the Indian authorities.

Singh was arrested in 1990 for his role in a series of bombings in Lahore and Faisalabad that killed 14 people. His family said he was innocent.

Last year, both the United States and Canada accused Indian agents of links to assassination plots on their soil. India dismissed the allegation of its involvement in the killing in Canada as “absurd.”

In the case involving the U.S., India’s foreign ministry said it had set up a high-level committee to investigate the accusations, adding that the alleged link to an Indian official was “a matter of concern” and “against government policy.”
Lightning, rains kill 36 people in Pakistan as authorities declare a state of emergency in southwest (AP)
AP [4/15/2024 5:12 AM, Munir Ahmed, 456K, Negative]
Lightning and heavy rains have killed at least 36 people, mostly farmers, across Pakistan in the past three days, officials said Monday, as authorities in the country’s southwest declared a state of emergency.

Most of the deaths occurred when lightning struck farmers harvesting wheat and rains caused houses to collapse in eastern Punjab province, said Arfan Kathia, a spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority. He said more rains were expected this week.

Rains, which also lashed the capital Islamabad, killed seven people in southwestern Baluchistan province over the weekend, and eight others died in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. Authorities in Baluchistan declared a state of emergency.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in televised remarks that he had ordered authorities to provide relief aid in regions hit by rains. Pakistan’s water reservoirs would improve because of the rains, he said, while expressing concern over the deaths and damage.

Heavy flooding from seasonal rains in Afghanistan has killed 33 people and injured 27 others in the past three days, according to Abdullah Janan Saiq, the Taliban’s spokesman for the State Ministry for Natural Disaster Management.

More than 600 houses were either damaged or destroyed while around 200 livestock died. The flooding also damaged large areas of agricultural land and more than 85 kilometers (53 miles) of roads, he said.

He said authorities in Afghanistan had provided aid to nearly 23,000 families, and that flash floods were reported in 20 out of the country’s 34 provinces.

Rafay Alam, a Pakistani environmental expert, said that such heavy April rainfall is unusual. “Two years ago, Pakistan witnessed a heat wave in March and April and now we are witnessing rains and it is all of because of climate change, which had caused heavy flooding in 2022,” he said.

In 2022, downpours had swelled rivers and at one point inundated one-third of Pakistan, killing 1,739 people. The floods also caused $30 billion in damage.
Pakistan repays $1 bln in Eurobonds, says central bank (Reuters)
Reuters [4/13/2024 6:09 AM, Asif Shahzad, 5239K, Neutral]
Pakistan’s central bank has repaid $1 billion in Eurobonds, it said on Saturday, a scheduled payment ahead of the South Asian nation seeking a long-term bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

The bond, launched in 2014 and repaid on Friday, was maturing this month.

"The payment was made to the agent bank for onward distribution to the bond holders," the central bank said in a statement.

Islamabad has been struggling with a balance of payments crisis, record inflation and steep currency devaluation since an IMF standby arrangement averted a sovereign default.

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb is due to leave on Sunday for Washington to attend the IMF-World Bank spring meeting, where he will start negotiations for Pakistan’s 24th long-term IMF bailout.

Aurangzeb briefed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif about the new IMF programme on Friday, the government said in a statement.

The IMF standby arrangement of $3 billion Islamabad secured last summer expired on Thursday. Its final tranche of $1.1 billion is expected to be released after the multilateral lender’s board meets later this month.

The two sides have spoken in recent weeks about negotiating the longer-term bailout to continue with necessary policy reforms to rein in deficits, build up reserves and manage soaring debt servicing.

Pakistan is in discussions with the IMF for a potential follow-up programme, the IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday.
India
China Had a ‘Special Place’ in Modi’s Heart. Now It’s a Thorn in His Side. (New York Times)
New York Times [4/13/2024 4:14 PM, Mujib Mashal and Sameer Yasir, 831K, Neutral]
Narendra Modi once looked up to China. As a business-friendly Indian state leader, he traveled there repeatedly to attract investment and see how his country could learn from its neighbor’s economic transformation. China, he said, has a “special place in my heart.” Chinese officials cheered on his march to national power as that of “a political star.”

But not long after Mr. Modi became prime minister in 2014, China made clear that the relationship would not be so easy. Just as he was celebrating his 63rd birthday by hosting China’s leader, Xi Jinping — even sitting on a swing with him at a riverside park — hundreds of Chinese troops were intruding on India’s territory in the Himalayas, igniting a weekslong standoff.

A decade later, ties between the world’s two most populous nations are almost completely broken. Continued border incursions flared into a ferocious clash in 2020 that threatened to lead to all-out war. Mr. Modi, a strongman who controls every lever of power in India and has expanded its relations with many other countries, appears uncharacteristically powerless in the face of the rupture with China.

As Mr. Modi seeks a third term in an election that begins on Friday, the tensions weigh heavily on the overarching narrative of his campaign: that he is making India a major global power and, by extension, restoring national pride. Far from the 2,100-mile border, along every avenue where India seeks to expand, China looms as a fierce competitor.

In India’s own backyard in South Asia, China has used its vast resources — the fruits of economic reforms introduced decades before India’s — to challenge Indian pre-eminence, courting partners through infrastructure deals and gaining access to strategic ports.

More broadly, China and India are vying to lead the developing nations of the so-called global south. When India hosted the Group of 20 summit last year, using it to showcase its support of poorer countries, Mr. Xi skipped the event. China has also been a major roadblock in India’s campaign to gain a coveted permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

“Today, you encounter an India which perhaps you had never seen before, in many senses,” said Nirupama Menon Rao, a former Indian ambassador to China and the United States. “I think the Chinese are increasingly aware of it, and they would still like to pull us down, to create barriers.”

India’s estrangement with China has provided an opening for Western nations to expand defense and economic ties with New Delhi, a distressing development for Beijing.

India signed a series of deals with the United States last year to strengthen military cooperation. India has also drawn closer to the other two members of the so-called Quad, Australia and Japan, as the group works to counter China’s projection of power.

In addition, India sees an opportunity as the United States and Europe look for alternatives to China as a place to make their products. One early success has been sharply increased production of iPhones in India.

But even with these openings, China continues to expose Indian insecurities. The Chinese economy is about five times the size of India’s, and China remains India’s second-biggest trade partner (after the United States), exporting about six times as much to India as it imports. China spends more than three times what India does on its military, giving its forces a significant advantage across land, sea and air.

The Indian military, which has long struggled to modernize, is now forced to be conflict-ready on two fronts, with China to India’s east and archrival Pakistan to its west.

Tens of thousands of troops from both India and China remain on a war footing high in the Himalayas four years after the deadly skirmishes broke out in the disputed Eastern Ladakh region, where both countries have been building up their military presence. Nearly two dozen rounds of negotiations have failed to bring disengagement.

Although the political opposition has tried to paint Mr. Modi as weak in the face of Chinese encroachment, the border incursions are unlikely to hurt him much politically, given the lack of news coverage from a largely sympathetic Indian media.

Still, Mr. Modi has had to prioritize billions of dollars for border infrastructure and military upgrades as India still struggles to cover the basic needs of its 1.4 billion people. His government is drawing up plans to repopulate hundreds of border villages as a second line of defense against the constant threat of Chinese encroachment.

S. Jaishankar, Mr. Modi’s external affairs minister, admitted recently that there were “no easy answers” to the dilemma posed by India’s aggressive neighbor. “They are changing, we are changing,” Mr. Jaishankar said. “How do we find an equilibrium?”

In a book published in 2020, just as he had taken over as Mr. Modi’s trusted foreign policy architect, Mr. Jaishankar wrote that the tensions between the United States and China set “the global backdrop” for India’s choices in a “world of all against all.” India’s ambitions as a major power, he wrote, would require a juggling act: “engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia.”

India’s rise as a large, growing economy has allowed it to hold its ground — working with any partner it can benefit from — in a polarized and uncertain world.

Even as India has expanded defense ties with the United States and doubled bilateral trade over the past decade, to about $130 billion in goods alone, it has resisted American pressure to reconsider its strong relations with Russia. India has deepened connections with Europe and the Middle East, too; trade with the United Arab Emirates alone has reached $85 billion.

While India remains wary of becoming a pawn in the West’s fight with Beijing, and has not forgotten its frosty history with the United States, China has become an unavoidable focus after being a secondary threat for much of modern Indian history.

India’s socialist founding prime minister was accommodating of Communist China, but the bonhomie was shattered by a monthlong war in 1962 that left thousands dead. The relationship began to normalize in the 1980s even as incursions continued, and open channels of communication kept tensions down and elevated trade.

“It was a different China,” said Ms. Rao, the former top diplomat.

The situation changed in the years before Mr. Modi took office, she said. As its economy soared, China began flexing its muscles — investing heavily in its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, which India saw as threatening its security and spheres of influence, and moving more aggressively on its borders and in the Indian Ocean.

Still, Mr. Modi, blacklisted by the United States when he was a state leader over his role in bloody religious riots, continued to extend a hand to Beijing. As prime minister, he did not allow the embarrassment of the Chinese incursion in 2014 to dampen his red-carpet welcome to Mr. Xi. His subtle message — a warning that “a little toothache can paralyze the entire body” — carried the hope that Mr. Xi would come around.

That hope ended with the deadly 2020 clash in Eastern Ladakh. Now, it is clear that New Delhi is resigned to a long-term threat from China, a shift evident in Mr. Modi’s push for road and tunnel construction in border areas to support a large troop presence.

Over the past five years, more than 2,200 miles of roads have been built along the border. In the Kashmir region, over 2,000 workers have been busy for three years digging a high-altitude tunnel that will improve connectivity to Ladakh.

When the tunnel project, which will cost more than $850 million, is completed, it will ensure that traffic moves year round, and reduce travel time by hours.

“For four months, the supplies to the Indian Army were cut off because the road would get closed,” said Harpal Singh, the project head. “After this tunnel is complete, that will not happen again.”

Mr. Modi’s government is also trying to revive hundreds of villages along the border to fortify defenses.

Through a program called Vibrant Villages, the government is working to develop infrastructure, extend services and nurture tourism in the hope of reversing the economic migration that created “ghost villages.”

“What India could have done in the last 20 years, they have to do now in two,” said ​​Sonam Murup, a retired Indian Army officer from Ladakh, referring to infrastructure development in his area.

“Our situation is much better now,” he said. “But when you look toward the Chinese side, you can see villages full of lights.”
India’s Modi vows to boost social spending, make country into a manufacturing hub ahead of election (AP)
AP [4/14/2024 4:35 AM, Ashok Sharma, 22K, Neutral]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday vowed to boost social spending, develop infrastructure and make India into a global manufacturing hub as companies shift away from China, as he unveiled his Hindu nationalist party’s election strategy.

Modi hopes to return to power for a third five-year term. He and other leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party unveiled their promises in the world’s largest democracy days before the start of a multi-phase general election.

Modi promised to expand social programs introduced during his party’s 10-year rule, including millions of free homes for the poor, along with health care, cooking gas and free grain. His government has been paying 6,000 rupees ($73) a year to poor farmers.

He said his government’s policies have pulled 250 million people out of poverty since he came to power in 2014. India is the world’s most populous country with over 1.4 billion people. The BJP’s president, J.P. Nadda, said less than 1% of Indian people now live in extreme poverty.

India holds its elections on different days in different parts of the country, stretching over weeks. Voting for the country’s parliament will begin on April 19 and run until June 1, and results will be announced on June 4.

Most polls have predicted a victory for Modi and the BJP. But the opposition Congress Party argues that Modi has undermined India’s democracy and favored the interests of the rich.

Modi has been campaigning extensively across the country, promising to expand India’s economy to $5 trillion by 2027 from around $3.7 trillion. He also promises to put India on track to become a developed country by 2047, when the country celebrates 100 years of independence from British colonialists.

On Sunday, he said his party would develop India as a hub for the pharmaceutical, energy, semiconductor and tourism industries. He also said India will modernize its infrastructure, including its railways, airways, and waterways. And he said he will seek to increase jobs for young people and access to cheap loans for young entrepreneurs.

Modi is broadly popular in India, where he’s considered a champion of the country’s Hindu majority and has overseen rapid economic growth.

But critics say another term for the BJP could undermine India’s status as a secular, democratic nation, saying its 10 years in power have brought attacks by Hindu nationalists against the country’s minorities, particularly Muslims, and a shrinking space for dissent and free media.
In Modi’s India, opponents and journalists feel the squeeze ahead of election (AP)
AP [4/15/2024 2:23 AM, Aijaz Hussain and Sheikh Saaliq, 456K, Negative]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government are increasingly wielding strong-arm tactics to subdue political opponents and critics of the ruling Hindu-nationalist party ahead of the nationwide elections that begin this week.

A decade into power, and on the cusp of securing five more years, the Modi government is reversing India’s decadeslong commitment to multiparty democracy and secularism.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has brought corruption charges against many officials from its main rival, the Congress Party, but few convictions. Dozens of politicians from other opposition parties are under investigation or in jail. And just last month, Modi’s government froze the Congress party’s bank accounts for what it said was non-payment of taxes.

The Modi administration says the country’s investigating agencies are independent and that its democratic institutions are robust, pointing to high voter turnout in recent elections that have delivered Modi’s party a clear mandate.

Yet civil liberties are under attack. Peaceful protests have been crushed with force. A once free and diverse press is threatened. Violence is on the rise against the Muslim minority. And the country’s judiciary increasingly aligns with the executive branch.

To better understand how Modi is reshaping India and what is at stake in an election that begins Friday and runs through June 1, The Associated Press spoke with a lawyer, a journalist, and an opposition politician.

Here are their stories:

DEFENDING MODI’S CRITICS

Mihir Desai has fought for the civil liberties and human rights of India’s most disadvantaged communities, such as the poor and Muslims, for nearly four decades.

The 65-year-old lawyer from India’s financial capital Mumbai is now working on one of his — and the country’s — most high-profile cases: defending a dozen political activists, journalists and lawyers jailed in 2018 on accusations of plotting to overthrow the Modi government. The accusations, he says, are baseless — just one of the government’s all-too-frequent and audacious efforts to silence critics.

One of the defendants in the case, a Jesuit priest and longtime civil rights activist, died at age 84 after about nine months in custody. The other defendants remain in jail, charged under anti-terror laws that rarely result in convictions.

“First authorities came up with a theory that they planned to kill Modi. Now they are being accused of being terrorist sympathizers,” he said.

The point of it all, Desai believes, is to send a message to any would-be critics.

According to digital forensics experts at U.S.-based Arsenal Consulting, the Indian government hacked into the computers of some of the accused and planted files that were later used as evidence against them.

To Desai, this is proof that the Modi government has “weaponized” the country’s once-independent investigative agencies.

He sees threats to Indian democracy all around him. Last year, the government removed the country’s chief justice as one of three people who appoint commissioners overseeing elections; Modi and the opposition leader in parliament are the others. Now, one of Modi’s cabinet ministers has a vote in the process, giving the ruling party a 2-1 majority.

“It’s a death knell to free and fair elections,” Desai said.

A POLITICIAN’S PLIGHT IN KASHMIR

Waheed-Ur-Rehman Para, 35, was long seen as an ally in the Indian government’s interests in Kashmir. He worked with young people in the majority-Muslim, semi-autonomous region and preached to them about the benefits of embracing India and its democratic institutions — versus seeking independence, or a merger with Pakistan.

Beginning in 2018, though, Para was viewed with suspicion by the Modi government for alleged connections to anti-India separatists. Since then, he has been jailed twice: in 2019 on suspicion that he and other political opponents could stoke unrest; and in 2020 on charges of supporting militant groups — charges he denies.

The accusations stunned Para, whose People’s Democratic Party once ruled Kashmir in an alliance with Modi’s party.

But he believes the motivation was clear: “I was arrested to forcibly endorse the government’s 2019 decision,” he said, referring to a clampdown on the resistance in Kashmir after the elimination of the region’s semi-autonomous status.

Modi’s administration argues the move was necessary to fully integrate the disputed region with India and foster economic development there.

After his 2020 arrest, Para remained in jail for nearly two years, often in solitary confinement, and was subjected to “abusive interrogations,’’ according to U.N. experts.

“My crime was that I wanted the integration of Kashmir, not through the barrel of the gun,” said Para, who is seeking to represent Kashmir’s main city in the upcoming election.

Para sees his own plight within the larger context of the Modi government’s effort to silence perceived opponents, especially those with ties to Muslims, who make up 14% of India’s population.

“It is a huge ethical question … that the largest democracy in the world is not able to assimilate, or offer dignity to, the smallest pocket of its people,” he said.

The campaign to turn once-secular India into a Hindu republic may help Modi win elections in the short term, Para said, but something much bigger will be lost.

“It risks the whole idea of this country’s diversity,” he said.

A JOURNALIST FIGHTS CHARGES

In October 2020, independent journalist Sidhique Kappan was arrested while trying to report on a government clampdown in the northern Uttar Pradesh state ruled by Modi’s party.

For days, authorities had been struggling to contain protests and outcry over a gruesome rape case. Those accused of the crime were four upper caste Hindu men, while the victim belonged to the Dalit community, the lowest rung of India’s caste hierarchy.

Kappan, a 44-year-old Muslim, was detained and jailed before he even reached the crime site, accused of intending to incite violence. After two years in jail, his case reached India’s top court in 2022. While he was quickly granted bail, the case against him is ongoing.

Kappan’s case is not unique, and he says it highlights how India is becoming increasingly unsafe for journalists. Under intense pressure from the state, many Indian news organizations have become more pliant and supportive of government policies.

“Those who have tried to be independent have come under relentless attack by the government,” he said.

Foreign journalists are banned from reporting in Kashmir, for example. Same goes for India’s northeast Manipur state, which has been embroiled in ethnic violence for almost a year.

Television news is increasingly dominated by stations touting the government’s Hindu nationalist agenda, such as a new citizenship law that excludes Muslim migrants. Independent TV stations have been temporarily shut down, and newspapers that run articles critical of Modi’s agenda find that any advertising from the government – an important source of revenue – quickly dries up.

Last year, the India offices of the BBC were raided on tax irregularities just days after it aired a documentary critical of Modi.

The advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranks India 161st on a worldwide list of countries’ press freedoms.

Kappan said he has barely been able to report news since his arrest. The trial keeps him busy, requiring him to travel to a court hundreds of miles away every other week. The time and money required for his trial have made it difficult for him to support his wife and three children, Kappan said.

“It is affecting their education, their mental health,” he said.
More Than 1 Million Indians Waiting For High-Skilled Immigrant Visas (Forbes)
Forbes [4/14/2024 9:51 AM, Stuart Anderson, 7173K, Neutral]
U.S. government data confirm that more than one million Indians now wait in employment-based immigration backlogs, highlighting problems in the U.S. immigration system. The data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services indicate many highly skilled professionals from India face potentially decades-long waits to gain permanent residence (a green card) due to a per-country limit and the low annual quota. The waits create personal turmoil for individuals and families, affecting America’s ability to attract and retain talent.

Analysis Of USCIS Data

Over 1.2 million Indians, including dependents, are waiting in the first, second and third employment-based green card categories, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis of USCIS data. The data reflect approved I-140 immigrant petitions as of November 2, 2023.

NFAP analyzed the data and calculated the dependents to arrive at an estimated backlog in the top three employment-based immigration categories (excluding “other workers”).

First Preference: According to USCIS, 51,249 principals are in the employment-based first preference, also known as EB-1. NFAP estimates an additional 92,248 dependents for a total of 143,497 Indians in the first preference backlog. EB-1 includes workers with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers and multinational executives or managers.

Second Preference: According to USCIS, as of November 2, 2023, there were 419,392 principals in the employment-based second preference, also known as EB-2. NFAP estimates an additional 419,392 dependents for a total of 838,784 Indians in the second preference backlog. EB-2 includes professionals holding an advanced degree and persons with exceptional ability in the sciences, arts or business.

USCIS data from 2020 suggest that the Indian backlog in the EB-2 category rose by more than 240,000 or 40% in approximately three years.

Third Preference: According to USCIS, 138,581 principals are in the employment-based third preference, also known as EB-3. NFAP estimates an additional 138,581 dependents for a total of 277,162 Indians in the third preference backlog. EB-3 includes skilled workers and “members of the professions whose jobs require at least a baccalaureate degree.” (Unskilled or “Other Workers” in the third preference are not included in the analysis.)

According to the National Foundation for American Policy’s analysis of USCIS data, there are 1,259,443 Indians in the top three employment-based immigration categories as of November 2, 2023.

USCIS says the agency’s data does not “identify or exclude multiple petitions by the same petitioner or beneficiary.” However, NFAP based its estimates of dependents on the ratio of employment visa principals to dependents in FY 2021 and FY 2022 for all countries of origin. That would underestimate dependents for Indians because their long waits in the backlog mean they would be older than other employment-based immigrants and more likely to have spouses and multiple children.

Without Congressional action, the backlog will continue to increase. In 2020, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) estimated the backlog for Indians in the top three employment-based green card categories would reach 2,195,795 individuals by FY 2030 and take 195 years to eliminate the backlog.

The Visa Bulletin And Chinese Immigrants

The per-country limit (discussed below) also affects would-be employment-based immigrants from China and the Philippines. NFAP estimates that nearly 148,000 Chinese professionals and their dependents are waiting in the employment-based green card backlog, with approximately 83,000 in the second preference and 41,000 in the third preference.

According to the May 2024 Visa Bulletin, Indians can receive their green card in the employment-based second preference only if their application was filed before May 15, 2012. While that provides a general sense of an applicant’s wait time, for Indians, the dates in the Visa Bulletin often do not advance monthly and sometimes may regress. For Chinese, the date in the May 2024 Visa Bulletin is June 1, 2020. For comparison, for the rest of the world, the application filing date to be eligible to receive a green card in the second preference is last year—February 15, 2023. (See here for background on interpreting the Visa Bulletin.)

“Applicants for immigrant visas who have a priority date earlier than the application date in the [Visa Bulletin] chart may assemble and submit required documents to the Department of State’s National Visa Center,” according to the State Department.

The Reasons For The Long Green Card Wait Times

Two parts of U.S. law created the long wait times for employment-based immigrants. In 1990, Congress set the annual limit for employment-based green cards at 140,000, including dependents, a level far from high enough since the demand for technical talent has exploded in recent decades due to the internet, smartphones, AI, e-commerce and other innovations. At the same time, lawmakers retained a per-country limit of 7%. The per-country limit has most harmed highly skilled professionals from India, China and the Philippines due to larger populations.

Indians have suffered the brunt of the law’s impact. Due to the per-country limit, only 7,820 Indian immigrants received employment-based green cards in the EB-2 category in FY 2015, even though employers submitted tens of thousands of green card applications for Indians years earlier than individuals from other countries who received green cards that year.

In 2022, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), supported by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, blocked a reform that would have ended the long waits for many employment-based immigrants. Analysts say Grassley’s blocking of the exemption for highly educated immigrants caused potentially irreparable harm to America’s ability to attract and retain foreign-born scientists and engineers in the United States.

When the House of Representatives passed the America COMPETES (CHIPS) Act, it included an exemption from annual green card limits and backlogs for foreign nationals with a Ph.D. in STEM fields and those with a master’s degree “in a critical industry.” During the House-Senate conference committee on the bill, the Biden administration, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), businesses and universities argued for keeping the provisions. However, Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, blocked the immigration measures from becoming law.

The Impact Of Long Green Card Wait Times

In July 2023, a Forbes article reported on Canada’s program to entice H-1B visa holders. The number of applications was so overwhelming that the 10,000 limit was reached in less than 48 hours. “The response is likely a warning sign to U.S. policymakers that many highly sought foreign-born scientists and engineers in the United States are dissatisfied with the U.S. immigration system and seeking other options.”

Beyond the hit to U.S. competitiveness and companies’ ability to retain talent in the United States, the long waits for employment-based green cards exact a human toll.

Emily Neumann, a managing partner at Reddy Neumann Brown PC, noted a recent application for a client who has needed to renew his H-1B five times while waiting for his green card priority date. “He’s been with the company for 16 years. Still no green card solely because he was born in India.” An H-1B denial, layoff or economic downturn could force him to leave the country.

Roshan Taroll’s story illustrates the impact of the employment-based green card problem. It shows the immigration system creates fear and uncertainty that sways the course of people’s lives, including the children of highly skilled immigrants.

Roshan was born in India and came to America as a 10-year-old with his parents in 2008. His mother worked in H-1B status for a U.S. technology company, which sponsored her for an employment-based green card in 2010. Eight years later, in 2018, Roshan’s mother died before she was granted her green card. The low annual employment-based immigrant visa limit and the per-country limit affecting Indians caused the long wait and prevented her from becoming a permanent resident.

Family members can use the employment-based visa petition of a deceased principal to gain permanent residence. However, Roshan turned 21 and “aged out” of being included on his mother’s application before the “priority date” arrived. (See this interview and the website of Improve The Dream, which focuses on “child dependents of long-term visa holders.”)

Even though Roshan grew up in Boston, he needed to obtain F-1 international student status to attend Boston College. After graduating, he has worked for a company on Optional Practical Training for three years.

Roshan has experience in a high-demand field—semiconductor manufacturing—but due to the low annual limit on H-1B petitions, his company could not secure an H-1B visa for him despite attempts in three separate H-1B lotteries. (According to analysts, the yearly limit of 85,000 new H-1B petitions for companies is reached annually because it is inadequate for a technology-based economy with a labor force of more than 160 million people.)

As a result, even though he has lived in America since he was 10 years old, Roshan will soon have to leave the United States. He appreciates the company’s efforts to find a location where he can use his education and training to work for the corporation in another country.

“It’s been challenging,” said Roshan. “With my mother’s passing, she moved us to this country to give us a better life and ensure that we were educated and did well. Now that I have to leave, I won’t be able to fulfill her wishes of living my life in the United States.”
India asks companies to fire-up power plants to meet rising electricity demand (Reuters)
Reuters [4/13/2024 3:47 AM, Sarita Chaganti Singh, 11975K, Neutral]
India has asked companies to operate underutilised gas-based power plants in May and June, and extend operations of imported coal-based plants until Oct. 15 to meet anticipated high demand for electricity, according to two government orders.

The South Asian nation registered an 8% rise in electricity consumption in the financial year that ended last month, and demand is expected to rise in the hot summer months.

In an order dated Friday, the government for the first time invoked an emergency clause mandating companies to operate underutilised gas-based power plants by importing the fuel.

India has about 24 gigawatts of gas-based power plants that have been idling or underused for decades due to lack of fuel. Power stations will be informed two weeks in advance about the requirements so they can import gas, the order says.

"Gas-based power plants are required to meet the anticipated surge in power consumption in summer months," the order says.

Torrent (TORR.BO) and NTPC (NTPC.NS) are among the big gas-based power station companies.

In another order, seen by Reuters on Saturday, the government invoked an emergency clause directing companies such as Tata Power (TTPW.NS) and Adani Power (ADAN.NS), opens new tab - which are operating imported coal-fired plants with a capacity of nearly 16 gigawatts - to continue operations.

The plants were initially allowed to operate until June 30.
US and India stoke hopes of global growth in 2024 (Financial Times)
Financial Times [4/14/2024 4:14 PM, Sam Fleming, 1.9M, Neutral]
Momentum in economies including the US and India has been picking up in recent months, helping stoke optimism that global growth in 2024 will modestly outpace last year’s reading, according to research for the Financial Times.

A gauge of the performance of the US economy, taking in measures of confidence, financial markets and real activity, has recovered to its highest levels since mid-2022, providing a bright spot amid a largely lacklustre global economic backdrop.

India has seen a similar pick-up, according to the latest edition of the twice-yearly Brookings-FT Tracking Index for the Global Economic Recovery, or Tiger.

The readings come as policymakers prepare to meet in Washington this week for the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank.

Heading into the meetings the IMF has warned of a decade of disappointing growth and a rising risk of popular discontent as central banks continue to battle against inflation and governments struggle with high public indebtedness.

Geopolitical risks are also hanging heavily over the outlook as economic policymakers prepare to meet in the coming days. These include a worsening situation in the Middle East, after Iran launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike in Damascus.

The fund, led by Kristalina Georgieva, who has just secured a second term as its managing director, will publish updated economic forecasts this coming week.

These are expected to show firmer growth than in the previous update to the IMF World Economic Outlook in January, which suggested growth in global gross domestic product would stay at 3.1 per cent in 2024 and rise only incrementally to 3.2 per cent next year.

Eswar Prasad, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the Tiger index readings provided “positive omens” for a modest pick-up in global growth this year relative to 2023, with the US establishing itself as the key driver of this modest improvement to the economic outlook.

Despite the procession of interest-rate increases by the Federal Reserve aimed at quelling inflation, the US economy was “chugging along” with even a mild recession looking unlikely, Prasad said.

“The US continues to surprise everyone,” he said. It had proven “remarkably resilient, with a red-hot labour market and rising equity prices feeding into strong business and consumer confidence, in turn boosting domestic demand.”

The strength of the US economy, combined with stubborn inflation, has curbed speculation that the Fed will be in a position to trim back interest rates as soon as June. This has in turn led to a wider rethink about how soon other big central banks will be willing to dial back their tight monetary policy.

India and Japan also emerge from the Tiger analysis with strengthening growth indicators, whereas the larger European economies including Germany and the UK remain in weak economic health.

“The global economic recovery is being weighed down by geopolitical conflicts, protectionist policies and persistent inflation,” said Prasad.

China was still “flirting with deflation” he added, with confidence indicators at low levels. Prasad warned that both China and Germany appeared to be counting on stronger external demand to support their growth, which risks hampering the recovery and inflaming trade tensions.

The Tiger analysis compares indicators of real activity, financial markets and confidence with their historical averages, both for advanced economies and emerging ones.
Modi’s Campaign Gets a Big Boost From Western Praise (Bloomberg – opinion)
Bloomberg [4/14/2024 5:00 PM, Mihir Sharma, 5543K, Neutral]
To outsiders, it may seem unclear what the world’s largest election, which India will hold in stages starting at the end of this week, is all about. While we are dangerously short of jobs, unemployment doesn’t seem to be under discussion. Voters don’t appear to be as concerned about “democratic backsliding” as the liberal elite is. And, while the opposition is gamely trying its hand at caste- and region-based identity politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s universal appeal renders such old-style politics irrelevant.

If you look a little closer, however, a picture of what Modi wants voters to focus on begins to emerge: the way India, under him, has become the center of the world.

Speaking at a rally last week in the pivotal state of Uttar Pradesh, the prime minister did not question voters about how fat their pocketbooks had grown during his two terms in office. “When India became the world’s fastest growing economic power,” he asked instead, “were you proud of it or not? When our Chandrayaan [space mission] hoisted the Indian tricolor [flag] on the moon, were you proud or not?” The pitch is simple: Modi Has Made India Great Again.

In small-town India, where election narratives are set by local television channels and neighborhood WhatsApp groups, there’s a relentless focus on India’s global image. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party hammers home a consistent message: The world now beats a path to Modi’s door, paying him — and thereby all Indians — respect and expecting little in return.

Naturally, not everything about this story is strictly accurate. India’s apparently robust economic record doesn’t stand up to comparative scrutiny, for example. Its peers are doing far better at opening export markets and creating jobs.

Meanwhile, Modi likes to claim that previous governments sought Western aid while, under him, India has provided vaccines to the world. Unhelpful nitpickers might point out that India’s world-beating generics industry developed under previous governments — and, far from sending the vaccines it promised during the pandemic, India shut down exports in 2021 when the deadly Delta wave hit. Countries across the developing world that were counting on those doses arriving, particularly in Africa, were left empty-handed.

For many Indians, none of that matters. The crucial thing is that the world seems to be backing up Modi’s claims. Members of India’s vast Western diaspora, who are among Modi’s strongest supporters, loudly echo the BJP’s narrative. The prime minister himself told a diaspora crowd once that while they may have been ashamed of the backward country they had left, he had transformed their Indianness into a source of pride.

More to the point, last year’s G-20 summit in New Delhi seemed to showcase a parade of world leaders lining up to praise India. It matters little what they may have been saying in private. (Behind closed doors at that same summit, for example, US President Joe Biden was reportedly raising the difficult question of India’s possible involvement in assassinations on Western soil.) Before the cameras, Biden and others lauded India — and, by implication, Modi — for demonstrating global leadership at a fraught geopolitical moment.

For Western nations, such fulsome public tributes cost nothing, and they have the considerable benefit of keeping New Delhi on-side diplomatically. The dangers of withholding such approbation to populists is well-known: Consider how Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan basked in European adulation early on, and how much of a thorn in his neighbors’ sides he became when those encomiums turned to criticism.

Within India, however, the effect of such rhetoric is more complicated. Global praise for India, even from countries striving to remain neutral in the upcoming polls, translates directly into votes for Modi. Like many citizens across the Global South, Indians think a bit of respect for their country and civilization is overdue. And they believe Modi has finally delivered that respect. They will forgive him many things if the praise keeps rolling in.

For the opposition, this poses an extraordinarily difficult dilemma. If they question whether the world’s praise is warranted (or was even delivered), it sounds like they’re attacking India, not Modi.

Indian political analysts long assumed that the country’s politics was deeply insular and that foreign affairs didn’t win elections. This prime minister is proving them wrong. He won in 2019 after a cross-border clash with Pakistan. Now, he is handily dominating the opposition by hammering home the world’s approval of his stewardship. Indian politics is still about India — but now it is about how the world sees India.
NSB
Bangladeshi ship seized off Somali coast is freed after more than a month (AP)
AP [4/15/2024 5:07 AM, Staff, 456K, Negative]
A cargo vessel seized by pirates off the Somali coast has been freed along with its crew after more than a month, the European Union’s maritime security force said Monday.

Operation ATALANTA said in a statement that all 23 crew members of the Bangladesh-flagged cargo carrier MV Abdullah had been released after 32 days in captivity.

It was not immediately clear under what circumstances the ship was released.

Operation ATALANTA has been shadowing the vessel since shortly after it was seized March 12 in the Indian Ocean, nearly 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) east of Somalia’s coastal capital Mogadishu.

Twenty armed assailants took control of the vessel while it was going from Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, to Hamriya in the United Arab Emirates, according to Ambrey, a British maritime security company.

The ship is owned by Bangladeshi company SR Shipping Lines, a sister concern of Chattogram-based Kabir Steel and Rerolling Mill Group, company media advisor Mizanul Islam told local media in Bangladesh.

Once-rampant piracy off the Somali coast diminished after a peak in 2011, but concerns about new attacks have grown in recent months.
On Himalayan Hillsides Grows Japan’s Cold, Hard Cash (New York Times)
New York Times [4/15/2024 4:14 PM, Bhadra Sharma and Alex Travelli, 831K, Neutral]
The views are spectacular in this corner of eastern Nepal, between the world’s highest mountains and the tea estates of India’s Darjeeling district, where rare orchids grow and red pandas play on the lush hillsides.

But life can be tough. Wild animals destroyed the corn and potato crops of Pasang Sherpa, a farmer born near Mount Everest. He gave up on those plants a dozen years ago and resorted to raising one that seemed to have little value: argeli, an evergreen, yellow-flowering shrub found wild in the Himalayas. Farmers grew it for fencing or firewood.

Mr. Sherpa had no idea that bark stripped from his argeli would one day turn into pure money — the outgrowth of an unusual trade in which one of the poorest pockets of Asia supplies a primary ingredient for the economy in one of the richest.

Japan’s currency is printed on special paper that can no longer be sourced at home. The Japanese love their old-fashioned yen notes, and this year they need mountains of fresh ones, so Mr. Sherpa and his neighbors have a lucrative reason to hang on to their hillsides.

“I hadn’t thought these raw materials would be exported to Japan or that I would make money from this plant,” Mr. Sherpa said. “I’m now quite happy. This success came from nowhere, it grew up from my courtyard.”

Headquartered 2,860 miles away in Osaka, Kanpou Incorporated produces paper used by the Japanese government for official purposes. One of Kanpou’s charitable programs had been scouting the foothills of the Himalayas since the 1990s. It went there to help local farmers dig wells. Its agents eventually stumbled onto a solution for a Japanese problem.

Japan’s supply of mitsumata, the traditional paper used to print its bank notes, was running low. The paper starts with woody pulp from plants of the Thymelaeaceae family, which grow at high altitude with moderate sunshine and good drainage — tea-growing terrain. Shrinking rural populations and climate change were driving Japan’s farmers to abandon their labor-intensive plots.

Kanpou’s president at the time knew that mitsumata had its origins in the Himalayas. So, he wondered: Why not transplant it? After years of trial and error, the company discovered that argeli, a hardier relative, was already growing wild in Nepal. Its farmers just needed tutoring to meet Japan’s exacting standards.

A quiet revolution got underway after earthquakes devastated much of Nepal in 2015. The Japanese sent specialists to the capital, Kathmandu, to help Nepali farmers get serious about making the stuff of cold, hard yen.

Before long, the instructors went up to Ilam district. In the local Limbu tongue, “Il-am” means “twisted path,” and the way there does not disappoint. The road from the nearest airport gets so rough that the first jeep needs changing out halfway — for an even more rugged four-wheel-drive.

By then, Mr. Sherpa had already gotten into the business and was producing 1.2 tons of usable bark a year, cutting his own argeli and boiling it in wooden boxes.

The Japanese taught him to steam off its bark instead, using plastic bundles and metal pipes. Next comes an arduous process of stripping, beating, stretching and drying. The Japanese also taught their Nepali suppliers to harvest each crop just three years after planting, before the bark reddens.

This year, Mr. Sherpa has hired 60 local Nepalis to help him process his harvest and expects to earn eight million Nepali rupees, or $60,000, in profit. (The average annual income in Nepal is about $1,340, according to the World Bank.) Mr. Sherpa hopes to produce 20 of the 140 tons that Nepal will be shipping to Japan.

That’s a majority of the mitsumata needed to print yen, enough to fill about seven cargo containers, winding downhill to the Indian port of Kolkata, to sail 40 days to Osaka. Hari Gopal Shreshta, the general manager of Kanpou’s Nepal arm, oversees this trade, inspecting and buying neatly tied bales in Kathmandu.

“As a Nepali,” said Mr. Shreshta, who is fluent in Japanese, “I feel proud of managing raw materials to print the currency of rich countries like Japan. That’s a great moment for me.”

It is an important moment for the yen, too. Every 20 years, the world’s third-most-traded currency goes in for a redesign. The current notes were first printed in 2004 — their replacements will hit cashiers in July.

The Japanese love their beautiful bills, with their elegant, understated designs in moiré printed on tough, off-white plant fiber instead of cotton or polymer.

The country’s attachment to hard currency makes it an outlier in East Asia. Less than 40 percent of payments in Japan are processed by cards, codes or phones. In South Korea, the figure is about 94 percent. But even for Japan, life is increasingly cashless; the value of its currency in circulation most likely peaked in 2022.

Japan’s central bank reassures everyone with a yen for yen that there are still enough physical notes to go around. The bank notes, if they were all stacked in one place, would stand 1,150 miles high, or 491 times as tall as Mount Fuji.

Before they found the yen trade, Nepali farmers like Mr. Sherpa had been looking for ways to migrate. Crop-hungry boars were just one problem. The lack of decent jobs was the killer. Mr. Sherpa said he had been ready to sell his land in Ilam and move, maybe to work in the Persian Gulf.

Years ago, Faud Bahadur Khadka, now a contented 55-year-old argeli farmer, had a bitter experience as a laborer in the Gulf. He went to Bahrain in 2014, promised a job at a supply company, but ended up working as a cleaner. Nonetheless, two of his sons went to work in Qatar.

Mr. Khadka says he is glad that “this new farming has somehow helped people to get both money and employment.” And he is hopeful: “If other countries also use Nepali crops to print their currencies,” he said, “that will stop the flow of Nepali migrating to Gulf nations and India.”

The warm feeling is mutual. Tadashi Matsubara, the current president of Kanpou, said, “I would love for people to know how important Nepalis and their mitsumata is to the Japanese economy. Honestly, the new bank notes would not have been possible without them.”
Central Asia
‘Situation Critical’: Flooding Forces Mass Evacuations In Russia, Kazakhstan (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/12/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 235K, Negative]
Officials in southern Russia were forced to begin mass evacuations of the city of Orenburg after the flood situation became "critical" due to a deluge of water from heavy rains and snowmelt accelerated by unseasonably warm temperatures.

Swollen rivers around the border areas between Russia and Kazakhstan have wreaked havoc over the past week, pushing tens of thousands of people out of their homes. Aerial photos show massive swathes of residential areas submerged.

In southern Russia, the Ural River reached record levels in Orenburg, a city of half a million people, where the water rose to 11.43 meters on April 12 from 10.87 meters on April 11 -- nearly 2 meters above the critical mark of 9.3 meters, prompting Mayor Sergei Salmin to order the mass evacuation.

"Sirens are sounding in the city. This is not an exercise," he said in a post on Telegram.

"The situation is critical. Do not waste time," he added.

City authorities said they expected the flood level to reach 11.6 meters.

Thousands of people have already left Orenburg, where 12,000 houses have been flooded since last week and electricity is sporadic.

Orenburg Governor Denis Pasler, speaking during a video link with President Vladimir Putin late on April 11, said the previous record level of the Ural was 9.4 meters in 1942, during World War II.

A sharp rise in temperatures -- said by some experts to be caused by climate change -- has turned regular spring flooding that is common in large parts of the border region between Russia and Kazakhstan into the worst disaster in decades.

Russian Emergency Minister Aleksandr Kurenkov, meanwhile, arrived on April 12 in Orsk, one of the hardest-hit cities, after a nearby dam on the Ural River broke on three different occasions over the past week, killing at least five people.

Some 5,100 houses have been flooded in Orsk, prompting the evacuation of 2,500 people, including more than 800 children, according to authorities.

Orsk locals have even staged rare protests earlier this week over the insufficient level of compensation they were offered for damage to their property.

Farther to the northeast, in Western Siberia, sharply rising water levels on the Tobol River in the Kurgan region early on April 12 prompted the evacuation of the village of Kaminskoye, Vadim Shukov, head of regional administration, said on Telegram.

"The water level in Kaminskoye, Kurtamysh district, continues to rise. Now it is 743 cm. The increase overnight is 140 cm. The village is being evacuated," Shukov wrote, warning floods could reach regional capital Kurgan, a city of 310,000, in the coming days.

Kurgan houses a large factory, Kurganmashzavod, that manufactures infantry fighting vehicles for the Russian military that have been used extensively in the war the Kremlin launched in February 2022 against Ukraine.

In northern Kazakhstan, some 100,000 people, including more than 36,000 children, have been evacuated, the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry said on April 12.

Amid their protracted predicament, some inhabitants in the areas hit by the floods have been sharply critical of how authorities have been handling the crisis.

People know that "a lot of water" is coming toward our village, Nadezhda, a resident of the northern Kazakh village of Petrovka,told RFE/RL.

"No anti-flood work was carried out. The mayor didn’t do anything. People here are used to flooding, but when we heard the levels were so high and had risen over the dam, people were overwhelmed and began to panic."

Dissatisfaction also surfaced in the western Kazakh region of Atyrau, where residents of the Zhylyoi district, frustrated by the government’s slow reaction to their predicament, staged a protest in the town of Qulsary on April 10, demanding financial compensation for their material losses.
Tajik Regime Alarmed As Moscow Terror Attack Fallout Has Migrants Streaming Home (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/12/2024 11:18 AM, Chris Rickleton, 235K, Neutral]
Even in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, it doesn’t take long to realize how much the country and its roughly 10 million people rely on labor migration to Russia.

For this correspondent, the realization hit home in the space of two taxi rides during a reporting trip there 10 years ago.

The first driver, who drove me to an interview at a cafe, was a smartly attired man in his 60s who told me he had returned home to Dushanbe after nearly 20 years working in Russia.

He had recently married off his youngest son without needing to borrow money for the wedding -- a rarity in Tajikistan -- and said the only reason he drove a taxi was to avoid sitting at home. His trips around the town that he left at the height of Tajikistan’s brutal civil war must have felt like victory laps.

For the clearly agitated driver who drove me back, they were more like circles of hell.

He had only recently finished school but looked much older than a recent college grad. He was skinny with sunken eyes and desperate to leave a country where monthly salaries were hovering around $100. He had a friend who had promised to set him up with a job at a factory outside Moscow, he said.

As a trend, mass migration divides Tajik families, sometimes across the seasons -- and sometimes for years at a time.

But for Tajikistan’s system: authoritarian, corrupt, and not very good at creating jobs -- the money that the foreign-based labor force of some 1 million people sends home every month is a lifesaver.

Every so often, however, business as usual is interrupted, as the mostly male migrants come streaming back to the country that they help keep afloat, with few jobs waiting for them and no social net to catch them.

The latest shock is the xenophobic aftermath of the worst attack inside Russia since 2004, which left 145 people dead after gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside Moscow on March 22.

Ten Tajiks have thus far been arrested in Russia in connection with the attack claimed by the Islamic State group, including four accused of being the gunmen, who appeared in court bearing clear signs of beating and torture.

The weeks since have seen a spike in Russia in intimidation, discrimination, detentions, and migration bureaucracy that has worsened life for all Central Asians, Tajiks in particular.

Stability Is Our Mantra

Another side effect of Crocus, coupled with other recent reports of Tajiks being recruited by the Islamic State group, may be that the world as a whole becomes more closed to citizens of the region’s poorest country, leaving them ever more dependent on Russia.

That new reality was made clear earlier this month when Turkey enacted what its embassy in Tajikistan described as a "temporary" reversal of a 90-day, visa-free term for Tajik citizens that was begun in 2018.

The Tajik government said Ankara had not notified Dushanbe of the move, which goes into effect on April 20.

For the moment, there is no suggestion Russia is considering anything similar, despite calls by many for a visa regime.

Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia-Eurasia Center in Berlin, says this is due to the countries’ status as allies, as well as the Russian economy’s desperate labor shortages.

"The structural dependence in terms of migration is on both sides," Umarov told RFE/RL. "Russia also knows that migration is essential not only for economic but political stability in Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries. So remittances may drop after Crocus City Hall, but it will probably only be a short-term phenomenon."

It is currently unclear how many Tajiks have returned home rather than wait for the end of a xenophobic backlash that has seen reports of clients refusing the services of Tajik taxi drivers and of Tajik nationals being beaten by Russian police and other citizens.

But RFE/RL’s Tajik Service has interviewed several Tajiks who said they found themselves either unable to enter Russia or arbitrarily deported from the country when they left for trips home.

Tajik Deputy Labor Minister Shahnoza Nodiri acknowledged on March 30 that her ministry had received "a lot of calls" from Tajiks looking to leave Russia due to the fear of discrimination and worse.

"We are now monitoring the situation; more people are coming [back to Tajikistan] than leaving [for Russia]," she said in an interview with Russia’s TASS news agency.

The Tajik Labor Ministry published via local media on April 9 a list of eight Russian companies with a combined total of 3,000 vacancies available to Tajik citizens -- the latest sign, perhaps that officials are feeling anxious about a reverse exodus.

The ministry added that the "rights and interests" of Tajiks would be protected for the duration of their contracts if they applied for their placements with assistance from the ministry’s Agency for Employment Abroad.

Authoritarian President Emomali Rahmon, meanwhile, had peace and stability on his mind, mentioning those words numerous times in an April 9 address to congratulate Tajiks on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr -- the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Rahmon called on Tajiks to be "politically vigilant" amid "growing tension as the process of the world’s repartitioning is intensifying."

"In these difficult and dangerous circumstances, we should not let our citizens, our children, turn into toys in the hands of the groups involved in the global standoff," Rahmon cautioned.

Migration Nation

For Tajikistan, mass migration to Russia began even earlier than for neighbors Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, due to the civil war that struck the region’s poorest country in 1992 -- just one year after gaining independence.

The real gamechanger, however, came at the turn of the century as rising energy prices powered an economic revival -- and a construction boom -- in Tajikistan’s former imperial master.

In 2021, a record-breaking 3 million Tajiks entered Russia, according to Russian Interior Ministry figures, although many were repeat entries.

The ministry said that some 2.4 million of those who entered stated work as the purpose of their visit.

Tajikistan has not published data on remittances this year, but it is safe to say that it is still one of the most remittance-dependent countries in the world in terms of the money relative to GDP, a title it has in the past vied for with Kyrgyzstan and Nepal.

Economists warn that when remittances outstrip exports in value, the effect is one similar to Dutch disease -- when dependence on a dominant sector makes a given economy vulnerable to external shocks.

For Tajikistan, that dependence is compounded by the fact that those remittances are overwhelmingly from Russia, whose economy has seen shocks in the past from commodity price plunges as well as sanctions applied by Western countries over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, leading to dramatic reductions in monthly transfers back to Tajikistan.

And it is potential economic slumps in Russia, argues Umarov, that remain the biggest long-term question mark for the sustainability of Tajikistan’s remittance fix.

The worst of all shocks was probably the coronavirus pandemic, which left hundreds of thousands of Central Asian migrants literally stranded in Russia with little or no money for food and rent.

Russian Central Bank data for the first nine months of 2020 suggested that money transfers to Tajikistan fell by as much as 37 percent, although Tajikistan’s central bank claimed they decreased by just 9 percent.

Tajiks now considering going to Russia may be comforted to know that the worst of the post-attack reaction may now be over.

Monitoring and interviews conducted by RFE/RL’s Tajik Service unearthed fewer instances of violence and intimidation against Tajiks in the last week, and more support on social networks in Russia for hardworking Tajik migrants.

Officials may be softening their tone, too.

Shortly after the attack, a lawmaker in Russia’s State Duma called for a visa regime for Tajiks, while powerful Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev stated last week that Ukraine had been recruiting mercenaries in Tajikistan to fight against Russia -- comments that prompted a rebuttal from the Tajik Foreign Ministry.

But there were no notable anti-Tajik statements from top-level Russian politicians this week, while a representative of the Orsk city department of the Emergency Situations Ministry, Irina Panaistova, made a point on April 10 of thanking a local Tajik diaspora group for its massive aid drive amid floods that have devastated the region.

Not that Panaistova’s quotes were widely picked up by Russian media.
Tajik Foreign Minister Speaks Out About Treatment Of Crocus City Hall Suspects (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/12/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 235K, Neutral]
Tajikistan’s foreign minister on April 12 condemned the treatment of the mostly Tajik suspects in last month’s terrorist attack on a Moscow-area concert hall that killed more than 140 people.

Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin, speaking in Minsk at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), also criticized what he said was a media campaign to slander Tajiks.

After the attack on Crocus City Hall on March 22, several Tajiks were arrested and showed signs of abuse when they appeared in Basmanny District Court in Moscow. The four accused gunmen had bruised and swollen faces and showed other signs of having been severely beaten. There were unconfirmed reports that one of them had his ear cut off during his arrest.

"The use of torture in the form of bodily mutilation is unacceptable," Muhriddin was quoted as saying on April 12. "The price of confessions extracted in this way is well known to everyone."

Muhriddin said that Russian security authorities should respect the rights of the Tajik suspects and adhere to the principles and norms of international law in their investigations into the massacre, especially regarding the presumption of innocence, the prohibition of torture, and ill-treatment of detainees.

In addition, Muhriddin condemned the surge of xenophobia in Russia after the attack, saying that as a result of an “ill-conceived information campaign” a “negative perception is being formed toward citizens of Tajikistan and Tajiks.”

Of the 11 men in custody, 10 are Tajik; one is reported to be a Kyrgyz-born Uzbek man who has Russian citizenship.

Some experts and Tajiks living in Russia had previously criticized Tajik authorities for not speaking out about the rights of Tajik citizens and choosing to remain silent in the face of torture of suspects and mistreatment of Tajiks.

The attack was Russia’s worst terrorist attack in two decades. Responsibility was claimed by an offshoot of the Islamic State extremist group.
Uzbekistan Cracks Down On ‘Religious Extremism’ In Aftermath Of Moscow Terror Attack (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [4/13/2024 12:03 PM, Farangis Najibullah, 223K, Negative]
Uzbekistan has intensified measures against "religious extremism" and "terrorism" recently, raiding the homes of suspected extremists, warning parents against sending children to Islamic schools abroad, and preventing imams from leaving the country.

The tough actions by Uzbek officials come on the heels of the terrorist attack that killed 144 people at the Crocus music venue near Moscow on March 22 -- allegedly carried out by Tajiks and planned by the extremist Islamic State (IS) group.

Some observers link the crackdown to Uzbek government anxiety from the tragic event that has led to xenophobic treatment of Central Asians in Russia, where hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks work.

Security officers in the capital, Tashkent, carried out 45 raids on April 7 on the homes of people alleged to have joined "radical extremist groups," police reported.

"Suspects are being arrested," authorities said in a statement accompanied by photos of security forces visiting a private home and masked officers taking several men into custody.

Police also advised people to avoid following Muslim extremist groups on social media and to closely monitor their children’s activities online.

On April 12, the authorities warned parents against sending their children to "illegal and unregistered" schools abroad or letting them to stay abroad "unsupervised." They reminded parents that the law stipulates up to eight years in prison for parents and legal guardians who fail to obey court orders for their underage children living abroad to return home.

Uzbeks have also been urged to report to the police any attempts to spread "extremist" ideas in their neighborhoods.

In a separate measure this month, the state-backed Muslim Board of Uzbekistan ordered all imams to turn in their passports in a move described by some religious figures as part of the government’s efforts to keep tabs on Islamic leaders in the aftermath of the attack in Russia.

RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service obtained a copy of an official letter sent to all mosque officials in Uzbekistan.

"We are collecting the passports of the imams and deputy imams of all mosques and will hand them over to the representatives of [the Muslim Board]," it read.

"District imams are responsible for collecting the passports and should start now," says the letter, which was sent via Telegram by Erghash Rustamov, assistant to Tashkent’s chief imam.

Rustamov and at least two officials told RFE/RL that at least two officials at the Muslim Board claimed the passports were being taken for "data registration" purposes. "We will put the information in the imams’ passports into our database and then return their passports," he said.

A Muslim Board official said the agency wanted to ensure all imams "have their passports ready" for potential tours abroad, such as the hajj pilgrimage and other state-organized business trips. "Our imams recently traveled to South Korea, Russia, and America," the official claimed. "Our aim is for imams to have their passports ready in case they’re selected for such trips."

Tashkent Anxious After Crocus Hall Attack

Several Uzbek imams who spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity dismissed the officials’ explanation, saying it was "devoid of any logic." They said the authorities, on the contrary, want to prevent imams from travelling abroad.

One Tashkent imam said the measure is a response to the Crocus attack. "After the [attack] in Russia, it was expected that Uzbekistan will take serious measures against imams and religious people in general," he claimed.

"There has been too much pressure on imams in recent days, hence the authorities fear that some imams will leave the country because of it," he told RFE/RL, without elaborating on the Uzbek government’s "pressure" on religious figures.

There are about 2,040 mosques in the Muslim-majority Central Asian country of 35.6 million. Each has an imam and usually one or more deputies depending on the size of the congregation. The order to hand over passports applies to all of them.

Another imam in Tashkent said the government move to collect religious leaders’ passports was "illegal" and the explanation "does not make sense."

"Imams are not small children from whom you take away their passports under the pretext that their documents should be always ready in case they go on a business trip," he said.

The imams said there was no need to "confiscate" the passports of more than 7,000 Muslim officials while "the number of Uzbek imams who go to the hajj and ‘umrah’ pilgrimages will not exceed 300 at the most."

Dozens of Central Asians have been arrested in recent years in Russia, Turkey, the European Union, the United States, Iran, and Afghanistan for allegedly carrying out or plotting terrorist attacks.

Some 6,000 Central Asians -- including at least 2,500 Uzbek citizens -- joined IS in Syria and Iraq when it seized swathes of territory there a decade ago and tried to set up a so-called caliphate.

Most Central Asian governments repatriated hundreds of their citizens, mostly women and children, after the IS’s defeat in 2019.
Uzbekistan chases chemical hub dream with Chinese polymer tech (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [4/12/2024 11:53 PM, Naubet Bisenov, 293K, Positive]
An ambitious economic transformation effort gaining steam in Uzbekistan hinges on Chinese technology. At the heart of the plan is a project that would make value-added products from natural gas instead of simply burning it for energy.

The Central Asian country’s largest private oil and gas company, Sanoat Energetika Guruhi (Saneg), is working with Chinese state energy giant Sinopec to build what would be the world’s first methanol-to-olefin gas chemical plant outside China. Olefins are raw materials for a range of polymer products such as plastics and films.

The $3.3 billion facility would be able to turn 1.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas into 1.11 million tonnes of polymers a year by 2026. About 44% of the output is to be exported, mainly to China and Turkey.

China is considered the pioneer in methanol-to-olefin technology, often simply known as MTO, and built the industry using methane from coal fields. "Lean" Uzbek natural gas is well-suited to the technology, according to Ruslan Navruzov, technical director of Uzbekistan’s new MTO Gas Chemical Complex.

The project underscores the deepening relationship between Uzbekistan and Beijing, with China overtaking Russia as the Central Asian nation’s largest trading partner in 2023. China also accounted for a quarter of total foreign investment in Uzbekistan last year, in sectors ranging from renewables to churning out construction materials, medicines and electric buses.

The hope is that the Saneg plant will not only bring in plenty of export revenue but also spur development of related industries. In addition to the MTO plant, the Karakul free economic zone in the southeastern Bukhara region will house factories for textiles, carpets, shoes, plastic pipes and fittings, as well as other products made from polymers.

Since coming to power 2016, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has looked to liberalize the economy and foreign trade, prioritizing the production of high-value-added products through processing of the country’s natural resources. The nation’s gross domestic product grew 6.0% in 2023 and is seen expanding at a 5.5% clip in 2024, according to the Asian Development Bank, while the average nominal monthly wage roughly doubled to $360 between 2017 and last year, official statistics show.

Uzbekistan’s MTO Gas Chemical Complex plans to produce 300,000 tonnes of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) annually, 350,000 tonnes of polypropylene (PP) and other materials. This is expected to decrease the country’s imports of polymers by $500 million a year and raise $350 million a year from exporting them, said Bakhodur Khafizov, director of the Karakul free economic zone. Uzbekistan’s trade deficit stood at $13.7 billion last year, including $8.8 billion with China. Net imports of plastics and unspecified chemical products were $1.2 billion in 2023.

Global demand for such polymers will grow in the medium term, New York-based S&P Global expects, suggesting Uzbekistan should be able to find buyers for its products. S&P’s analysis of the economics of gas petrochemicals produced in Central Asia indicates the project economics work when the feedstock price is very low.

Saneg officials said that, according to a marketing study, Uzbekistan’s annual consumption of polymers stands at 5.5 kilograms per head now, as opposed to 23 kg in Turkey, for example. The domestic market, therefore, also has room to expand.

"Still, it’s difficult to envision how this project could be economically viable without substantial subsidies," said Paulina Mirenkova, director of Eurasian energy at S&P Global. "The question is whether so much demand could be realized in the domestic market at prices sufficient to cover costs."

Michael Ritchie, an energy expert on the Caspian and Central Asia region at London-based publishing and consultancy company Energy Intelligence, said that Uzbekistan is trying to shape "a long-term strategy to grow its economy by adding value to its natural resources to cover domestic demand for polymers, cutting the import bill and leaving a surplus for export."

Mirenkova added that geography is an obstacle to success.

Uzbekistan is a landlocked country, and it has been at loggerheads with Kyrgyzstan and China over the route and funding of a railway that would link western China with eastern Uzbekistan via the mountains in Kyrgyzstan. Should the line be constructed, it would become the shortest route between the two countries.

For now, however, Mirenkova said that the "long distances to markets result in sizable transportation costs that also impact the bottom line."
Central Asian states have a coal dependency problem – report (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [4/14/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Global warming is causing temperatures to rise at a faster pace in Central Asia than in other parts of the world. Yet a report issued by a watchdog group shows that Central Asian states are compounding their environmental challenges by doubling down on the use of coal-fired power plants, a primary source of greenhouse gas emissions that fuel warming.

The annual report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM), titled Boom and Bust Coal 2024: Tracking the Global Coal Plant Pipeline, showed that coal’s role in power generation has doubled in Central Asia over the past decade. Plans to add generating capacity of coal-fired plants in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan reached 8.1 gigawatts (GW) last year, up from 3.9 GW in 2013, according to GEM data. Coal currently accounts for 45 percent of electricity production in the region. Turkmenistan’s power production relies on natural gas, and thus its production wasn’t included as part of the GEM coal report.

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are among only eight states globally that developed plans in 2023 to build new coal-fired plants. The report also notes that no Central Asian state has a plan to phase out coal-fired power production; most also don’t have a blueprint to achieve carbon neutrality in accordance with the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“Central Asia plans to balloon its new coal power generation while most other regions are plateauing or decreasing proposals. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are trending in the wrong direction,” the GEM report states.

The report also makes the argument that the region’s continuing embrace of coal-fired power production may solve short-term problems but will ultimately add long-term stress to state budgets. “These future coal-fired power stations would pose stranded asset risks and unnecessary socioeconomic and environmental costs,” it says.

Over 60 percent of the 16.8 GW electricity generated by burning coal in Central Asia was produced by outdated plants in 2023, the GEM report states. The efficient operating lifetime for a coal plant is generally accepted to be 40 years. Continued operation of plants beyond the 40-year timeframe poses “serious risks” for excessive pollution and breakdown, according to GEM. Risks are heightened for outdated combined plants that generate heat and electricity, given the greater chances of a breakdown during a winter cold snap.

“Betting on new coal capacity is a risky strategy for Central Asia. These countries should prioritize renewable energy, energy storage, smart grids, and transmission infrastructure,” Flora Champenois, GEM’s Coal Program Director, said in a written statement provided to Eurasianet.

Kazakhstan is the Central Asia leader in trying to go green, yet it is also the region’s worst coal offender. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in early 2023 approved a strategy for Kazakhstan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 concerning greenhouse gas emissions. In late 2023, Kazakhstan also joined the Global Methane Pledge. Methane emissions as part of fuel extraction is another source of global warming. The same year, however, Kazakhstan announced plans to add 4.6 GW of coal-fired power generating capacity, which the GEM report notes is the third-most proposed generating capacity added in 2023, behind China and India.

The two largest, new projects are in Ekibastuz, a city in the northern Pavlodar Region not far from the Russian border: one involves the expansion of the Ekibastuz-2 power station; the other is the construction of a new facility, Ekibastuz-3. No existing coal plant in Kazakhstan has an officially confirmed retirement date.

The report asserts “Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are going down the same path as Kazakhstan, though at a smaller scale.” Kyrgyzstan, for example, signed a deal with Russian firms to build a new coal plant in the Jalal-Abad Region capable of generating 0.7 GW per year. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan has plans to add two units to the existing Angren power station. Concurrently, coal production is rising in Central Asia, underscored by plans by the Bogatyr Coal Mine in Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest coal source, to increase production in 2024 by 25 percent.

“For Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which have existing climate commitments, following through with the proposed coal proposals will make meeting these commitments more difficult and expensive,” the report says. “The same would be true for the other Central Asian countries should they make coal phaseout or carbon neutrality goals in the future.”

Overall, the GEM report showed that the G7 group of major industrial countries accounted for 15 percent (310 GW) of the coal-fired generating capacity in 2023, down from 23 percent (443 GW) in 2015. The report also cited China as world’s worst abuser of coal. Global coal-fired power production grew by 48.4 GW, or 2 percent, in 2023, for an overall total of 2,130 GW. China was responsible for two-thirds of the additions.
Alarming Measles Outbreaks Surge Across Europe And Central Asia (Forbes)
Forbes [4/14/2024 9:13 AM, Joshua Cohen, 7173K, Negative]
After surging at the end of last year, measles outbreaks across Europe and Central Asia intensified in the first quarter of 2024, with incidence rates of up to hundreds of times higher than the U.S.

While focus in the U.S. has been on rising numbers of measles cases domestically, it’s Europe and Central Asia where the situation is at crisis level. In the U.S. thus far (as of 11 April) 121 cases have been detected, according to data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationwide, measles cases already are nearly twice the total for all of last year.

But the U.S. situation pales by comparison to what is currently being experienced in parts of Europe and Central Asia.

England and Wales, for example, have reported approximately 4,200 cases of measles so far in 2024, which amounts to 35 times the caseload in the U.S., with a population that is more than five times smaller. This translates into nearly a 200 times higher measles incidence rate than the U.S.

In January, the U.K.’s Health Security Agency declared a “national incident” in response to the rise in cases, signaling the growing public health risk. What’s particularly unsettling is the concurrent rise in childhood vaccine exemptions, which has led to a drop in vaccination rate.

According to the National Health Service England, the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rate in one of the hot spots for measles outbreaks, the Birmingham region, was around 83% in December 2022. It may have declined since then. To optimally protect the population, a rate of at least 95% is critical. And to illustrate the gravity of the situation, according to UKSHA, only around 50% of children have had their full MMR series in parts of East London.

Measles doesn’t only affect children. Adults can be severely impacted by the disease. In February of this year an Irish man in his 40s died of measles in a Dublin hospital, according to reports in the Irish media. He likely contracted the virus during a trip in January to Birmingham in the U.K.

As the measles outbreaks expand across England, particularly in the London and Birmingham areas, the NHS has launched a series of “catch-up campaigns” this past winter, with pop-up clinics at schools, public health messages disseminated throughout the country and letters being mailed to millions of parents and guardians in the hopes of increasing immunization rates.

In Eastern Europe, a large outbreak in Romania has been ongoing since mid-February 2023, and on 5 December, 2023, the Ministry of Health declared a national measles epidemic. By then, Romania had registered 1,755 cases. The crisis accelerated during the first quarter of 2024. Russia has also been hit hard by measles, with more than 9,300 cases reported as of 12 April, 2024.

Additionally, cases are skyrocketing across Central Asia. A massive nationwide measles outbreak has now spiked to 7,864 cases in Kyrgyzstan as of 8 April, double the number reported last December. The small country has a population of seven million.

And as the Health Ministry in Kyrgyzstan noted, while measles is a vaccine-preventable infection there are many “refusals” of the vaccine in the country. Accordingly, public health officials are urging citizens not to refuse vaccination, reminding people of the serious complications of measles, including encephalitis or brain swelling.

Measles causes an initial flu-like illness with symptoms that include a high fever of over 103 Fahrenheit (39.4 Celsius), copious congestion, red eyes and a rash that spreads around the entire body. Patients can develop ear infections, severe gastrointestinal upset, pneumonia and brain swelling. Moreover, the virus can alter immune memory, wiping out preexisting antibodies.

Peter Hotez, researcher and professor of pediatrics, molecular virology and microbiology at the Baylor College of Medicine, warns of the seriousness of a measles infection which 20% of the time leads to hospitalization.

Public health experts in the U.S. have been sounding the alarm about the potential for waning herd immunity to lead to similarly large outbreaks to the ones in Europe and Central Asia.

The reduced herd immunity is attributed to a gradual decline in immunization rates, as increasing numbers of parents forego vaccinating their children, citing religious or philosophical reasons. In the 2022-2023 school year, nonmedical vaccine exemptions for kindergarteners increased in 41 states, according to the CDC.

The launch of Covid-19 vaccines—and the vast amount of misinformation about them—appears to have prompted more unwarranted concerns about MMR and other childhood vaccinations.

Not that long ago, in the 1960s, measles was the single leading killer of young children globally. Vaccination campaigns significantly reduced mortality. Based on estimates published in the journal The Lancet, the global number of measles deaths in 2020 was 60,700, a 94% decrease from 1,072,800 deaths in 2000, and a 98% drop from 2,600,000 deaths in 1980.

However, in areas with low vaccination rates, measles continued to be a major threat to children’s health in 2020. Consider the 2019-2020 epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which cost the lives of more than 7,000 children.

The Lancet reported that in the DRC in 2019, 6,045 measles deaths occurred, mostly among children under five years of age. Researchers attributed the high death rate to poor access to healthcare and a high risk of acute malnutrition as a result of the disease. Fatal complications for thousands of children ensued. Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that beyond immune suppression, measles resets the immune system re-exposing children to a variety of infections they were previously protected from.

More than 1,000 additional deaths happened in 2020, and on 24 August, 2020 the outbreak was declared over with the final tally being 380,766 cases and 7,018 deaths.

While the DRC epidemic ended four years ago, measles fatalities worldwide more than doubled from 2020 to 2022, reaching over 136,000, indicating the widespread prevalence of the disease.

It’s important to remind ourselves that what happens overseas can occur in the U.S., too. Even in a wealthy, industrialized nation, when clusters of unvaccinated people are exposed to the measles virus the consequences can be grave. More than three decades ago a large measles outbreak involving predominantly unvaccinated preschool age children occurred in the Philadelphia region. Between November 1990 and March 1991, 486 cases and six measles-associated deaths were recorded among members of two Philadelphia church groups that had requested exemption from vaccination on religious grounds.

The more parents refrain from having their children immunized, the greater the chances infectious diseases such as measles stage a comeback, as we’re witnessing today. The outbreaks across Europe and Central Asia, with incidence rates of up to hundreds of times higher than the U.S., are a stark reminder that with childhood vaccine hesitancy—or simply outright refusal—on the rise in the U.S. the problem here could get much worse.
The ghost of Soviet Union returns to haunt Central Asia, Caucasus (Nikkei Asia – opinion)
Nikkei Asia [4/14/2024 6:02 AM, Hiroyuki Akita, 293K, Neutral]
As the tide of the war in Ukraine begins to turn Moscow’s way, fear about Russia’s political interference is spreading among former Soviet satellite states across Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Central Asia, surrounded by China, Russia and Iran, is the heart of the Eurasian continent and constitutes a crucial strategic point. It comprises Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, with Kazakhstan being a resource-rich nation blessed with energy and minerals.

The geopolitical balance in the region is wavering, however. On March 6 and 7, former senior government officials and various experts from surrounding countries and Western nations gathered in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia in the South Caucasus, for the Rondeli Security Conference, an annual security forum.

The conference showed a striking change in sentiment toward Ukraine. Many participants from the former Soviet sphere voiced deep concern about Russia’s future intervention in their internal affairs.

During the conference and coffee breaks, many said Russia is now gaining the upper hand in its war against Ukraine, and angering Moscow would only invite retaliation. It is best to tread carefully so as not to incur the wrath of Russian President Vladimir Putin, some said.

Until around the summer of 2023, Central Asia saw the war differently. The Russian military was struggling and could not afford to meddle in the internal affairs of former Soviet republics. The five countries sought to break away from Russia’s yoke by holding their first summits with the U.S. in New York and with Germany in Berlin later in the year.

However, the situation has changed as Ukrainian counteroffensives have faltered and U.S. military support to the country has dwindled. Should former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has voiced skepticism about backing Ukraine, win the presidential election in November, the Russian military might gain further momentum.

Signs are already emerging of Russia tightening its grip on the former Soviet states. A former senior Soviet official said Putin is quietly pressuring Central Asia and others within the Russian orbit to prioritize ties with Moscow.

This situation is particularly acute for Kazakhstan, a country that shares a 7,600-kilometer border with Russia. Ethnic Russians make up about 20% of the population, making it vulnerable to Russian intervention.

Last November, Putin visited the country, calling Russia and Kazakhstan "the closest allies" -- a thinly veiled threat about dire consequences if his assertion is not respected.

Russia has poured so many military resources into Ukraine that it has little strength left to make armed intervention into other ex-satellites. Nevertheless, a former Soviet official said Putin’s regime can still "destabilize these countries by meddling in their domestic and social affairs" through information and political maneuvers.

The ramifications of Ukraine’s struggle in the war extend beyond Central Asia.

In Moldova, which borders Ukraine, an uneasy tension already hangs over the country. At a special congress in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria, which is under the de facto control of pro-Russian forces, lawmakers on Feb. 28 passed a resolution seeking Russia’s help to "protect" the region from the central government’s "oppression." The Russian Foreign Ministry promptly responded that it would "carefully consider" the request.

Moldova is governed by a pro-Western government eager to join the European Union. Putin seems intent on using pro-Russian forces in the country to destabilize the government.

Also facing a threat from Russia is Georgia. Since the 2008 Russian invasion, its two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which together hold 20% of the land, have been under effective Russian control.

Though Georgia has severed its diplomatic ties with Russia, it has become a target of the Kremlin’s intense disinformation campaigns and political maneuvering. As if to suggest Russia’s growing clout, Georgia’s ruling party on April 3 announced that it will reintroduce a bill requiring recipients of overseas funds to register as "foreign agents."

"If Russia wins in Ukraine, it will no doubt seek to extend its dominance to other former Soviet blocs by political and military means," said Alex Petriashvili, former Georgian state minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration. "The first likely targets will be the fragile states of Moldova and Georgia. Putin will also try to regain control over Central Asia and the entire south Caucasus."

"But even in case of restoring the Soviet Union, Putin would not stop there and would go farther to the Baltics. That is why the world must pour its support into Ukraine and avoid Ukraine’s defeat at all costs," he added.

The outcome of the ongoing war in Ukraine will not only determine the country’s future but also shape the map of the Eurasian continent. Preventing a Russian victory is of paramount importance for global stability.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Amrullah Saleh
@AmrullahSaleh2
[4/12/2024 1:10 PM, 1.1M followers, 54 retweets, 274 likes]
The incredible intelligence unit of Afghanistan Green Trend (AGT) @AGTAfghanistan has disclosed details of the budget for the Taliban’s ministry of defense for fiscal year 1402 (2023) and fiscal year 1403 (2024). According to these documents the Taliban’s MoD had an operating budget of 570 million US dollars in 2023 and has asked for over a billion dollars for fiscal year 2024. This shows a one hundred percent increase. The AGT intelligence unit reports that the Taliban haven’t been able to build consensus and agree on budget for fiscal year 1403 (2024). They are therefore using the 2023 ceiling until differences are resolved. Based on statistics released by the Taliban the overall national income from customs revenue, taxes and mining amounted to circa two and half billion (2.5b) in 2023. The question is why the Taliban MoD wants half of the national income for 2024 ? Is it due to increased threat or related to growing rivalry within the Taliban over access to resources and positions. It maybe both according to the AGT. The Western countries provide tens of millions of dollars in cash to the Taliban in the name of humanitarian assistance without proper oversight and scrutiny. This unconditional western stipend assists the Taliban to recklessly use the national income for consolidation of their militias and their clerical rule without least regards to social needs of the Afghan people. The details speak for themselves. During the Republic era the Western humanitarian assistance was conditional to robust oversight, NGO independence and yearly agreement between GIROA and the donors on quotas from Afghan income for various sectors. Why that conditionality is removed? Why the west is more generous to the Taliban whom they used to call terrorists and still have most of its leaders in the black list including UN black list ? It seems geopolitics has taken precedence. It clearly shows that the Western humanitarian assistance is subsiding the oppression and repression of the Afghan people. God save the humanity.
Pakistan
Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[4/14/2024 8:10 AM, 209.8K followers, 198 retweets, 655 likes]
After last night’s developments, any possibility of the U.S. giving Pakistan a sanctions waiver for the gas pipeline it claims it plans to build with Iran is essentially nonexistent. And that possibility was practically nil even before the Iranian attack on Israel.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[4/14/2024 8:04 AM, 209.8K followers, 15 retweets, 122 likes]
If this KSA FM visit to Pakistan, along with a previously announced 2-day visit by the Iranian PM to Pakistan beginning on the 22nd, do go ahead, then meetings likely originally envisaged to focus on economic and energy cooperation will take on a decidedly more geopolitical focus. For now at least, Pakistan/KSA/Iran are all on the same page re Israel/Iran crisis: They wish to see de-escalation.

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[4/13/2024 12:43 AM, 8.4M followers, 1.7K retweets, 7.2K likes]
Why @ImranKhanPTI not disclosed the name of those who were putting pressure on him to recognise Israel? https://tribune.com.pk/story/2272148/pm-imran-says-under-pressure-to-recognise-israel
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/14/2024 1:18 PM, 97.2M followers, 3.7K retweets, 22K likes]
The public meeting in Mysuru was phenomenal. The support for @BJP4Karnataka and @JanataDal_S across all parts of Karnataka is remarkable. People are fed up of Congress and want our alliance to win. It was very special that our former PM and respected statesman @H_D_Devegowda JI came for the rally and shared his thoughts.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/14/2024 12:16 PM, 97.2M followers, 6.4K retweets, 37K likes]
My gratitude to the people of Mangaluru and Dakshina Kannada Parliamentary constituency for turning out in record numbers during today’s roadshow. This part of Karnataka and our Party have a very strong bond. People have blessed us for years, as they relate to our ideology of good governance and our efforts in preserving as well as celebrating our ancient culture.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/14/2024 12:16 PM, 97.2M followers, 400 retweets, 1.3K likes]
In the last decade our Government has done a lot of work in the Dakshina Kannada constituency. The focus of these works have been transportation, port development, fishermen and fisherwomen empowerment, energy, healthcare and more. Our emphasis on economic reforms has benefitted many people here, who are known for their entrepreneurial spirit.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/14/2024 12:16 PM, 97.2M followers, 388 retweets, 1.1K likes]
In the recent past, I have inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for key works that will boost the quality of life here. This includes the Kochi-Mangaluru pipeline. The airport, railway station and port related infrastructure are going to be modernised even further in the times to come.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/14/2024 12:16 PM, 97.2M followers, 359 retweets, 1K likes]
In our third term, there is even more work to be done in improving aspects relating to futuristic education and even better healthcare in the region. We want to work on the Blue Revolution so that fisheries receive a boost. Likewise, we want to work on improving tourism so that a lot more people can see this part of Karnataka.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/14/2024 12:16 PM, 97.2M followers, 932 retweets, 2.8K likes]
Our Sankalp Patra, which was released today, has a lot of interesting points which will boost development of Mangaluru, especially in areas like urban development, ‘Ease of Living’ and more. The vision presented in sectors like fisheries will transform the coastal economy.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[4/14/2024 12:16 PM, 97.2M followers, 995 retweets, 2.8K likes]
Dakshina Kannada cannot afford to vote for Congress, which is immersed in vote bank politics and dividing people. The Congress government in Karnataka is busy in factionalism, looting public money and stalling development. They also have no understanding of Karnataka’s culture.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[4/14/2024 12:28 PM, 3.1M followers, 2K retweets, 13K likes]
Spoke to Iranian FM @Amirabdolahian this evening. Took up the release of 17 Indian crew members of MSC Aries. Discussed the current situation in the region. Stressed the importance of avoiding escalation, exercising restraint and returning to diplomacy. Agreed to remain in touch.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[4/14/2024 1:59 AM, 3.1M followers, 903 retweets, 5.5K likes]
Privileged to attend the @BJP4India Sankalp Patra release programme this morning at BJP Headquarters. The achievements of the previous decade of transformation is a report card of BJP’s commitment to the nation. And the Sankalp Patra, a reflection of the party’s plan of action for Modi 3.0. Whether it be Garib, Yuva, Annadata or Nari, this manifesto reflects aspirations of all. In the foreign policy domain, we reaffirm our commitment to following a Bharat First Foreign Policy. #ModiKiGuarantee for #VishwaBandhuBharat will keep delivering.: https://bjp.org/bjp-manifesto-2024

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[4/13/2024 12:15 AM, 3.1M followers, 1.2K retweets, 7.6K likes]
Today, we remember the martyrs of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The killing instilled a fiercer determination to throw off the colonial yoke. This quest continues, now as the goal of achieving a Viksit Bharat.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[4/12/2024 7:54 AM, 3.1M followers, 840 retweets, 8.9K likes]
Pleased to meet the social media influencers of Pune. Glad to see their enthusiasm about the festival of democracy. Their support for Modi 3.0 was manifest.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[4/12/2024 7:53 AM, 3.1M followers, 353 retweets, 3.2K likes]
A good interaction with senior journalists in Pune this afternoon. Free-wheeling discussion on the transformative decade of Modi Sarkar and its reflections in foreign policy as well as our image abroad.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[4/13/2024 11:09 PM, 209.8K followers, 31 retweets, 155 likes]
Strongly worded statement from India expressing “serious concern” re Iran’s attacks on Israel and calling for “immediate de-escalation.” India, a close friend of Israel, has critical trade & energy interests, and a large diaspora presence, in Middle East. https://www.mea.gov.in/press-releases.htm?dtl/37779/Statement_on_the_situation_in_West_Asia
NSB
Awami League
@albd1971
[4/14/2024 9:10 AM, 637K followers, 41 retweets, 141 likes]
#Bangladesh celebrated the beginning of the #BanglaNewYear today across the country. The Mangal Shovajatra pictured here is one of the elements of Intangible Cultural Heritage declared by @unesco.

Awami League
@albd1971
[4/14/2024 6:15 AM, 637K followers, 51 retweets, 191 likes]
#Bangladesh is celebrating the beginning of the #Bengali #NewYear amid #Eid festivities. The celebration started with #Chhayanaut’s grand #PahelaBaishakh celebration at Ramna Batamul. Audiences from every part of the capital gathered for the celebration, singing and dancing to welcome the new Bengali calendar year 1431 with good tidings.

Awami League
@albd1971
[4/13/2024 11:39 AM, 637K followers, 83 retweets, 375 likes]
HPM #SheikhHasina’s message to the nation on #BengaliNewYear1431. https://twitter.com/i/status/1779172555091476566

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[4/13/2024 7:48 AM, 5.2K followers, 4 retweets, 59 likes]
Congratulations @KGeorgieva on your well-deserved renewal for a second term as Managing Director of @IMFNews. We appreciate your support in building a fruitful & sustainable relationship with #SriLanka & we look forward to continuing working together to achieve our shared goals.

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[4/13/2024 2:40 AM, 5.2K followers, 3 retweets, 27 likes]
In the first quarter of 2024, Sri Lanka’s Rupee (LKR) emerged as the top-performing currency among emerging markets, boasting a remarkable spot return of over 7%, according to Bloomberg market data !

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[4/12/2024 11:14 PM, 5.2K followers, 8 retweets, 41 likes]
*Warm Greetings for the Sri Lankan New Year* Amidst the festivities marking the blend of Eid ul-Fitr and the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, let’s treasure the depth of our cultural traditions and the varied tapestry that binds us as Sri Lankans. Embracing a spirit of togetherness and harmony, may we welcome the broad spectrum of diversity that characterizes our nation and endeavor to shape a future founded on mutual respect and empathy. I extend heartfelt wishes to all Sri Lankans for a prosperous and tranquil Sinhala and Tamil New Year, brimming with blessings, abundance, and the dawn of promising days ahead!
Central Asia
MFA Kazakhstan
@MFA_KZ
[4/14/2024 6:34 AM, 51.1K followers, 16 retweets, 12 likes]
Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the situation in the Middle East https://gov.kz/memleket/entities/mfa/press/news/details/749431?lang=en

Qasym-Jomart Toqayev
@TokayevKZ
[4/13/2024 5:58 AM, 403.4K followers, 73 retweets, 267 likes]
Due to the severe flooding in Kazakhstan and the need to allocate financial resources for the relief efforts and aid for affected citizens, I have made the decision to cancel the Astana International Forum that was scheduled for June 13-14 this year.

Qasym-Jomart Toqayev
@TokayevKZ
[4/13/2024 5:58 AM, 403.4K followers, 16 retweets, 69 likes]
I sincerely hope that the invited participants will treat this decision with understanding. The Astana International Forum will resume its activities in 2025.

MFA Tajikistan
@MOFA_Tajikistan
[4/14/2024 9:33 AM, 4.6K followers, 1 retweet, 1 like]
Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan https://mfa.tj/en/main/view/14827/meeting-of-the-foreign-ministers-of-tajikistan-and-uzbekistan

Leila Nazgul Seiitbek
@l_seiitbek
[4/14/2024 3:16 PM, 3.5K followers, 8 retweets, 12 likes]
Lithuania is looking to swiftly annul asylum status of a Tajik dissident and regime critic Sulaimon Dovlatov and to remove him to Tajikistan to face torture, unlawful lengthy imprisonment or worse. Repressions against Tajik dissidents are now global.

Bakhtiyor Saidov
@FM_Saidov
[4/14/2024 7:27 AM, 3.4K followers, 6 retweets, 14 likes]
Had a very productive and candid meeting with H.E. Sirojiddin Muhriddin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan. On the eve of the highest-level engagements, underscored that @uzbekmfa and @MOFA_Tajikistan have been deploying all their resources to make good neighborliness, strategic partnership and alliance between #Uzbekistan and #Tajikistan even more stronger. Further advancing connectivity, boosting trade ties, ensuring regular exchanges on all areas remain among top priorities.

Bakhtiyor Saidov
@FM_Saidov
[4/14/2024 2:42 AM, 3.4K followers, 8 retweets, 18 likes]
Happy to welcome Kyrgyzstan Foreign Minister H.E. Jeenbek Kulubaev (@MFA_Kyrgyzstan), who arrived in #Tashkent to take part in the Second Foreign Ministerial Meeting of the Strategic Dialogue “#CentralAsia – Gulf Cooperation Council”. Without any doubt there is an unprecedented level of close ties in all dimensions. Highlighted the important role model of Central Asia today as never before that demonstrates the region of good neighborliness ties. Also signed the Roadmap on preparation for the upcoming high-level engagements.

Bakhtiyor Saidov
@FM_Saidov
[4/12/2024 11:40 AM, 3.4K followers, 3 retweets, 11 likes]
Today in #Minsk we also held the Foreign Ministerial Meeting "Central Asia + Russia". Delegations of @uzbekmfa, @MFA_KZ, @MFA_Kyrgyzstan, @MOFA_Tajikistan, MFA of #Turkmenistan, and @mfa_russia reviewed the acute topics of our multilateral cooperation, as well as proposals to facilitate economic ties and implement promising projects. Green energy, water scarcity, and environmental issues are getting important.

Bakhtiyor Saidov
@FM_Saidov
[4/12/2024 11:21 AM, 3.4K followers, 8 retweets, 12 likes]
Together with our colleagues from Azerbaijan Armenia Belarus Kazakhstan Kyrgystan Russia Tajikistan Turkmenistan held the CIS Foreign Ministersʼ Council meeting today in #Minsk. Exchanged our views on the topical issues of global and regional agenda, as well as cooperation within the Commonwealth of Independent States. We also signed a number of documents aimed at strengthening our ties in many dimensions, including political, educational, sport, capacity building, and others. Unanimously decided to announce #Ganja (#Azerbaijan) and #Almaty (#Kazakhstan) as the sport capitals of the CIS for 2025 and 2026, respectively.

Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[4/15/2024 2:02 AM, 28.8K followers, 1 like]
Local official arrest on suspicion of taking bribe in #Uzbekistan had a previous conviction for taking bribes

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[4/12/2024 8:09 AM, 23K followers, 5 retweets, 5 likes]
Despite optimism and repeated attempts to start the project — some regional observers have come to call it a "dream railway" — the CKU has stalled as the countries face financing and technical challenges. https://www.voanews.com/a/kyrgyz-officials-optimistic-about-china-kyrgyzstan-uzbekistan-railway-project-/7566261.html

{End of Report}
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