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:
Friday, June 28, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
UN, Taliban talks: Why are Afghan women not invited? (Deutsche Welle)
Deutsche Welle [6/27/2024 8:12 AM, Hussain Sirat and Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi, 15592K, Negative]
A United Nations-led meeting with Afghanistan’s Taliban will be held in Qatar’s capital Doha this weekend, in which representatives from some 25 countries are expected to take part.

It will be the third such meeting, but the first attended by the Islamic fundamentalist group, which has ruled the war-torn nation since it seized power in August 2021 as US-led troops withdrew after 20 years of war.

The UN political chief who will chair the meeting said it’s not about granting recognition to the Taliban.

"This is not a meeting about recognition. This is not a meeting to lead to recognition... Having engagement doesn’t mean recognition," UN Undersecretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo told reporters. "This isn’t about the Taliban. This is about Afghanistan and the people."

Achieving sustainable peace, adherence to international law and human rights, as well as counter-narcotics efforts, among other things, are on the agenda of the talks, the UN official said.

The Taliban side has said they want to discuss topics such as restrictions on Afghanistan’s financial and banking system, development of the private sector, and countering drug trafficking.

Why are rights groups criticizing the UN?

But rights groups have criticized the UN for not having Afghan women at the table with the Taliban in Doha.

Shabnam Salehi, former commissioner of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, contends that the third Doha meeting would be "inconclusive" without Afghan women’s participation. She views the UN’s approach toward the Taliban as "misguided."

Faizullah Jalal, a professor at Kabul University, has slammed the exclusion of women from the meeting. "Omitting discussions on human and women’s rights undermines the United Nations’ credibility," he asserted.

This view is shared by Tirana Hassan, executive director of Human Rights Watch. She warned that excluding women "risks legitimizing the Taliban’s misconduct and irreparably damages the United Nations’ credibility as a defender of women’s rights and meaningful participation."

But the UN’s DiCarlo said the two-day meeting starting Sunday is an initial engagement aimed at initiating a step-by-step process with the Taliban.

The goal is to see the Taliban "at peace with itself and its neighbors and adhering to international law," the UN Charter, and human rights, she stressed.

"I want to emphasize — this is a process. We are getting a lot of criticism: Why aren’t women at the table? Why aren’t Afghan women at the table? Why is civil society not at the table? This is not an inter-Afghan dialogue," DiCarlo said.

"I would hope we could get to that someday, but we’re not there."

After drawing much censure, the UN has decided to hold a separate meeting with Afghan civil society in Doha next week.

Taliban banish women from almost all public life

Since they seized power, the Taliban have rolled back progress achieved in the previous two decades when it came to women’s rights.

They have banished women and girls from almost all areas of public life.

Girls were barred from attending school beyond sixth grade and women were prohibited from local jobs and nongovernmental organizations. They have ordered the closure of beauty salons and barred women from going to gyms and parks. Women also can’t go out without a male guardian.

In a decree issued in May 2022, women were also advised to wear a full-body burqa that showed only their eyes.

The oppression of women’s rights means that no country has so far officially recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government. The United Nations has said that recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place.

No recognition for the Taliban

Countries around the world have made any engagement with Afghanistan conditional on the Taliban improving things such as girls’ access to education, human rights and inclusive government.

But the militant regime has so far not shown any signs that it is willing to drop the hardline policies.

Activists have said that achieving any meaningful progress at the meeting hinges on fair and transparent representation of all relevant groups, including women.

They also stress that the international community needs to immediately address the Taliban’s grave rights violations.

Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said of the Doha meeting, "Sidestepping critical human rights debates is unacceptable."

Rina Amiri, US special envoy for human rights and women’s affairs in Afghanistan, wrote on the social media platform X: "Addressing peace, security, and stability challenges necessitates the presence of Afghan women in discussions about Afghanistan’s future."

What’s the situation like in Afghanistan?

Meanwhile, the situation in Afghanistan remains dire. While initial fears of widespread violence have subsided, the country faces a multitude of challenges, from a crippled economy and restricted education to ongoing human rights concerns and a divided population.

The Afghan economy, already fragile before the Taliban takeover, has taken a significant hit. Frozen bank accounts and international sanctions, coupled with the exodus of skilled professionals, have plunged the country into a deep recession.

Poverty has soared, and international efforts to incentivize reforms based on improving human rights have yielded limited results, especially regarding women’s rights.

Providing international aid still requires engagement with the Taliban, which most organizations and governments are reluctant to do.

Although the Taliban have shown no sign of changing their ways, the UN conference can still draw global attention to the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan.
Women Must Be Invited to Shape Afghanistan’s Future (New York Times – opinion)
New York Times [6/28/2024 1:00 AM, Richard Bennett, 831K, Neutral]
In May 2022, nine months after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, I visited a girls’ secondary school that was still open in the north in spite of a ban on education for girls above sixth grade. Communities in the area, which has a long history of valuing education, had refused to comply. I met with a group of 11th-grade math students who told me about their hopes for the future. “I don’t want to end up trapped at home and condemned to a domestic life,” one female student told me. “I want to finish school and become a teacher so that I can help my family and others.”

I ended that visit to Afghanistan with hope that perhaps the situation would not become as dire as I — and many Afghans — feared. But when I returned a year later, everything had changed. The school was closed. Instead of attending lessons, the student and her classmates were forced to stay at home, their teachers transferred to a primary school. Now, among the many other challenges facing girls and women under the Taliban’s rule, a mental health crisis has gripped the country. Girls report anxiety, depression and hopelessness, and there have been reports showing an alarming surge in suicides.

It is against this backdrop that the United Nations will convene a third meeting of international special envoys in Doha, Qatar, next week to discuss a political path forward for Afghanistan. The Taliban have accepted the U.N.’s invitation to join. (They declined to attend February’s meeting.) After discussions with the Taliban, the meeting’s agenda will focus on fighting narcotics and helping the private sector — and does not include human rights or women’s issues, and neither women nor Afghan civil society representatives will be included.

If these exclusions are the price of the Taliban’s presence in Doha, the cost is too high.

When the Taliban retook power in August 2021, its leaders initially said that education for girls above the sixth grade would be suspended until conditions were suitable under Islamic rules. Now, more than 1,000 days later, school remains off limits for girls older than 12, and restrictions on education have expanded to universities. The Taliban now say education is “an internal matter,” and it remains unclear when — or if — schools will reopen to girls.

Denial of education is just one of many Taliban decrees against women. Female civil servants were instructed not to report to work when the Taliban retook power. Women are now barred from working at nongovernmental organizations and humanitarian agencies, including the United Nations. Some female-owned businesses, like beauty salons, have been shuttered. Women and girls need to be accompanied by a male relative to travel.

The net result is that today, women and girls have been virtually erased from public life, deprived of their most basic rights. Afghan women began describing the Taliban’s policies as gender apartheid in the 1990s, and they and many others, including me, want such policies to be criminalized under international law.

The Taliban’s institutionalized oppression is devastating not only for the current generation of Afghan women and girls. If left unchecked, it will inflict irreparable harm on future generations of Afghans as well. Boys, raised in a system that legitimizes the dehumanization of women and girls, may follow their leaders’ example and continue to treat women badly, and they are vulnerable to radicalization, sowing seeds for security concerns that extend beyond Afghanistan’s borders. The crippling gender policies and their violent enforcement are also severely depriving L.G.B.T.Q. people of their fundamental rights.

Despite all of this, Afghan women and girls are pushing back. Some have protested in the streets to demand the restoration of their rights, risking arrest, detention and violence. In the face of shuttered schools, girls with access to the internet, who are a minority, are taking classes in English, math and science, and female entrepreneurs are moving online, finding creative ways to circumvent restrictions on their movement. “We did not create the Taliban, but we are the ones who have to live with them in control,” one woman told me. “There is no other choice than to find ways to survive and learn.”

It would be easy to leave these women to carry on their struggle alone, citing the excuse that the international community has done enough damage in Afghanistan and should stay out of the nation’s affairs. But that would be a grave disservice both to those women and girls showing defiance and to many others who do not have the economic capacity to fight back. We have an obligation to meet their bravery with increased protection, support and solidarity.

The focus on politically neutral topics at the upcoming meeting in Doha was designed to entice the Taliban to the table. A formal discussion of human rights will be missing, despite the fact that Afghans who disagree with the Taliban’s ideology have made clear that respect for human rights, especially the rights of women and girls, must be a prerequisite for any engagement with the Taliban. This is happening despite the fact that an independent assessment requested by the Security Council last year advised any road map for Afghanistan’s reintegration into the international community should include measurable improvements in human rights.

Afghanistan has suffered more than four decades of conflict and had a questionable human rights record during the 20 years of the Islamic republic. But since retaking power, the Taliban has not only attacked the rights of women and girls; they have been responsible for wide-ranging violations and abuses — including killings, disappearances and arbitrary detentions — as well as a campaign of retaliation against former enemies, despite their claim of an amnesty. People from minority communities are especially at risk.

Also conspicuously absent at the main Doha meeting will be any representation of non-Taliban Afghans. Though some civil society and women’s groups will be included in meetings on the sidelines, this representation appears to have come only after significant external pressure, but it should have been baked in from the beginning. This is not the first time non-Taliban Afghans have been sidelined from political discussions, though history has repeatedly shown that failure to include all Afghans in political processes undermines their credibility and sustainability.

The Taliban are not recognized by the United Nations as a government and should not be treated as such. They must not be allowed to use the threat of backing out of the talks to dictate the terms of this conference or any future international process. It is a mistake to measure the success of this meeting by whether the Taliban show up.

The bravery, dignity and perseverance of millions of Afghans in the face of such gross injustice must be matched by strong, principled and effective international leadership. Afghan women and girls have often said to me that their greatest fear used to be that the Taliban would return to power. Now they say that they fear the Taliban will be recognized simply because of their power, in disregard of their cruel policies and practices.

The international community must insist on reversing the restriction of Afghan women’s and girls’ rights, on women’s meaningful participation in decision making and on accountability. Having these issues explicitly on the agenda in Doha would still be an important first step.
Let Afghan women join the UN talks next week. It’s what the Taliban fear most (The Guardian – opinion)
The Guardian [6/27/2024 11:00 AM, Fawzia Koofi, 86157K, Neutral]
Since it became clear that the Taliban will be the only Afghan voices at the table and women’s rights will not officially be on the agenda at the UN meeting on Afghanistan in Doha, I have received thousands of messages from women inside and outside the country expressing their deep despair, shock and disappointment.

There is increasing concern about the tone that the international community – especially the UN mission in Afghanistan, Unama – have adopted to normalise the human rights violations in Afghanistan in an effort to secure the Taliban’s participation in the Doha talks.

The agenda for next week’s meeting will focus on counter-narcotics and the private sector, two peripheral issues chosen to ensure Taliban participation by putting nothing more contentious on the table.

This means the conference will ignore the fundamental issues of holding the Taliban accountable for their unprecedented violations of the basic rights of Afghan women and girls to have education, employment and active participation in society.

On Wednesday, in response to the outpouring of criticism, UN undersecretary-general Rosemary DiCarlo said that Afghan women’s rights, among other key issues, will be raised in every meeting with the Taliban. She conveniently ignored the fact that the whole world, including Islamic scholars, have been raising the same issues with the Taliban for more than three years to no avail, while the the group continues to impose more bans and restrictions on the women of Afghanistan with impunity.

The agenda also clearly contradicts the UN’s own charter and the security council resolutions 1325 and 2721, which call on the UN secretary general to appoint a special envoy for Afghanistan and to ensure participation of all sides, especially Afghan women’s groups.

It also disregards the lack of a legal framework and an inclusive and accountable governing system that ensures participation of all sides. Without a resolution to these two key issues, Afghanistan will never cease to be the centre of narcotics production and drug trafficking, nor will the country’s private sector develop without full participation of women – the two items on the UN’s agenda. According to the UN’s own assessment, the Taliban bar on women’s employment is costing the Afghan economy more than $1bn a year.

If Unama and others in the international community see the Taliban as the only reality for Afghanistan, they need to look at our history. Millions of Afghans risked life and limb to cast their votes in the 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections, despite threats, fraud and irregularities. They believed in the democratic values and principles which the international community propagated to them for more than 20 years.

Yet Afghans today are bewildered that the same international community which championed free elections and women’s rights is willing to compromise its own moral values to cave in to an extremist ideological group. A group that represents a ruling armed clerical regime which has established gender-apartheid in Afghanistan and directed the subjugation of more than 20 million women and girls into an abyss of hopelessness.

Given the moral collapse of the international community when it comes to upholding their own values for human rights, women’s rights, and equality for all, most Afghans feel there is no chance of a fair and transparent intervention by global bodies such as the UN to seek a reasonable and durable solution to the conflict in Afghanistan.

They question the international community’s commitment to women’s rights when their own fundamental rights were so easily bartered in exchange for geopolitical convenience during the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

Taliban members, who came to power with guns, can hold on to power through violence but will never subdue the will of a nation which has never been colonised. Our people, men and women, need education, employment and the prospect of liberty for achieving their dreams in order to realise their full potential. And if the Taliban hope that by sticking to their gender-apartheid vision and forcing the morally compromised internationally community to grant them some level of recognition, will help them achieve their aims they are also wrong.

It is the Taliban who launched their war on the women of our country. Women are half of our population, and the country cannot move forward without full participation of Afghan women, incorporation of the magnificent diversity of our country, and the incredible talent and potential of our youth who are now fleeing Afghanistan because they do not see any future under Taliban rule.

The Taliban have silenced women’s voices inside the country using violence and torture. And by excluding women’s participation at the Doha meeting, the UN and others in the international community have enabled the Taliban to try to silence our voices outside Afghanistan, too.

If the international community and the UN want to be useful, let the women of Afghanistan directly talk to the Taliban. This is something that the leaders of the gender-apartheid regime fear the most.
Afghan farmers grow poppies despite Taliban’s ban (VOA)
VOA [6/27/2024 5:13 PM, Rahim Gul Sarwan and Anne Ball, 4032K, Neutral]
Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was down sharply last year, according to the United Nations and private sources, but the plants are being grown in most provinces despite a ban imposed by the Taliban. Some areas grow more than others.

According to sources inside Afghanistan and on Taliban-run social media accounts, farmers in about 29 provinces have been growing poppies since spring. The largest amounts are grown in Badakhshan, Helmand, Herat and Nangarhar provinces.

Poppies, which farmers process to make opium, are being grown in the open and hidden behind property walls.

Taliban forces conducted thousands of operations to destroy the plant, as was announced on the X social media platform by the Ministry of Interior Counter Narcotics. It listed 29 provinces where they conducted eradication efforts.

The Taliban Interior Ministry said that in the past six months, its police conducted more than 15,000 poppy eradication operations on more than 3,600 hectares (8,900 acres). It also said thousands of people were arrested for violating the ban.

Abdul Haq Akhundzada, Taliban deputy interior minister for counternarcotics, told VOA there won’t be problems with narcotics this year.

“In those provinces, in areas where farmers grow hidden poppy, we conducted operations there as well, and we eradicated their hidden poppy,” he said.

Not everyone is peacefully accepting the opium ban and eradication. In northeastern Badakhshan province, violent clashes erupted last month between the Taliban and farmers. Two people were killed.

Local Taliban eradication officials reported that in Badakhshan, 35,000 to 40,000 acres were cleared.

Aminullah Taib, deputy Taliban governor in Badakhshan, said they were able to eradicate the fall and spring poppy cultivation in eight districts and will not allow further growth.

Farmers said the eradication was disrespectful of the local culture as the Taliban went to the villages without talking to the elders and informing the villagers about the process.

Abdul Hafiz, a resident of Argo district, where the clash between the farmers and Taliban took place, told VOA the Taliban entered people’s homes and destroyed their poppy crops “without a prayer, notice or acknowledgment.”

Poppy growth was at its high in 2021, the year the Taliban regained power. Farmers grew as much as possible, fearing the crop would be banned. While the Taliban banned poppy growth in 2022, they allowed the farmers to harvest what they had already planted.

It was a record year. The United Nations estimated that Afghan opium production was 6,800 metric tons (7,500 tons) in 2021 and 6,200 metric tons (6,800 tons) in 2022.

Last year, the Taliban were largely successful in banning the crop. In opium-rich Helmand province, poppy crop cultivation was down by 99.9%.

Yet how successful the ban was considered depends on the source.

The United Nations reported in October that poppy cultivation was down by 95%. Across Afghanistan, the U.N. said, opium cultivation fell from 233,000 hectares (575,755 acres) in 2022 to just 10,800 hectares (26,687 acres) in 2023.

But the imaging company Alcis, in its comprehensive satellite survey, says poppy cultivation was down by 86% to 31,088 hectares (76,200 acres).

William Byrd, a senior researcher at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told VOA that the 9 percentage-point spread between Alcis and the U.N. makes a difference in how much poppy is estimated to have been harvested for 2023.

He said Alcis paints a more complete picture.

“Opium poppies’ distinctive characteristics and the tools developed by Alcis over a number of years facilitate the complete-coverage approach,” he said, adding that the U.N. relies on sampling different areas. Alcis analyzes satellite imagery for all agricultural land and poppy fields multiple times during the planting, cultivation and harvesting of opium poppy.

Results for 2024 poppy planting are expected by both organizations in the fall.

The economic situation in Afghanistan is dire as more than 12 million people face acute food insecurity.

The poppy ban takes about $1 billion in income away from the rural economy. So, even faced with the ban, impoverished farmers continue to grow poppies because they have few options for income.

For decades now, poppies and the resulting opium have been the biggest cash crop for farmers. Most practice subsistence farming. They have no extra income or time to buy the seeds of other plants and then wait years for them to mature to be harvested and sold.

Farmers complain that the Taliban government isn’t helping them with alternative crops.

Hassebullah, a farmer in Laghman province, told VOA that farmers need support and that they are still waiting for the Taliban government’s help.

“If a farmer doesn’t grow poppy and hashish,” said Hassebullah, who, like most rural Afghans, goes by his first name, “then as an alternative, the government should provide seeds and fertilizer, some agriculture products and other assistance.”

Taliban Deputy Counternarcotics Minister Javed Qaem told VOA that until farmers are provided alternatives, “unfortunately, we will be witnessing more clashes in the coming years.”
Putin’s Afghan gambit — what’s behind Russia’s pivot toward Central Asia? (The Hill – opinion)
The Hill [6/27/2024 11:30 AM, Imran Khalid, 18752K, Neutral]
Is Russian President Vladimir Putin up to something big in Afghanistan? Apparently, yes.

Recent developments indicate that Putin’s policy towards Afghanistan and Central Asia is realigning its strategic pivot. From engaging with the Houthis in Yemen to the Taliban in Afghanistan, Putin is seriously trying to expand Russia’s influence from the Middle East to its own backyard — Central Asia.

Recent reports suggest that Moscow is moving to toward officially recognizing the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government, which could shift regional dynamics. Ahead of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last month — attended by a Taliban delegation — the Russian foreign and justice ministries proposed removing the Taliban from Russia’s list of designated terrorist organizations. The Taliban has been on this list since 2003 for supporting North Caucasus separatists.

Ever since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Moscow has been constantly engaged with the Taliban to counter ISIS and safeguard its interests, while remaining wary of the group’s inherent ideology and potential threats to regional stability.

In recent months, Russia has facilitated talks involving the Taliban and other Afghan stakeholders but stopped short of formal recognition. However, this stance seems to be evolving rapidly because of Putin’s strategic interest in the region.

Last September, Taliban representatives held meetings with Russian officials to discuss regional threats and the creation of an inclusive government. Following these talks, Russian officials pledged continued support for Afghanistan, both independently and through the UN’s World Food Program. Similarly, last month, a delegation from the Taliban participated in the “Russia-Islamic World: Kazan Forum,” hosted by Russia in Kazan. This forum was projected by Russia as a platform to enhance economic cooperation with Islamic countries.

When considering recent developments, alongside Moscow’s intention to remove the Taliban from its list of designated terrorist organizations, there remains little doubt about Putin’s new strategic calculations in Central Asia.

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, no foreign state has recognized its government. This hesitancy largely stems from the Taliban’s ongoing erosion of women’s rights and broader human rights issues. The Taliban is desperately seeking the removal of international sanctions, restoration of Afghanistan’s UN seat and the release of frozen assets to boost the country’s economy.

Both Afghanistan and Russia stand to benefit significantly from the development of the Lapis-Lazuli trade corridor, linking it to Istanbul and Europe, and the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway line. However, these projects hinge on the withdrawal of international sanctions.

Russia’s potential removal of the Taliban from its terrorism list will be the first crucial step toward the international recognition of the Afghan government. That move could pave the way for broader economic engagement and development, setting a precedent for other nations close to Russia and China. Neighboring Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are likely to follow Moscow immediately.

Russia would gain immensely from its ties with the Taliban and acquire the role of “patron.” By positioning itself as the region’s security provider, especially in contrast to America’s failure to stabilize Afghanistan, Moscow has rejuvenated its historical and strategic interests in Central Asia.

Russia is deeply concerned about its regional influence, drug trafficking and threats from Islamist terrorism, particularly following the March terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow. Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), a Taliban rival based in Afghanistan, is believed to be responsible. This incident has prompted Moscow to enhance security measures in former Soviet Central Asia, a region that supplies a significant portion of migrant workers crucial to the Russian economy.

Russia aims to bolster its southern defenses and is seeking support from the Taliban against ISIS-K. The rationale behind this strategy is rooted in the perception that the Taliban poses a lesser threat than ISIS-K. Thus, Moscow sees building relations with the Taliban as a pragmatic step to mitigate regional security risks.

To bolster its economic and geopolitical influence, Russia is leveraging alliances like the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). This alliance strengthens its presence and facilitates cooperation across the region. Russia’s 2023 foreign policy plan even envisions integrating Afghanistan into the broader Eurasian cooperative space. This strategic approach is designed to enhance Russia’s influence and credibility in Central Asia, further solidifying its role as a key regional power.

So far, the Taliban have proven to be trustworthy allies. They have reportedly honored their promise to curb opium production, resulting in a palpable decrease in narcotics transiting through Russian territory. With Western influence seemingly gone from Afghanistan, opportunities are emerging for the Taliban to align with Russian and Chinese-led political and economic regional entities like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This shift could pave the way for Afghanistan to forge new business ties and strengthen its regional integration, potentially altering the geopolitical landscape in Central Asia.

Beyond security concerns, Moscow is eyeing economic opportunities with the Taliban. There have been loud murmurs in Moscow about using Afghanistan as a transit hub for exporting Russian natural gas to India and other goods to Pakistani ports. This ambitious project requires significant infrastructure development, including a gas pipeline through the mountains and a railroad extension from Mazar-i-Sharif to Pakistan.

Furthermore, the increasing cooperation between the Taliban and Russia will certainly have significant implications for the ongoing rivalry between Russia and the West. Since the onset of the Ukraine War, Moscow has sought support from other nations to offset the impression of its diplomatic isolation.

Economically and politically, the Taliban find it essential to cooperate with Moscow. For now, having Moscow as an ally is strategically advantageous, offering critical support and resources. Yet it is too early to predict how this strategic alignment will provide Putin with additional room to maneuver.
Pakistan
‘No right to interfere’: Pakistan hits back at US over election scrutiny (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [6/27/2024 7:21 AM, Abid Hussain, 20871K, Neutral]
Pakistan has accused the United States of attempting to “interfere” in its internal affairs hours after the US House of Representatives passed a resolution on Wednesday raising questions about the credibility of the South Asian nation’s general election in February.

The resolution called for a “full and independent” investigation into alleged irregularities in Pakistan’s election, which former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party alleged was manipulated to deny it victory.

Pakistan’s terse response underscored the niggles that afflict its relationship with the US, once its pre-eminent geopolitical partner, but is unlikely to upset recent attempts to steady ties, said analysts.

Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Wednesday Pakistan believes in “constructive dialogue” and engagement, but such resolutions are “neither constructive nor objective”.

“We believe that the timing and context of this particular resolution do not align well with the positive dynamics of our bilateral ties, and stem from an incomplete understanding of the political situation and electoral process in Pakistan,” Baloch added.

Defence Minister Khwaja Asif also criticised the resolution and suggested that the US needed to do more to ensure transparency in its own upcoming elections later this year.

“The US has no right to interfere in Pakistan’s internal matters,” he said during a TV interview on Wednesday.

In an earlier post on X, Asif also questioned the US track record of involvement in removing foreign governments in the past, while referencing its support for Israel during its ongoing war on Gaza.

“This is from the country that spent the 20th century overthrowing democratically elected governments, and is currently facilitating the Palestinian genocide,” he wrote.

What does the resolution say?

House Resolution 901 was originally introduced in November last year by Republican Congressman Rich McCormick and co-sponsored by Democrat Congressman Daniel Kildee.

The resolution, titled Expressing Support for Democracy and Human Rights in Pakistan, was tabled in Congress on June 25, urging the Pakistani government to “uphold democratic and electoral institutions” and condemning any attempts to violate Pakistani people’s “human, civil, or political rights”.

The resolution passed with the overwhelming support of 368 members of Congress, and seven votes against it.

PTI, which claims its mandate was stolen in the February 8 elections despite winning the highest number of seats (93), welcomed the passage of the resolution.

Former President Arif Alvi, also a senior PTI leader, called it a step in the “right direction”.

“What a resounding condemnation by (368-7) of the unhinging of the democratic process in Pakistan by the US Congress,” he wrote on X.

Pakistan held its general elections three months later than originally scheduled. Though the PTI was denied the use of its election symbol by the Election Commission of Pakistan, candidates backed by the party won 93 seats, more than any other party. Still, that was short of the majority mark and the PTI claimed its mandate had been stolen.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which won 75 and 54 seats respectively, formed a coalition with smaller parties to govern.
‘A signal’

Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistan ambassador to the US, United Nations, and the United Kingdom, stated that the nonbinding resolution merely reflects congressional opinion and concerns about the situation in Pakistan.

“This resolution will not strain relations between the US and Pakistan. It sends a signal to the Biden administration about Capitol Hill sentiments, but doesn’t require Washington to take any action,” she told Al Jazeera.

“It underscores the need for Pakistan to more effectively lobby Congress,” she added.

Khan, founder of PTI and Pakistan’s prime minister from August 2018 to April 2022, alleged a US-led conspiracy with Pakistani military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and political rivals to overthrow him from power.

These allegations were repeatedly denied by both Washington and the Pakistani military.

Khan, who has been in jail since August 2023 on various charges, specifically accused senior State Department official Donald Lu of conveying a message to Asad Majeed, Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the US, allegedly urging Khan’s removal due to engagement with Russia during its war on Ukraine.

In March this year, Lu denied all allegations during a congressional hearing, calling them “falsehoods”.

Following the Pakistani elections, US President Joe Biden congratulated Shehbaz Sharif of the PMLN after he took oath as the prime minister, indicating a potential thaw in relations that had cooled over many years. That shift in ties between the two governments was also evident in the State Department’s June 26 briefing, where it supported Pakistan’s launch of a new counterterrorism campaign earlier this week.

“We support Pakistan’s efforts to combat terrorism and ensure the safety and security of its citizens, promoting the rule of law and protecting human rights,” said spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Former Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said the overwhelming support for the resolution reflects the views of the US Congress. But Bashir added that it will not hinder the relationship between the two nations.

“I don’t believe this resolution will become a point of contention in improving relations. Once responses are given for domestic audiences, the two countries will continue to pursue mutually beneficial relations,” he told Al Jazeera.

Foreign policy expert Muhammad Faisal commented that the US resolution would not significantly pressure the Pakistani government, characterising it as a matter of “domestic US politics” where votes from Pakistani-origin Americans in some districts are crucial.

However, Faisal pointed to what he described as the PTI’s “inconsistent” views on the US.

“Two years ago, PTI accused the US of orchestrating regime changes, which were denied in a House committee hearing. Now, PTI expects coercive action from the US, which is highly unlikely,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mosharraf Zaidi of Islamabad-based policy think tank Tabadlab stated that foreign governments can try to pressure Pakistan to align with their interests, but have “rarely, if ever”, been able to achieve desired outcomes.

Yet, he said, tensions with the US could prove uncomfortable for Pakistan’s government and influential military.

“The primary issue in the Pakistan-US relationship isn’t democracy or freedom, but economics and security,” he said. “Despite this, mishandling legitimate grievances of PTI will continue to pose both domestic and international challenges.”
Pakistan Court Upholds Imran Khan’s Conviction in Wedding Case (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [6/27/2024 6:14 AM, Kamran Haider, 27296K, Negative]
A Pakistani court upheld the last of Imran Khan’s jail sentences, dealing a blow to the former prime minister who has been in prison for about nine months and faces dozens of other court cases.

A sessions court judge upheld a seven-year jail sentence for Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, in an unlawful marriage case, according to his lawyer Shoaib Shaheen. “We have the option to challenge the order in a higher court,” he said by phone.

The couple were sent to prison for violating an Islamic law that requires women who have divorced to complete a waiting period before they can remarry.

The decision is a major set back for Khan who had three other convictions suspended by the courts. The 71-year-old politician has been in jail since August.

Khan was the first Pakistani prime minister ousted from power through a parliamentary no-confidence vote more than two years ago after his relationship with the powerful military turned sour. He has said the legal cases are politically motivated and designed to prevent him from staging a comeback — an allegation Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the military leadership have denied.

Ahead of Thursday’s decision, Rana Sanaullah, the prime minister’s adviser on political affairs said the government would block Khan’s release as he could cause more disturbance. “The government’s position will be to keep him behind bars as long as possible,” Sanaullah told Geo TV on Wednesday.

Khan-backed candidates won the most parliamentary seats in February after an election marred by violence and allegations of rigging. But they fell short of a majority and Khan’s rivals moved quickly to form government in what political analysts said was in part due to support from the military.

The generals have ruled directly or behind the scenes for much of Pakistan’s history. The military plays a major role in foreign and security policies even though it has publicly said it is apolitical and wishes to work within its constitutional rights.

Politicians partly rely on the military to become prime minister but fallouts can see them eventually get ousted and face jail time on allegations ranging from corruption and murder to treason.
An appeals court in Pakistan upholds conviction of Imran Khan and his wife for unlawful marriage (AP)
AP [6/27/2024 8:48 AM, Munir Ahmed, 31180K, Neutral]
An appeals court in Pakistan Thursday upheld the conviction and seven-year prison sentence of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife for their 2018 marriage which was found to be unlawful, officials said.

The decision drew strong condemnation from Khan’s supporters and his party who were expecting the couple to be freed on bail.

The verdict by Judge Afzal Majoka came two days after the conclusion of the arguments from the defense lawyer and petitioner, who is the former husband of Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi. His legal team said they would challenge the court’s decision.

In February, Khan and his wife were sentenced to seven years in prison after a court concluded that the couple violated the law that a woman must wait three months before marrying again.

Bibi, Khan’s third wife, was a spiritual healer previously married to a man who claimed they divorced in November 2017, less than three months before she married Khan. Bibi says they divorced in August 2017.

The couple denied they violated the three-month waiting period — a requirement of Islamic law and upheld by Pakistan.

Since his ouster from power in 2022 through a no-confidence vote in the parliament, Khan has been facing more than 150 court cases, including inciting people to violence after his arrest in May 2023. He is serving multiple prison terms at Adiala prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

He has denied any wrongdoing and his supporters say the charges are politically motivated.

During nationwide riots in May, Khan’s supporters attacked several military installations, stormed an air base in Mianwali in the eastern Punjab province and torched a building housing state-run Radio Pakistan in the northwest. The violence subsided only when Khan was released at the time by the Supreme Court.

Khan, who remains the country’s popular opposition leader, was again arrested in August 2023 when a court handed him a three-year jail sentence for corruption. Since then, he has not been seen publicly as his trials were held at prisons for security reasons.

Thursday’s ruling was condemned by supporters from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, which has a strong presence in the parliament. “Absolutely ridiculous,” said Omar Ayub, a top leader of the party.

The latest development came two days after a U.S. congressional resolution called “the full and independent investigation of claims of interference or irregularities” in Pakistan’s Feb. 8 vote, drawing a strong reaction from Islamabad.

The resolution was seen as a boost for Khan’s party which has insisted that its victory was converted into a defeat by the country’s Election Commission, a charge it denied.

But Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday “we believe in constructive dialogue and engagement based on mutual respect and understanding” and “such resolutions are therefore neither constructive nor objective.” It said the resolution “stems from an incomplete understanding of the political situation and electoral process in Pakistan”.
Pakistan court rejects Imran Khan, wife appeal in unlawful marriage case (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [6/27/2024 6:21 AM, Abid Hussain, 20871K, Negative]
A court in Pakistan has rejected an appeal by former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife to suspend a February ruling that their 2018 marriage violated Islamic law.

The decision by the court in Islamabad on Thursday means that Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, will remain behind bars.

The seven-year jail sentence, handed on February 3, was announced five days before the country’s general elections and followed two other convictions for Khan in separate cases. Both have since been overturned.

The marriage case against the couple was filed last year by Bibi’s former husband, Khawar Maneka, who alleged that his divorced wife did not observe the necessary three-month break required under Islamic law before marrying Khan.

Maneka claims he divorced his wife in November 2017. Khan announced his third marriage with Bibi in February 2018, months before he became the prime minister.

The couple filed multiple appeals against the conviction, seeking a suspension of the judgement.

Another appeal by Khan and Bibi to annul the February conviction is expected to be heard from July 2.

Sayed Zulfiqar Bukhari, a senior leader of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and close aide of the cricketer-turned-politician, described Thursday’s ruling as a “sad day for the judiciary”.

“The hatred of a few is adamant to destroy all institutions for it. Dismissing the appeal shows that there is nothing on Imran Khan and his wife except this outrageous case,” Bukhari told Al Jazeera.

“This case is disgusting at all levels. Is [this] what the current setup wants to be remembered for – keeping Imran Khan and his wife in jail in a fake marriage case,” he asked.

Omar Ayub Khan, another senior PTI leader and member of parliament, condemned the court’s decision and said an appeal would be filed.

In a statement on Wednesday, the party had warned that a new political crisis would grip the country if Khan was not released.

“The former prime minister has been imprisoned for 11 months, while during this time he has been acquitted or granted bail in 18 different cases,” the PTI said in its statement.

Rana Sanaullah, a top leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) party, had recently alleged that Khan’s narrative was to sow chaos in the country.

Khan and his wife were previously handed a separate 14-year sentence in a case related to the illegal sale of state gifts, but in April their conviction was overturned by the Islamabad High Court.

Khan had also been sentenced to 10 years on charges of leaking state secrets, along with former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

Earlier this month, the Islamabad High Court overturned that verdict, but Khan remained behind bars due to his conviction in the unlawful marriage case.

In May, the same court had granted Khan bail in a high-profile land deal case in which he was accused of colluding with Malik Riaz, a real estate tycoon. Khan has been accused of signing a deal with Riaz that caused the national exchequer a loss of more than $239m in a quid pro quo arrangement with the businessman to build an educational institute.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last month alleged that “some judges” were favouring Khan.

“While many judges are patriotic, a few black sheep facilitated Imran Khan’s million corruption,” he said at a PMLN event.

Khan was in power from August 2018 till April 2022 before being removed through a vote of no confidence in parliament, which he blamed on a United States-led conspiracy that also involved Pakistan’s powerful military establishment – a charge denied by both.

The Pakistani military, which has directly ruled the country for more than three decades and has an overreaching influence in the political sphere, was also accused of orchestrating Khan’s rise to power.

Following his removal from office, Khan and his PTI have been facing a state crackdown which intensified after May 2023 when the former prime minister was briefly arrested.

His followers went on a rampage, protesting against his arrest and demanding his immediate release. Khan was released in less than 48 hours, but thousands of party workers and leaders were arrested, with more than 100 tried in draconian military courts.

The PTI continued to face difficulties as it was barred from using its electoral symbol – the cricket bat – in the February elections while Khan was declared ineligible to participate due to his imprisonment.

Still, PTI-backed candidates emerged as the largest bloc in the polls, winning 93 seats. But they remained in opposition as they decided against working with their political rivals.
Karachi Sees a Surge in Deaths as Heat Wave Sears Pakistan (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [6/27/2024 6:59 AM, Ismail Dilawar, 27296K, Negative]
Karachi is witnessing an unusual spike in the number of deaths, a relief agency said, with the baking conditions set to persist in Pakistan’s commercial capital.

Rescue agency Edhi Foundation reported receiving 568 bodies in the city in the five days through June 25, up from an average of about 40 per day. The local government said the casualties weren’t due to heat and that just 13 people had died of weather-related issues in Karachi in June.

The nation, which saw near-record temperatures in May, is not alone in getting battered by extreme weather conditions, exacerbated by climate change. The Earth posted an 11th consecutive month of record-breaking heat in April, with warmer conditions prevailing in several Asian countries, including India, and there are concerns of a scorching summer in Europe.

“Most of the corpses were brought from areas housing poor workers, hit by heatstroke amid prolonged power outages in the city,” the foundation’s Trustee Faisal Edhi said by phone, citing family members who came to its morgues. It operates Pakistan’s biggest ambulance service through 500 centers.

Tracking fatalities because of intense weather can be challenging as deaths may have multiple causes.

The above-average temperatures did cause more than 2,100 heatstrokes this month across Sindh, said Ali Nawaz Channa, spokesman of the province’s health department. However, he rejected Edhi’s claim and said they wrongly attributed those incremental deaths to hotter weather conditions.

The mercury soared to 44C in the city on June 24, more than 7C above normal, the Pakistan Meteorological Department said, adding the next three days will continue to be very hot. Chief Meteorologist Sardar Sarfaraz said that this year was the worst since June 2015, when about 1,300 people had died in one week.

The provincial government has advised people to wear light-colored clothes and drink plenty of water. Multiple kiosks have sprung up across the city, offering commuters a glass of water. Hospitals have been asked to establish special wards to manage patients and deploy ambulances at public places, equipped with glucose drinks.

Karachi’s state-owned Dr. Ruth K.M. Pfau Civil Hospital reported 12 heatstroke-related deaths in past three days, spokesman Nizam Shaikh said. The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center’s spokesman Irfan Siddiqui said it had admitted 40 such patients since Tuesday.

Dry conditions are also affecting crops such as cotton, sugar cane, mangoes, potatoes and some lentils.
India
Part of Roof Collapses at India’s Busiest Airport After Heavy Rains (New York Times)
New York Times [6/28/2024 2:19 AM, Victoria Kim, 831K, Negative]
Part of the roof at a terminal at India’s busiest airport collapsed early Friday amid heavy thunderstorms and rains, killing at least one person and injuring several others, according to officials and local media. The airport suspended all departures from the terminal.

India’s minister of civil aviation said in a social media post that rescue operations were in progress at Terminal 1 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi and that emergency responders were on site. Airport officials said that the collapse happened around 5 a.m. local time in the departure area of the terminal and that all departures from the terminal had been suspended. Terminal 1 handles domestic flights.

At least one person was killed and at least six others were injured, Indian news agency ANI reported, citing fire and police officials.

Part of the roof collapsed onto the pickup and drop-off area outside the terminal, crushing several vehicles, the Press Trust of India, another news agency, reported, citing local fire officials.

Photos and videos of the scene on social media and on local television showed that an expansive section of the overhang outside the airport had buckled onto the pavement. Large columns appeared to have collapsed onto a row of cars, at least one of which had a driver inside.

More than 100 flights out of the airport were delayed and 18 were canceled as of around 11 a.m., according to FlightAware, a flight information tracking site. Arrivals and departures for Indigo and Spice Jet, major low-cost carriers, have been moved to other terminals, according to the airport.

The terminal was recently renovated and expanded to reach a capacity of 40 million passengers annually, according to a news release from the airport.
India’s supreme court to rule on new penal code permitting marital rape (The Guardian)
The Guardian [6/27/2024 7:26 AM, Amrit Dhillon, 86157K, Neutral]
Campaigners angry that marital rape is not to be criminalised under India’s long-awaited new penal code have been promised a ruling on the issue by the supreme court next month.

Human rights organisations, including the All India Democratic Women’s Association, have been petitioning India’s supreme court to make it a criminal offence. The court has in turn asked the government for a response.

The new code is due to come into effect on 1 July. The court has the power to ask for a legal amendment if it disagrees with the government’s argument that to criminalise marital rape would violate the “sanctity of marriage”.

Three new laws will replace the penal code inherited from the British colonial era, which was drafted under Lord Macaulay from the 1830s and enacted in 1860.

The home minister, Amit Shah, promised widespread reform of the penal code last August. He said the criminal justice system was informed by Victorian-era ideas of morality, particularly in relation to homosexuality (which was decriminalised in India in 2018) and marital rape.

India needed laws untainted by imperialism and reflecting modern aspirations and realities, such as the altered status of women, Shah said.

The new laws have a particular focus on crimes against women, though some critics say their scope has been exaggerated and that the changes are largely superficial.

The act of obtaining sex by promising marriage to a woman will be treated as a crime for the first time and will carry a 10-year sentence. The new law also specifically defines the notion of consent.

Yet the new laws stipulate that “sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being under 18 years of age, is not rape”.

Ntasha Bhardwaj, a gender scholar, said: “It makes no sense. Not making marital rape a crime is nothing but Victorian thinking. It grants a man unlimited access to his wife’s body after marriage. This conflicts with the constitution, which protects women against violence and grants them equality.”

Bhardwaj suggested the government felt that more conservative voters may not be ready to accept marital rape as a crime.

Social conservatism was the reason given to the supreme court last year in relation to same-sex marriages when the Ministry of Law and Justice said that such marriages were “not compatible with the Indian family unit concept of a husband, a wife and children”.

The supreme court refused to legalise same-sex marriages and said it was up to parliament to debate the issue.

But Bhardwaj noted that other harmful practices rooted in tradition, such as dowries and child marriage, had been criminalised. “The cultural argument was invoked over child marriage – it was a very old and deep-rooted custom. But did that stop us from banning it?” she said.

The various petitions before the court – the exact number is unclear – also challenge another provision of the new laws, which stipulates imprisonment ranging from two to seven years for married men who rape wives from whom they have separated – lower than the mandatory minimum 10-year sentence otherwise applicable in cases of rape.

Shilpi Singh, director of the women’s rights group Bhoomika Vihar, said: “We believe in ‘my body, my rights’. After marriage, a man cannot take sex with his wife for granted. Without a new law, women will just face sexual exploitation.”

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has often called for “women-led development”. But for many women, the new penal code undermines this aspiration.

Modi has spoken frequently of women being at the centre of India’s transition to becoming a developed nation, torchbearers of economic growth through their empowerment, though India is among the bottom five countries in the world for economic participation, and 129th out of 146 countries for overall gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2024 global gender gap index.

Bhardwaj said: “It’s bizarre. The view of marriage that gives a man unlimited access to his wife’s body undercuts their empowerment. It contradicts the government’s slogan of ‘nari shakti’, or ‘woman power’, that it keeps invoking.”
Why Do India and China Keep Fighting Over This Desolate Terrain? (New York Times)
New York Times [6/27/2024 4:14 PM, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, 831K, Neutral]
The 2,100-mile border separating India and China passes through some of the world’s most inhospitable terrain. In the west, it runs along India’s Ladakh region, at an altitude of 13,000 to 20,000 feet. During the months when the area isn’t covered in snow, the ground resembles a moonscape. The earth is sandy, strewn with rocks and pebbles; not a blade of grass grows anywhere; there are no visible signs of animal life. In winter, temperatures can drop to –40 degrees. The bleak conditions and barren vistas can induce despair in those who set foot on the land. “I’ve been to those places,” a former Indian diplomat who now works for an international Buddhist organization in Delhi told me. “When you visit, you tend to think, Who the hell even wants this area?”

But that’s not how nation-states view territory, no matter how desolate it is. That is why India and China have their armies deployed on these heights along an unmarked and, in many places, contested boundary between the two countries. In the absence of any fencing or barbed wire to demarcate territory, soldiers from each nation contend with considerable ambiguity when conducting patrols along what’s known as the Line of Actual Control. Vinod Bhatia, who served as director general of military operations for the Indian Army and is now retired, describes it as a line of perceptions.

“It’s four lines, actually,” he told me when I visited Delhi last year. “One is the Indian perception of the Line of Actual Control. Another is the Chinese perception of the Line of Actual Control. Third is the Indian perception of the Chinese perception of the Line of Actual Control — because we have a perception based on their line of patrolling. And the fourth is, of course, the Chinese perception of the Indian perception of the Line of Actual Control.”

This lack of clarity means that there are several places along the border that are effectively a no-man’s land, where both Indian and Chinese troops carry out patrols. Soldiers from each side routinely leave empty cigarette packets and beer cans behind as marks of territorial claim. At the same time, soldiers on each side are legally bound to exercise restraint during patrols, according to a 1996 agreement between the two countries that prohibits the use of firearms and munitions at the border.

When units from the two sides run into one another, they follow a mutually agreed upon protocol to avoid confrontation. “We pull out a banner that says in English and in Chinese: ‘You are in our territory. Please go back,’” Bhatia told me. “And they hold up a banner of their own that says in Hindi and in English: ‘You are in our territory. You go back.’”

Historically, such face-offs have been resolved peacefully. In recent years, however, confrontations have sometimes spiraled into skirmishes. One night in early December 2022, for instance, hundreds of Chinese troops attempted to breach, in four spots, a stone wall along a border ridgeline in the Yangtze plateau, located on an eastern stretch of the border in India’s easternmost state, Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims is a part of Tibet. According to Indian press reports — the Indian Army has not provided a public account — the Chinese troops were armed with nail-studded clubs, monkey fists (knotted-up portions of rope used as a weapon) and stun guns. The Indian soldiers, using crude weapons of their own, eventually forced the Chinese troops to retreat.

Though there were no fatalities, the engagement was violent, making it the most severe skirmish since a June 2020 clash in the Galwan Valley, which proved fatal for 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers.

Episodes like those in Galwan and Yangtze reflect an era of increased hostility between the two countries, which have generally maintained a peaceable, if strained, relationship in the decades since they fought a war in 1962. Today, India and China have each stationed an estimated 60,000 soldiers along the Line of Actual Control.

Jayadeva Ranade worked for many years with India’s Research and Analysis Wing, the country’s main foreign intelligence agency; he now serves on India’s National Security Advisory Board. In his view, skirmishes along the border are likely to be regular occurrences for the foreseeable future. “This conflict isn’t going to go away in a hurry,” he told me. And in large part, the matter is about more than just gaining territory; it’s also about a broader geopolitical rivalry. “The bigger issue is they don’t want India to rise,” Ranade says, referring to China. “Because they see themselves as the only power in the Indo-Pacific region.”

The two countries are increasingly jockeying for global influence as well. A strong nationalist leader rules each country: President Xi Jinping in China and, in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who just won a third term in office, despite his party’s electoral setbacks that will make him dependent on allies in Parliament. Xi, in his address to the 19th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2017, declared that China “has stood up, grown rich and is becoming strong” and could offer “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.”

More recently, Modi has been emboldened by India’s growth. The country’s population surpassed China’s last year, and its economy, while still much smaller than China’s, is expected to grow faster in the coming years. Like Xi, Modi has spoken of India’s ambition to reclaim its ancient glory and return to its status as Vishwaguru, a Sanskrit phrase that means “teacher to the world.” India now acts with an assertiveness it lacked even a decade ago.

Harsh V. Pant, a professor of international relations at King’s College London, characterizes Modi’s government, compared with previous governments, as “much more robust in articulating India’s national-security priorities and making the case that New Delhi will stand up for those interests.” In 2019, that stance was demonstrated when India conducted airstrikes against what it claimed were terrorist training camps in Balakot, Pakistan. “Balakot was a signal that we are willing to use the instrumentality of the military to achieve certain outcomes and test how far we can go,” Pant told me. Last year, India rebuffed criticism from the European Union over its continuing imports of Russian oil, which was seen as helping Russia in its war against Ukraine.

New Delhi’s assertiveness was again on display in a diplomatic crisis last year, when Canada announced that it suspected Indian intelligence of having been involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader on Canadian soil. The Indian government denied the charge and demanded to see evidence of that claim. It also accused Canada of sheltering Sikh terrorists. Canada had to withdraw 41 of its 62 diplomats from India in October, after the Indian government said it would revoke their diplomatic immunity. As further retribution, visas for Canadians were suspended for more than a month.

In May, after Canadian police arrested and charged three Indian citizens based in Edmonton for last year’s murder, India’s foreign minister suggested that the killing was related to gang violence and chided Canadian authorities for having allowed “organized crime from India, specifically from Punjab, to operate in Canada.”

It isn’t uncommon to detect a degree of belligerence in how Indian officials talk about these matters. When I visited Delhi last fall, the mood in the capital over Canada’s allegations was one of defiance. Pankaj Saran, who served as India’s deputy national-security adviser from 2018 to 2021 and now runs NatStrat, which researches security issues, contrasts India’s self-assuredness on the international stage today with its diffident foreign policy of the 1980s. “Back then, we were literally riding the coattails of the Soviet Union,” he told me. But as the world’s fifth-largest economy, India no longer has any reason to be timid. “Today,” he says, “we have a government that believes we’ve been taking the hit for far too long.”

The Indo-China war of 1962 was precipitated by a series of border clashes not too different from those of recent years. The earlier ones were about more than territorial disagreements, though. China was smarting from India’s embrace of the Dalai Lama, who had fled Tibet in 1959 and established a government in exile in Dharamshala, India. At this point, the two countries were still young in their modern incarnations; neither had an impressive military. But the People’s Liberation Army of China was stronger, and Indian troops suffered a humiliating defeat, which impelled India to increase military spending. A month after the war began, around the same time that India requested that the United States intervene with air support, China declared a unilateral cease-fire, effectively ending the conflict. India had to accept that Aksai Chin, an area of 15,000 square miles that it claimed as its own, would remain under Chinese control.

An uneasy truce held for the next several decades, except for a confrontation in 1986-87 on the eastern stretch of the border, in a valley bordering the hilly and verdant Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Indian officials say that the status quo began to change in 2013, right after Xi Jinping became China’s president. In April of that year, weeks before the newly anointed Chinese premier Li Keqiang was scheduled to visit Delhi, Chinese troops entered the Depsang Plains in Aksai Chin and set up an encampment just 20 miles south of an Indian military base. Alarmed by the incursion, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police pitched its own tents about 300 yards away. The standoff continued for about three weeks before it was resolved through talks, and both sides removed their encampments.

Less than a year and a half later, days before Xi’s state visit to India in 2014, Chinese troops entered Chumar, in eastern Ladakh. “This time it was deeper into our territory and on a broader swath,” Ranade told me when we met for coffee in Delhi last summer. Modi reportedly raised the matter with Xi during a dinner in Ahmedabad, and weeks later the troops withdrew from the area.

Some Indian officials back then were of the view that Depsang and Chumar were one-off incidents, attributable solely to People’s Liberation Army commanders on the ground locally, but Ranade was certain that Beijing had to be involved. In those days, he prepared a regular report on China for a think tank, based on his analysis of Chinese materials. He learned a few things that were troubling: The P.L.A. was conducting more exercises in Tibet (and using more weapons in them) than ever. “Then they began having paratrooper exercises there, and they had some kind of aircraft coming in there, which was again unusual,” Ranade told me. The increased military preparedness signaled an aggressive posture. “I said: ‘Look, there’s something brewing. I can’t tell you what it is, but it doesn’t look good to me.’”

The next notable confrontation unfolded in Doklam, a plateau roughly 800 miles to Ladakh’s east, close to where the borders of Bhutan, China and India meet. China claims Doklam as its territory, while India and Bhutan maintain that the area is a part of Bhutan. Bhutan has historically relied on India’s help to defend its borders, so when China started to build a road into Doklam in June 2017, Indian troops entered the area to stop that construction, and the two sides formed human walls that faced off against each other.

Srikant Kondapalli, a professor of China studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, recounted to me what he had learned from an Indian brigadier about how Indian forces attempted to gain a psychological advantage in the conflict. “They put together some 40 to 50 especially tall Indian soldiers, all above six-and-a-half feet, and pitched them against the Chinese, who were a lot shorter,” Kondapalli says. He believes the intimidation tactic helped India as the troops went eyeball to eyeball. Scuffles broke out intermittently. The face-off lasted 73 days. India was able to shut down the road project, which would have put the Chinese military within striking range of the Siliguri corridor — a strategically vital sliver of land that connects India’s northeastern states to the rest of the country.

Then came the clash in the Galwan Valley, during a June night in 2020. The valley is along the Galwan River, just southwest of Aksai Chin. Tensions had been simmering there since April, when Chinese troops pitched tents in the valley. The Indian military saw this as yet another incursion across the Line of Actual Control by the P.L.A. According to Indian officials, China agreed to withdraw from these areas, including from the valley.

The violence in mid-June began when Col. Bikkumalla Santosh Babu, who commanded an Indian Army unit tasked with monitoring the Chinese withdrawal from Galwan, reportedly got into a heated exchange with Chinese soldiers who were supposed to have left by then. Although the Indian Army hasn’t released details, I gathered the broad outlines of the incident from Indian security and intelligence sources, including Jayadeva Ranade, whose own understanding of the incident comes from a careful reading of media reports. He told me that Babu, who was accompanied by two men when he walked over to the Chinese camp, was attacked. “One of the men came back and told the others in his unit,” Ranade said, “and they went over and there was a showdown.”

The Chinese soldiers were apparently armed with metal clubs studded with spikes and wrapped in barbed wire. The fighting, which continued late into the night and involved dozens of men on each side, might have been less bloody if the soldiers had used their firearms. In all, 20 Indian soldiers, including Babu, were killed. State media in China later reported four deaths on the Chinese side, although Indian officials claim the number was significantly higher.

The brutal fighting in Galwan didn’t strike Ranade as entirely unexpected. He saw it not as a fracas that spiraled out of control but rather an attack planned by the Chinese — the kind of thing he had been warning his colleagues about. As he put it to me, “If this was not premeditated, how come the Chinese had iron clubs with spikes and barbed wire?” Ranade said he had come across calls put out by P.L.A. units inviting bids to supply similar weapons as recently as March 2023, which indicated continued hostile intent. “So obviously, they are preparing.”

In 2017, Xi Jinping wrote a letter to two sisters from a yak-herding family in Lhunze County, in southern Tibet, adjacent to Arunachal Pradesh, thanking them for their efforts in safeguarding the border. According to Chinese state media, the two Tibetan women and their father had been the sole inhabitants of their town Yumai for a period of years until the mid-1990s; its population has since risen to more than 200. In his letter, which was widely publicized in China, Xi expressed hope that the family would inspire other herders to put down roots in the area like “galsang flowers” and become guardians of Chinese territory.

Since taking over as president, Xi has repeatedly talked about being uncompromising in protecting the country’s “core interests” — a term that is understood to include China’s territorial and sovereignty claims. Under Xi, the country has converted coral reefs and sand piles dredged up from the seabed in the South China Sea, which it maintains belongs almost entirely to China, into artificial islands that are now heavily militarized with missiles and air strips. Xi has also emphasized China’s commitment to realizing its long-held dream of “reunification” with Taiwan, which split from mainland China in 1949. A similar priority is the consolidation of Chinese control over Tibet by squashing a decades-long Tibetan independence movement. China’s aggressive stance along the border with India, Kondapalli told me, is being driven by the same overarching goal of asserting sovereignty over disputed areas.

A senior Indian intelligence official I met with in Delhi last year explained that China’s hostility along the Line of Actual Control had two strategic objectives: diminishing India’s impact in its own backyard and tying down India’s military in order to weaken India’s broader geopolitical influence. “We are the big brother in our region: Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka — everyone looks to India when they have a problem,” he said. “China wants to dent us by saying, ‘How is India going to be your net security provider when they can’t handle their own risk?’” He attributed Chinese cyberattacks directed at India to the same motive: a desire to reduce India’s standing. China’s hostility, he said, was aimed at diluting India’s participation in strategic alliances that have emerged to counter Chinese threats.

One such example is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, a group made up of India, the United States, Australia and Japan, which share the goal of preventing China from dominating the Indo-Pacific. The Chinese, according to the intelligence official, “don’t want India to be the long arm of the United States in this region or to be an active part of things like the Quad, which brings you back to the border issue. They want to keep us pinned down on the land borders because the future of geopolitics is maritime. They don’t want us to lift our heads.”

China’s economic muscle has helped expand its influence in the region in ways that India hasn’t been able to match, the official told me. As part of its Belt and Road Initiative, which Xi began in 2013, China has invested in infrastructure projects in every one of India’s neighbors. “We call them strategic projects because they are going into them with no consideration of what they’ll get back in business terms,” he said. What China was gaining from these investments was “massive leverage.” Not only was India unable to compete in terms of resources, he added, India was also not allowed to operate as he claimed the Chinese do. “They literally come with bags of cash,” he said. “We have to have parliamentary approval, this approval, that approval.”

At the Tibetan border, this approach has taken a more physical form, as China has built more than 620 new “xiaokang” — or “moderately well-off” — villages all along the Tibetan border. Billions of yuan have been spent on roads, power stations, schools and health care facilities to support these villages. Each settlement consists of about 100 homes equipped with modern amenities like heating and internet connectivity. A mix of Tibetans and Han Chinese — many of whom are ex-military men — have moved into the villages, Kondapalli says, effectively changing the demographics of the area and enhancing Beijing’s ability to crush Tibetan resistance.

“These settlements are de facto intelligence outposts,” Kondapalli says. In contrast to the xiaokang villages, which are right next to the Line of Actual Control, the settlements on India’s side are 20 to 30 miles inside Indian territory. That gives the settlers in these villages an opening to encroach upon land that belongs to India, Kondapalli says.

Indian authorities see the establishment of these border villages as buttressing a strategy of gradual encroachment — or “salami slicing,” as it’s known among security strategists — that China has practiced over the years in the South China Sea and is now attempting to replicate along the Line of Actual Control. The high-ranking Indian intelligence official I spoke with in Delhi explained to me how the Chinese military had been operating on the border. “It’s very simple, but very clear,” he told me over breakfast on the patio of a Delhi hotel. “It starts with their yaks coming into pastures that are common grazing grounds at the border. After a few weeks of the yaks hanging around, the herdsman will come. Then, they start making trails for the herders. And then, because there are herders and yaks there, the P.L.A. will come, saying, ‘These are our nationals — we’re just checking on them.’”

The official went on: “Once the troops start coming in for patrols, then they’ll pitch tents, saying, ‘Our troops need to rest.’ The next thing they’ll do is, ‘The trails are not good enough, let’s start making roads.’ Then they’ll prevent our patrols from coming into that area. Once the roads are properly made, the tents will become cemented structures. So, in about eight to nine steps, they will create new facts on the ground and say, ‘This is ours.’” Effectively, winning a war without firing a shot.

That’s what the P.L.A. appears to have been aiming for, not just in the Galwan Valley but also in several areas along the border in eastern Ladakh that Chinese troops moved into in the spring of 2020. The clash at Galwan was followed by a withdrawal from that site by both sides, but Chinese soldiers continued to occupy other areas, including those on the banks of Pangong Lake, whose westernmost edge lies 50 miles to the south of the Galwan Valley.

India fought back. On the evening of Aug. 29, 2020, troops from a secretive Indian guerrilla force, together with soldiers from the Indian Army, began ascending the slopes of a mountain in eastern Ladakh. The mountains are part of the Kailash Range, a chain of rugged peaks, the tallest of which reach 22,000 feet, beginning near Pangong’s southern bank and extending southeast for some 500 miles. Because of the difficult terrain, the heights along the range were left unoccupied by both India and China after the 1962 war. But now, nearly six decades later, Indian Army commanders hoped to take control of several of these hilltops.

As Lt. Gen. Y.K. Joshi, the top commander in charge of the operation, later disclosed in media interviews, the operation, called Snow Leopard, had been planned as a response to the P.L.A.’s incursions. By the night of Aug. 29, Indian troops were in possession of a strategic peak. The following morning, Indian tanks rolled up a mountainside several miles southeast on the range, enabling the Indian Army to occupy a high mountain pass known as Rezang La, a strategic location overlooking a Chinese garrison stationed at Moldo on the other side of the range. By the time the P.L.A. could bring its equipment and troops up the slopes on their side, Indian troops already had the advantage.

The action was “well planned, well thought out and executed, achieving total surprise,” Joshi said in a video interview with Nitin Gokhale, a veteran Indian military journalist who runs a foreign-affairs website called Stratnews Global. (The Indian Army has not officially released any information about the operation, but I got a summary description of it from Gokhale.) The Indians suffered one casualty: 53-year-old Nyima Tenzing of the guerrilla Special Frontier Force, which was established 60 years ago to conduct covert operations against China. Tenzing, like other troops who make up the S.F.F., was of Tibetan origin and died from a land mine left behind after the 1962 war.

As Joshi explained to Stratnews, India’s goal in taking the Kailash heights was to compel China to withdraw from the areas occupied by the P.L.A. after their incursions earlier that month. The strategy gave India leverage in negotiating with China, and ultimately led to success: In February 2021, the P.L.A. dismantled its structures and pulled its soldiers back from those sites in exchange for Indian troops vacating the hilltops.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the Chinese have given up. In fact, the P.L.A.’s military presence in the broader area north of Pangong Lake has increased significantly since 2021. According to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies of satellite images taken on Oct. 4, 2022, the Chinese have built a new P.L.A. divisional headquarters just north of Pangong, just three and a half miles from the Line of Actual Control. Its support buildings are, the C.S.I.S. reports, “flanked by a bevy of trenches and revetments for storing and securing equipment.”

At the end of last August, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources released a new map that rendered Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh as Chinese territory. China has published such maps before. But the timing of the new release — less than two weeks before India was to host the G20 summit in Delhi — suggested that it was a calculated jab intended to undermine India precisely when the country hoped to showcase its rising influence. A government spokesman said such actions by China served only to “complicate the resolution of the boundary question.”

India sees China employing similar tactics to try to pressure India on Arunachal Pradesh, which the Chinese government calls Zangnan. In April, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs announced that it was renaming 30 places in the region — the fourth such move since 2017. In March of last year, China chose not to send its delegate to a G20 event hosted by India in Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh, as a reminder that it considers India’s rule there illegitimate. “When there’s a delegation of Indian bureaucrats traveling to China, the Chinese embassy here in Delhi will not issue a stamped visa to the delegate who belongs to Arunachal Pradesh,” says the former diplomat now at the nonprofit Buddhist organization. Instead, embassy officials permit entry by stapling an unstamped piece of paper to the passport. “They say the individual is welcome because his land is a part of China.” The result, the former diplomat told me, is that the Indian government then can’t send that delegate because doing so would register approval of China’s position.

One reason for China’s interest in Arunachal Pradesh, especially its district of Tawang, is the existence of Buddhist holy sites in the state, including the Tawang monastery. Founded in the late 17th century, it is the world’s second largest Buddhist monastery, after the Drepung monastery in Lhasa, Tibet. The Tawang monastery was the Dalai Lama’s first refuge in India when he fled Tibet in 1959, crossing over into Arunachal Pradesh after an arduous trek through the mountains. Derek Grossman, of the RAND Corporation, explains that China wants Tawang because it believes that control over what is currently the most important center of Tibetan Buddhism outside Tibet will help consolidate its hold over the Tibetan population. “They have some fears that because India continues to give safe refuge to the Dalai Lama, at some point the Dalai Lama could return to Tawang and use it as leverage to galvanize the Tibetan people to try and declare independence from China,” Grossman says.

India’s government has its own anxieties about Indians living close to the border: It worries that they might shift their allegiance to China. Arunachal Pradesh, like much of India’s northeast, is less developed than other parts of the country; many rural communities in remote areas live in relative isolation. Yeshi Phuntsok, a retired government employee who lives in Tawang, told me that even 20 years ago, many people in the village where he grew up were not fully aware that they were Indians. “They didn’t know there was a country called India or that there was a country called China,” he says. Over the years, outreach efforts by Indian authorities have helped change that, he says: “Now, they understand that India is their country.”

This fledgling, still-forming sense of Indian identity in parts of the border population is another reason the xiaokang villages built by China are a source of concern for the Indian government. “Their thinking is that when they publicize the development of their villages, people on our side of the border will look at that and say, ‘Oh, we are so badly off,’” the Indian intelligence official I had breakfast with told me. “And the Tibetans will see that Arunachal is so poor by comparison.”

Better cellular connectivity in China’s border villages is a source of envy across the Line of Actual Control, where citizens in some areas are able to receive signals from Chinese cellphone towers. Phones can automatically switch to the Chinese network near the border, Phuntsok told me. Earlier on the day we spoke, he had visited an area close to the Line of Actual Control. “Right after I got there, I noticed that my phone was showing 3:30 p.m.,” he said. For a little while, Phuntsok puzzled over how the time could have passed so quickly. He then realized the phone was showing Chinese time, which is two hours and 30 minutes ahead of Indian time there.

Ngawang Tashi, a Buddhist monk from Arunachal Pradesh, told me that China’s attempts to woo India’s predominantly Buddhist border population is part of a larger effort to “sinify” Buddhism — that is, dilute its Tibetan identity and make it more Chinese. He said he had heard about the Chinese government offering houses and financial benefits to Indian yak herders to get them to settle in some of the newly built villages.

“Most people here are loyal to India and followers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” he told me. But after the current Dalai Lama is gone, that could change, he added. “They can be swayed when there is money being offered.”

Belatedly, the Indian government has responded to China’s xiaokang villages with a “vibrant villages” program, announced in April last year. Over the next decade, the government says, it plans to invest $600 million in the development of about 3,000 villages that are already settled along the Line of Actual Control, from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. By building roads, dams, schools and hospitals, and by improving telecom services throughout this stretch, authorities hope to give people in border communities a reason to stay where they are and stay loyal to India.

The skirmishes of the past few years have had a silver lining, says Claude Arpi, a longtime scholar of Tibet and Indo-China relations who is currently a distinguished fellow at the Center of Excellence for Himalayan Studies at Shiv Nadar University. It has forced the two sides to come to formal agreements about the border at certain places in Ladakh. “In fact, this is the first time that a map for the L.A.C. exists for this area,” Arpi told me.

Disagreements about the boundary persist elsewhere, however, including Demchok and Depsang. It’s unclear if those will be resolved anytime soon, even though Modi and Xi Jinping agreed at a summit in South Africa last August to expedite “disengagement and de-escalation” on the border, according to an Indian government spokesman. Despite his party’s loss of its majority in the recent election, Modi’s decision-making power on nationalistic issues like border disputes with China is unlikely to diminish in his third term, which in turn means India’s assertiveness along the Line of Actual Control is likely to continue. “Today, after what happened in Galwan, there is no question that China can come more than a few hundred meters inside India’s territory,” Arpi says. “India has responded very strongly for once.”
India’s monsoon overcomes delay, set to cover country on time (Reuters)
Reuters [6/27/2024 7:30 AM, Rajendra Jadhav, 42991K, Neutral]
India’s annual monsoon has covered more than three-fourths of the country and it is set to cover the entire country on time for the planting season despite stalling earlier this month, two senior weather officials said on Thursday.

Summer rains, critical for economic growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, usually begin in the south around June 1 before spreading nationwide by July 8, allowing farmers to plant crops such as rice, cotton, soybeans, and sugarcane.

"Monsoon is advancing quickly in northern India and will cover the entire country on time," said an official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The southwest monsoon advanced on Thursday, covering more parts of Rajasthan, most of Madhya Pradesh, additional areas of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and nearly all of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, the IMD said in a statement.

India has received 19% less rainfall since June 1, IMD data showed, as the monsoon’s progress had stalled, with almost the entire country except for a few southern states experiencing shortfalls and parts of the northwest gripped by heatwaves.

The lifeblood of the nearly $3.5-trillion economy, the monsoon brings nearly 70% of the rain India needs to water farms and refill reservoirs and aquifers.

Without irrigation, nearly half of the farmland in the world’s second-biggest producer of rice, wheat, and sugar depends on the annual rains that usually run from June to September.

Rainfall is picking up, and most parts of the country will receive good rainfall in the next fortnight, accelerating the planting of summer-sown crops, another weather official said.

The current rainfall deficit will narrow significantly by mid-July, he added.
Record heat, surging fires push Delhi’s firefighters to the brink (Reuters)
Reuters [6/27/2024 10:00 AM, Adnan Abidi, 42991K, Negative]
Indervir Singh has worked for the Delhi Fire Services for 32 years but he can’t recall responding to as many fires as this summer.

Temperatures in the Indian capital, home to around 20 million people, have hit record highs this year, with the mercury hitting nearly 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) on several occasions.

Calls reporting fires between April and June more than doubled from a year ago to over 9,000, fire services data show. And deaths from fires more than tripled in that period, from just 10 a year ago.

Many of the blazes are in Delhi’s teeming old quarters, where the narrow lanes are chock-a-block with shops and homes, with webs of electricity cables and other wires hanging from poles.

“I have attended to several back-to-back calls” on recent shifts, said the grey-haired Singh, 54, before he rushed to the scene of yet another blaze in his thick jacket, heavy boots and red helmet.

Singh was one of over a dozen firefighters and officers interviewed by Reuters, many of whom described working in “doubly” strenuous conditions of extreme heat and numerous fires.

Shifts for firefighters are 24 hours long, followed by a day of rest. Senior officers work three full-day shifts at a time and then take a day off.

“Some weeks, we have to take leave just to get some sleep,” said Ajay Sharma, an officer in northwestern Delhi.

Fire officers say electrical failures are responsible for nearly three-quarters of the blazes this summer. With Delhi sweating through what the federal weather office says is one of its longest heat waves on record, demand for air cooling has surged.

The India Meteorological Department classified nine heat wave days in Delhi this June, up sharply from the historic norm of one during the month. Scientists say the heat is being worsened by human-driven climate change.

Sales of air conditioning units in Delhi have grown at a compounded annual rate of 14% between 2018 and 2023, according to analytics firm GfK. Peak-power demand surged to an all-time high on June 19, government data show.

Round-the-clock use of power-intensive appliances like air conditioning units puts severe strain on ageing wiring, while improper maintenance of cables and equipment can also lead to short circuits and start fires, said DFS director Atul Garg.

Rajneesh Sareen, who runs the sustainable habitat program at Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment think-tank, said the city is ill-equipped to cope.

“Delhi’s infrastructure was not originally built to take on the kind of extreme conditions we’re seeing right now,” he said.

Old Delhi fires

Reuters accompanied Singh to the scene of a fire on a sweltering day in June.

Shortly after receiving a call for help via the DFS control room, Singh’s team of six firefighters jumped aboard a red fire truck. Its siren blared as it raced down the streets, with Singh using a microphone to order vehicles to make way.

His team was responding to a major blaze in a worn-down two-storey building that housed textile shops in the old quarter of Delhi. They were joined by 33 other fire trucks in the narrow market street, as some 250 firefighters took turns to douse the flames.

Thick smoke billowed into the sky as firefighters on the street and neighbouring rooftops trained their hoses at the inferno.

Hundreds of onlookers jostled to get a glimpse of the action as anxious shopkeepers from neighbouring buildings pleaded with firefighters to douse flames.

Shop workers and first responders said they suspected the fire started due to a short circuit. But part of the building collapsed amid the inferno and DFS was unable to definitively ascertain its cause.

It took more than four days for fire crews to completely douse smoldering material beneath the collapsed debris. There were no fatalities reported.

More men and machines

Summer is a particularly busy time for DFS. The searing heat and lack of moisture in the air speed up the combustibility of materials, said IMD scientist Soma Sen Roy.

“It’s not some light work. It’s like risking death,” said 43-year-old firefighter Rajesh Dabhas as he stopped to catch his breath amid a blaze in May that had destroyed five shops in Old Delhi.

DFS chief Garg said that he had expected fires to increase with the heat, but that if there were many more blazes, it would be “very, very difficult” to handle them effectively.

The service has proposed making it mandatory for commercial buildings to submit an annual fire audit, which Garg said would ensure businesses check if the wiring in their premises - sometimes decades old - could cope with the higher loads.

Regulatory action has helped before. Delhi’s power providers once suffered from rampant electricity theft, in which cables are illegally - and often dangerously - connected to power lines to siphon off electricity.

But after major infrastructural investments such as upgrades to distribution networks and the introduction of metering, losses have decreased nearly ten-fold in the past two decades, according to data from BSES Rajdhani Power, a major supplier to the capital.

Three-hundred-and-fifty aspiring firefighters are also undergoing training and will bolster the 1,800-strong all-male force by August. DFS is additionally procuring smaller vehicles that can traverse congested roads and buying robots that can reach hard-to-access areas.

The IMD says it expects monsoon rains to arrive in the region around Delhi this week, which could offer respite for now.

But that is too late for Shanti, a 35-year-old vegetables seller whose home in a riverside slum was destroyed in a June blaze.

“I have lost everything,” said Shanti, who gave only one name. “We were happy in this small house but ... will have to start a new life once again.”
Why is Arundhati Roy being prosecuted for a 14-year-old speech? (Washington Post – opinion)
Washington Post [6/27/2024 7:00 AM, Siddhartha Deb, 6.9M, Neutral]
What is a writer, even a world-renowned one, against the political needs of an authoritarian political movement suddenly on its heels?

Almost 14 years ago, in 2010, one of India’s most prominent writers — Arundhati Roy — spoke at a public conference in New Delhi. Her subject was the disputed territory of Kashmir and India’s increasingly brutal methods — torture, extrajudicial executions, sexual assaults, imprisonment and the suspension of civil liberties — for keeping in check the restive population of the country’s only Muslim-majority state. Roy, along with four other activists, was forthright on what she saw as India’s appalling record in Kashmir, especially that year, when 118 Kashmiris had been killed by security forces in protests against the government.

For those familiar with Roy, her comments came as no surprise. The author of Booker Prize-winning “The God of Small Things” has long used her prominence to openly critique human rights violations in Kashmir and the Modi government’s policies. Nevertheless, a week after the event, a Kashmiri Hindu activist lodged a complaint with the Delhi police against Roy and other speakers at the conference.

The array of charges was extensive and fanciful, running from “challenging the territorial integrity of India” to “disturbing public peace” and “promoting enmity between social groups.” Similar cases were simultaneously filed against Roy in Chandigarh and Bangalore, and India’s rabidly nationalist media arrived outside her home to film the stone-throwing mob that had shown up there.

Nothing further came of the complaint until last October, when V.K. Saxena, the lieutenant governor of Delhi, resurrected the charges and ordered government agencies to move forward with the case. Saxena again resurfaced on June 14 when his office leaked a note to the media declaring that he had asked for Roy to be charged under the Unlawful Activities and Prevention Act. This is the most draconian of India’s arsenal of anti-terror laws, a law so feral and contorted that it amounts to a kind of anti-law.

So, why now?

The clues lie in the timing. In October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-nationalist, right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were seeking reelection, hoping for a third term with an absolute majority of 400 seats. This month, they returned to power, but with only 240 seats, forced to rely on other political parties to form a government. The loss of more than 60 seats — despite the suppression of political opponents, completecontrol over the media and conveniently malfunctioning voting machines — has left the Hindu right in disarray.

Roy’s sudden prosecution appears to be a blatant show of force by a weakened BJP — which only reveals the party’s faltering attempt to cling to its power.

Over two consecutive terms, Modi has transformed India into a violently majoritarian state shoring up the ruins of a broken economy. Under his leadership, the Hindu right has lynched people; assassinated the writer Gauri Lankesh; disenfranchised more than 1 million Muslims in the northeastern state of Assam; stripped Kashmir of its notional autonomy; introduced a Nuremberg-style citizenship law targeting Muslims; and used the courts and police against activists and critics, who are made to languish in foul prisons for years on the basis of false evidence apparently planted on them by government agencies. In the case of the octogenarian Jesuit priest and activist Stan Swamy, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, the combination of false evidence and imprisonment resulted in his death.

This toxic majoritarianism has, in the past, worked wonders for the prime minister. But even in Ayodhya, where Modi inaugurated a garish temple to signal Hindu dominance earlier this year, the BJP candidate lost. Indian voters seem to have finally noticed that the BJP’s achievements have been limited to enriching a coterie of oligarchs even as employment opportunities, food security, public health and public infrastructure are run into the ground. India under the Hindu right appears, by some measures, more unequal than it was under British colonialism.

The announcement targeting Roy is clearly meant to rally the faltering spirits of Hindu nationalism and to bury any conversation about Modi’s failures under a manufactured narrative about anti-national writers. It is significant that neither Roy nor her lawyers has received any official document about the purported charges and that the vilification campaign is being conducted entirely on media.

These are old, tested tactics from the Hindu-right playbook, part of a long-standing and antidemocratic history of targeting critics and journalists alike.

The message is simple: The big man is unfazed, everything is under control and the hate machine rolls on. What is a writer, or an entire electorate, against such grandiose assertions? Yet if we have learned anything about India in recent weeks, it is that people have begun to realize that majoritarian hatred provides little sustenance for starved bodies and frustrated minds.
India is losing interest in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Nikkei Asia – opinion)
Nikkei Asia [6/28/2024 5:05 AM, Brahma Chellaney, 57.6K, Neutral]
India appears to be having second thoughts about its involvement in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as the group’s anti-Western orientation is increasingly at odds with the subtle pro-Western tilt of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy.

New Delhi’s creeping doubts about the SCO were first evident last year when as rotating host of the group’s annual leaders’ summit, Modi chose to convene the meeting online rather than in person. The prime minister is now expected to skip this year’s summit, which will be held next week in Astana.

India’s growing discomfort stems in part from the fact that rival China is increasingly in the driver’s seat at the SCO. In fact, except for India, the other members of the SCO are all participants in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which New Delhi has opposed since its launch as a neocolonial enterprise. India can also be said to be the only full democracy among the SCO’s nine member states.

The SCO was launched in Shanghai in 2001 by the leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. China has spearheaded the subsequent evolution and expansion of the group, while calling on other members to uphold shared values that it labels as the "Shanghai Spirit."

Much as China has blocked India from joining the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group pending agreement that its strategic ally Pakistan be simultaneously admitted, Beijing also made sure Islamabad was brought into the SCO alongside New Delhi in 2017.

The Sino-Pakistan strategic alliance against India is just one example of the disparate interests at play in the SCO, hindering its transformation into a more powerful and cohesive bloc like the Group of Seven.

Against this backdrop, why did the Modi government agree to join the SCO in the first place?

The decision related in part to India’s known proclivity to hedge its bets. In an era of sharpening geopolitical competition, New Delhi has remained loath to be associated with any power bloc, preferring to be seen as the world’s ultimate "swing state" amid the transition from the post-World War II U.S.-led international structure to a new global order whose contours are still not clearly visible.

In this way, India likely believed SCO membership could help balance its international relationships, including the perception that it was tilting toward the West. The SCO was also viewed as the only multilateral forum that could link India with the countries of Central Asia.

In line with the ancient saying, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," advocates of India’s entry argued that the presence of China and Pakistan in the SCO should not be a reason to hold back from participating.

Seven years later, however, it is becoming apparent that the SCO carries diminishing value for Indian foreign policy.

To be sure, the participation of India, the world’s largest democracy and now the fastest-growing major economy, has helped confer a new level of international legitimacy on the SCO, which can otherwise be branded as an anti-Western club of autocracies, especially following Iran’s admission last year.

For Beijing and Moscow, the SCO is a symbol of their deepening cooperation, which has included holding joint military exercises with other bloc members, including drills with Iran in the Gulf of Oman in March.

Indeed, China and Russia see the SCO as constituting an Eurasian alliance to counter Western domination. It serves as their response to U.S. President Joe Biden’s narrative that the world is witnessing a "battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force."

India’s presence in the SCO not only undermines the framing of global tensions as pitting democracy against autocracy, but also helps to blunt the tagging of the SCO as an anti-Western grouping.

But what does New Delhi get in return? In truth, India secures little tangible strategic benefit. At best, the SCO holds just symbolic value for India by underscoring the independence of its foreign policy and its commitment to multialignment.

In the new global divide between the Western bloc and the emerging China-Russia strategic axis, India wants to serve as a bridge. But India, Russia and China are also members of the BRICS bloc, launched in 2009, so New Delhi does not need to be in the SCO to act as a bridge between world powers.

Furthermore, India’s membership of the SCO, originally established as a regional security bloc, appears incongruent with its close ties with the West and its support for a free, open and democratic-led Indo-Pacific region. Notably, China and Russia reject the very term "Indo-Pacific," insisting that the region still be called the Asia-Pacific.

In fact, China’s championing of the Shanghai Spirit, which it says is anchored in mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and consultation, seems hollow, given how its furtive encroachments on Indian borderlands have triggered a tense military standoff for more than four years.

In this light, Modi has made a good call by deciding to give the Astana summit a miss. Government officials are offering the excuse that he will be tied up with parliamentary proceedings. But Modi has previously traveled overseas even when Parliament has been in session.

India increasingly appears to be a misfit in a grouping whose aims and objectives it does not fully share. Even as it hews to its independent approach to international affairs, Modi has come to be seen as the country’s most pro-U.S. prime minister ever.

India has now ratified the four "foundational" agreements that all close U.S. defense partners are expected to sign. Under Modi, India has also become more closely integrated into the Quad, including hosting its fellow members in drills wrapped into its annual Malabar naval exercises.

Modi’s withdrawal from the Astana summit does not mean of course that India intends to opt out of the SCO. Rather, it signals that India recognizes not only the SCO’s limitations but also the grouping’s declining salience for its foreign policy.
NSB
Shahjahan Bhuiya, Bangladeshi Executioner Turned TikTok Star, Is Dead (New York Times)
New York Times [6/27/2024 4:14 PM, Saif Hasnat and Yan Zhuang, 831K, Neutral]
Shahjahan Bhuiya, who hanged some of Bangladesh’s highest-profile death row inmates in exchange for reductions in his own robbery and murder sentences, then briefly became a TikTok star after his release from prison, died on Monday in Dhaka, the nation’s capital.

Mr. Bhuiya died in a hospital, the national police said on Tuesday, adding that the cause had not been confirmed. Abul Kashem, his landlord, said in an interview that he had driven Mr. Bhuiya to the hospital on Sunday after he complained of chest pains.

Last year, Mr. Bhuiya told the local news media that he was 74. But according to Mr. Bhuiya’s national identity card, provided by Mr. Kashem, he was 66 at the time of his death.

Mr. Bhuiya was sentenced to 42 years in prison for robbery and murder in 1991, the local news media reported. But he was able to shave a decade off the sentence because of good behavior and in exchange for hanging fellow inmates. The authorities granted him early release last year.

In a memoir that he published after his release, “What the Life of a Hangman Was Like,” Mr. Bhuiya wrote that he had put 60 inmates to death. Prison officials have said that the correct figure was 26.

In that book and in interviews, Mr. Bhuiya methodically recounted some of the executions. Some were men who had shaped the country’s modern history, including military officers convicted of assassinating the country’s founder and first president, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, in 1975. Another was Siddiqul Islam, the leader of a militant Islamic group, who was convicted of being involved in bombings in 2005.

He also put to death two opposition leaders, Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, who were convicted of war crimes committed during the 1971 war that resulted in Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, according to local police.

“Don’t let anyone take my picture,” Mr. Bhuiya quoted the Islamic group leader, Siddiqul Islam, as saying just before he was executed.

“I haven’t done anything wrong in my life,” said another death row inmate, Ershad Shikder, a politician convicted of murder, according to Mr. Bhuiya. “Pray for me.”

After his release from prison, Mr. Bhuiya published his book and briefly became a TikTok star. His videos often featured his sexually suggestive conversations with young women.

Mohammad Shahjahan Bhuiya was born on Jan. 1, 1958, according to his identification card.

His hometown was a village in the district of Narsingdi, in central Bangladesh, and he had three sisters, he wrote in his memoir. Other information about his family was not immediately available.

He enlisted in the army but dropped out when he could not complete the rigorous training program, he wrote. He later rose the ranks of the Communist Party of Bangladesh to become the Narsingdi district’s branch president.

Information about his robbery and murder sentence was not immediately available. What is clear is that he was released 10 years early in June 2023.

At a news conference after his release, Mahbubul Islam, the jailer of Dhaka Central Jail, said that Mr. Bhuiya’s sentence had been shortened in part for good behavior and the executions he had conducted. He received a two-month reduction for each execution, Mr. Islam said.

A prisoner can have their term reduced by up to a quarter for carrying out executions and other prison tasks, as well as for good behavior, Suvas Kumar Ghose, a senior jail official at Dhaka Central Jail, said in an interview.

All executions in Bangladesh are carried out by long-serving prisoners who are selected by the authorities, said Juliette Rousselot, the deputy Asia director at the International Federation for Human Rights, an advocacy group based in Paris. Executioners can have their sentences shortened or receive incentives like better prison accommodation, she said.

Bangladesh sentences hundreds of prisoners to death every year, and about 2,400 prisoners were on death row as of this year, according to Amnesty International, an advocacy group based in London. But in a given year it typically carries out only a handful of executions.

In addition to making TikTok videos after his release from prison, Mr. Bhuiya ran a tea stall, one of his sisters, Firoza Begum, said in an interview. She said he had little contact with his family for decades, and that his other siblings had died. No other information about survivors was available.

Mr. Bhuiya has appeared generally blasé about the executions he carried out, even expressing pride for his role in putting to death the politicians convicted of war crimes and the military officers who assassinated the president.

Mr. Bhuiya said at a news conference after his release that he had been given the job of hangman because “I was courageous.”

He said that couldn’t help but feel a little pity every time he put someone to death. But he added: “Even if I didn’t hang them, someone else would have.”

After three decades in jail, he felt like “a newborn baby from my mother’s womb,” he added. “My goal now is to live well.”
Sri Lanka calls on Russia to discharge its citizens from army (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [6/27/2024 7:47 AM, Staff, 85570K, Neutral]
Sri Lanka has asked Russia to allow its former soldiers fighting in Moscow’s war against Ukraine to return home voluntarily, the government said Thursday.

An official delegation held two days of talks in Moscow this week where it called for compensation for 17 Sri Lankans killed in fighting, Colombo’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Sri Lanka’s parliament set up a bipartisan inquiry last month to track at least 2,000 veterans who reportedly enlisted mainly on the Russian side of the war.

At least one former soldier has been killed after joining Ukrainian forces, according to Sri Lankan authorities.

The ministry said two days of talks in Moscow focused on tracking Sri Lankans deployed as soldiers, supporting those reportedly wounded and efforts to track those missing.

State minister for foreign affairs Tharaka Balasuriya, who led the delegation to Moscow, raised the possibility of voluntary returns, early termination of contracts and regularisation of remuneration, the ministry said.

When Sri Lanka’s economy crashed in 2022, people sought work abroad wherever they could find it -- including ex-soldiers who joined forces fighting in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.

The veterans -- some of whom swapped their life savings for what they thought would be lucrative, non-combat jobs -- are desperate to return home.

Their families have been pressing local authorities to help bring them back.

The government says around a dozen Sri Lankans are also being held as prisoners of war in Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine has taken a heavy toll on Russian troops, and Moscow has been on a global quest for more forces to fight.

Sri Lanka has maintained a large military relative to its population of 22 million since the end of a decades-long civil war against the separatist Tamil Tigers in 2009.

Moscow is believed to have hired thousands of foreign combatants, many of them from South Asia.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine will say how many foreigners are serving in their militaries or how many they are holding as prisoners of war.

Colombo has remained neutral in the Ukraine war, but reports that Russian authorities supported the recruitment of ex-soldiers from Sri Lanka have sparked tensions.

Police have arrested two retired Sri Lankan generals for illegally acting as recruiting agents for Russian mercenary firms, as well as six people who allegedly helped them with logistics.

The Sri Lankan foreign ministry said earlier this month that Moscow agreed not to recruit any more Sri Lankans to their military.
Central Asia
Kazakhstan courting international investment to curb methane emissions (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [6/27/2024 4:14 PM, Ekaterina Venkina, 57.6K, Neutral]
Kazakhstan will unveil its program to curb methane emissions during the UN climate conference in Baku in November, Kazakh officials have revealed. The announcement is the latest in a series of actions to keep the country’s greenhouse gas reduction efforts on track after Astana joined the Global Methane Pledge at the end of 2023.

This voluntary agreement encourages signatories to collectively reduce global methane pollution by at least 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030. The commitment is in line with international incentives to combat global warming. Kazakhstan is set to cut its emissions by 4.9 percent from 2020 levels, or up to 2 million metric tons. The effort will involve total spending of at least $1.4 billion through 2030, a figure based on US and international projections for Kazakhstan’s oil and gas sector.

“We have developed a roadmap to meet these methane reduction commitments,” said Saule Sabieva, a top official at the Kazakh Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, who participated in an early June meeting in Germany that laid the groundwork for the upcoming UN climate conference, known as COP29. Measures will be tailored to each industry, she added.

According to researchers, the energy sector is the largest source of methane emissions, accounting for almost two-thirds of emissions between 1990 and 2021. Agriculture was a distant second as a methane source over the same period, accounting for 30 percent. Waste management rounded out the top three with 6.5 percent of emissions.

Between June and December 2023, Kazakhstan experienced what was reportedly the second-largest anthropogenic methane leak ever documented. A natural gas fire started during well-drilling operation in the Mangystau region of southwestern Kazakhstan. Methane levels in the air were measured at 480 times the legal limit. The well operator, Buzachi Neft, was penalized with $780,000 in fines.

The fire lasted about 200 days and was not extinguished until December 25, more than three weeks after Kazakhstan announced its commitment to the Global Methane Pledge.

In May, Buzachi Neft, the methane super-emitter, announced plans to drill 23 new wells in the Mangystau region. The proposed drilling depth was set at 4,265 feet, with a margin of 820 feet. Construction work could begin as early as September. The wells are expected to start production between 2025 and 2034. The private oil company did not respond to a request for comment on what adjustments have been made to safety measures to prevent methane leaks like the one that occurred in 2023.

Another oil and gas producer, state-owned KazMunayGas, has been more transparent with its “methane management” strategy. It signed a memorandum of cooperation with Oslo-based Carbon Limits, an environmental consultancy that provides solutions to reduce emissions. The firm deployed its Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) program for a test demonstration at one of KazMunayGas’ production sites.

The technology uses satellite imagery to identify methane super-emitters. Infrared cameras pinpoint the exact source of methane seeps. The leaks can then be promptly sealed. The training involved 24 employees from KazMunayGas and its subsidiaries. “In the future, [they] will independently implement the LDAR system at their sites,” the company said in the statement. According to media reports, applying the know-how could cost from $1 million.

Beyond the LDAR rollout, several measures are planned as part of Astana’s commitment to the Global Methane Pledge. As reported by the LS news agency, an estimated $80 million could be allocated to upgrade coalbed infrastructure and process methane for power generation. Another $200 million could be used for early coal seam degassing at the Tentekskaya mine in northeastern Kazakhstan. This will be done using the plasma pulse impact method. This technique helps create micro-fractures and is used in methane-unsafe mines. At least $70 million a year is needed to deal with methane leaks at Kazakhstan’s oil and gas facilities.

In April, the Ministry of Energy approached the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to jointly attract investment for new projects. In May, the development of national standards for methane reduction was discussed at the Enhanced Strategic Partnership Dialogue, a format that brought a Kazakh delegation to Washington.
Kazakhstan Says It Will Not Extradite Suspect In Shooting Of Opposition Activist In Kyiv (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/27/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 235K, Neutral]
The chairman of Kazakhstan’s parliament, Maulen Ashimbaev, said his country will not extradite to Ukraine Altai Zhaqanbaev, one of two Kazakh citizens suspected of the attempted murder of Kazakh opposition activist and journalist Aidos Sadyqov in Kyiv.

"According to our country’s laws, our republic gives a priority to our citizens’ rights.... Kazakhstan does not extradite its citizens to other countries," Ashimbaev said on June 27, adding that Kazakh investigators are ready to cooperate with Ukrainian officials to investigate the attack on Sadyqov.

Sadyqov, an outspoken critic of Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev and his government, was shot on June 18 while he was in his car in the Ukrainian capital and is currently in intensive care.

His wife, Natalya Sadyqova, who is also a journalist, was in the vehicle during the attack but was unharmed.

On June 26, Kazakh Deputy Interior Minister Marat Qozhaev told RFE/RL that if Ukraine requests the extradition of the two suspects from Kazakhstan, "everything will proceed in accordance with the law."

Earlier on June 25, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office said it had started the extradition process for two Kazakh nationals suspected of the attempted assassination of Sadyqov.

On June 19, just one day after the attack, Ukrainian police said investigators established that Sadyqov had been shot by two Kazakh suspects -- Altai Zhaqanbaev, born in 1988, and Meiram Qarataev, born in 1991 -- who were added to an international wanted list.

On June 22, Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor-General’s Office said the Central Asian nation’s police had detained Zhaqanbaev and that they were trying to establish the whereabouts of Qarataev.

Natalya Sadyqova has said that Qarataev worked as a police officer in the northern Qostanai region. The Kazakh Interior Ministry, however, claimed that Qarataev had been sacked from the police force in 2019.

The Sadyqovs, along with their children, moved to Kyiv in 2014 after Kazakh authorities launched a case against Sadyqova, who worked as a journalist for the independent Respublika newspaper at the time. She was accused of slander.

Natalya Sadyqova said the attempted assassination against her husband appeared to be a "professional" operation.

On June 19, Sadyqova told RFE/RL that, hours before the attack, she and her husband had issued a new video titled Toqaev Is Putin’s Puppet on their YouTube channel.

The video criticizes Toqaev’s "pro-Russian politics" and looks at the activities of Russian oligarchs and agents of influence in Kazakhstan, some of whom obtained Kazakh citizenship after Russia launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

She added that Toqaev would have stood to gain from her husband’s killing but did not present any evidence that connected the president in any way to the shooting.

Toqaev’s spokesman, Berik Uali, said on June 21 that the Kazakh president "had ordered law enforcement entities to find the two suspects’ whereabouts and undertake corresponding measures."

"Kazakhstan’s side is ready to cooperate with Ukraine’s law enforcement structures, including via Interpol," Uali said.

Sadyqov used to lead a branch of the opposition Azat Social Democratic Party in his native Aqtobe region in Kazakhstan’s northwest until 2010.

He later headed a group that was a major force for establishing a union to defend the rights of Kazakh workers at the Chinese-owned CNPC-Aktobemunaygaz oil company.
Kazakh Lawmaker Says Astana Won’t Extradite Suspects in Sadyqov Case (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [6/27/2024 10:36 AM, Catherine Putz, 1156K, Neutral]
In comments to journalists on the sidelines of the Kazakh Senate on June 27, the body’s chairman, Maulen Ashimbaev, said that Kazakhstan would not extradite suspects in the attempted murder of Aidos Sadyqov to Ukraine and characterized any allegations of government involvement or interest as “provocation.”

Sadyqov, a noted critic of the Kazakh government, was shot in the head on June 18 in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Authorities in Ukraine quickly identified two suspects – Kazakh nationals Altai Zhaqanbaev and Meiram Qarataev – but they’d reportedly already returned to Kazakhstan.

As reported by Vlast.kz, Ashimbaev said, “In accordance with the laws of our country, our republic provides priority to the rights of our citizens. Therefore, in such situations, our country, in accordance with the laws, does not extradite Kazakhstani citizens.”

He added that this policy not specific to this case, “but the general principle is: Kazakhstan does not extradite its citizens to other states.”

Earlier, Kazakh authorities said they were cooperating with Ukrainian law enforcement. On June 22, one of the suspects – Zhaqanbaev – reportedly turned himself in to authorities in Kazakhstan. Earlier this week, Kazakh Deputy Interior Minister Marat Qozhaev told RFE/RL that Kazakhstan would “proceed in accordance with the law” if Ukrainian authorities made an extradition request.

In 2019, Kazakhstan and Ukraine settled an extradition treaty. While the treaty lays out procedures for extradition of wanted persons in each state, it also provides grounds for refusal of extradition of a country’s own citizens. But in such a case, the treaty obligates Kazakhstan to prosecute the wanted individuals itself or enforce a Ukrainian court’s judgment (assuming one has been arrived at), if requested to do so by Ukraine.

In his comments, Ashimbaev also pushed back on those who suggest the Kazakhstan government was interested in Sadyqov’s murder.

“The Prosecutor General’s Office of our country has joined the investigation, [they are] in touch with colleagues from Ukraine and we are providing all the necessary assistance,” he said. “And in this situation, any statements that Kazakhstan was interested in eliminating the journalist are completely inconsistent with reality and are direct provocations in order to involve Kazakhstan in some kind of geopolitical games.”

While it seems unlikely at this juncture that Kazakhstan will extradite the suspects to Ukraine to be tried, it’s less clear what Astana will do instead. For the time being, Kazakh authorities say they are cooperating with Ukrainian law enforcement and Kyiv has not complained about a lack of cooperation. The investigation in Ukraine is ongoing, with many details not yet known publicly.

As Ashimbaev’s comments make clear, Kazakhstan’s authorities are sensitive to any hint of an accusation that the government had a hand in what appears to have been a targeted assassination attempt. Defeating that presumption will necessitate taking the case seriously within Kazakhstan and sorting out the who and why of how an exile Kazakh government critic was shot in Ukraine.

Unfortunately for Ashimbaev, by fault of geography and history, Kazakhstan is already involved in the geopolitical games of the day. This case is merely an additional landmine added to the existing complex playing field.
Kyrgyzstan, EU Sign Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [6/27/2024 1:19 PM, Catherine Putz, 1156K, Neutral]
Five years after concluding negotiations and initialing a draft Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA), Kyrgyzstan and the European Union signed the agreement in Brussels.

The EPCA was signed on June 25, 2024, during a working visit of Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov to Brussels, and replaces the 1999 Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) that previously provided the basis for EU-Kyrgyzstan relations.

High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Josep Borrell said, “We are happy to count the Kyrgyz Republic amongst our close partners.” He characterized the EPCA as demonstrating the EU’s “steadfast commitment to strengthening and deepening our bilateral relations based on shared values and common interests in all areas of mutual benefit, reflecting new geopolitical and economic realities.”

Borrell said that the EU would, “continue working with Kyrgyzstan on further strengthening the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and promote cooperation with civil society which are essential pillars of an open democratic society.”

In April, Kyrgyzstan adopted a controversial “foreign representatives” bill that subjects non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive foreign funding to additional reporting and auditing requirements and labels them as “foreign representatives.” Ahead of the bill being signed into law by Japarov, the European Union delegation in Kyrgyzstan signed onto a joint statement alongside the embassies of Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States in Kyrgyzstan expressing concern over the law. The law’s provisions, the statement noted, “threaten the ability of non-profits and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to operate freely, contravene international norms, and jeopardize our ability to provide assistance that improves the lives of the citizens and residents of the Kyrgyz Republic.”

The law came to epitomize Kyrgyzstan’s democratic backsliding, which has seen the country’s authorities crack down on journalists and tighten the space in which civil society operates. Its passage didn’t seem to hamper the EPCA signing, however. A factsheet on the agreement stated that “the EU and the Kyrgyz Republic will strengthen the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for democratic principles, the rule of law and good governance, as well as the development of parliamentary democracy.” Precisely how is not explained in the factsheet.

EU Executive Vice-President and Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis said in regard to the signing that it “marks a new chapter in the EU’s economic and trade relations with Kyrgyzstan.” He highlighted its “ambitious” trade and sustainable development chapter. Trade issues, particularly those relating back to Russia and its war in Ukraine, are a clear motivation for cementing firmer ties with Kyrgyzstan regardless of its recent backsliding.

The abovementioned factsheet stated that the “Kyrgyz Republic continues preventing the circumvention of EU sanctions against Russia, inspiring further trust for EU-Kyrgyz trade.”

In June 2023, RFE/RL reported on how Kyrgyz and Kazakh companies had continued to export sanctioned dual-use technology to Russian suppliers; a handful of Kyrgyz companies have been sanctioned by the U.S. for circumventing sanctions on Russia, and last week a Kyrgyz company was among those targeted in the EU’s 14th round of sanctions against Russia.

Beyond human rights and democracy, and trade, the EPCA contains sections covering education, environment and climate change, energy, and transport. The present geopolitical moment – with the resurgence of Russia as a threat to Europe – has in some ways deepened the EU’s interest in Central Asia. But it’s worth noting that the EU adopted a new Central Asia strategy back in 2019, sustaining the argument that Europe’s regional interests are not a new fad but can perhaps be understood as an evolution in light of present global trends.

The EU and Kyrgyzstan began negotiations on the EPCA back in 2017 and concluded those negotiations in July 2019. But the final signing of the agreement was postponed beyond the end of 2019 and thereafter seemed lost in the miasma of pandemic and revolution-ridden 2020.

Kyrgyzstan is the second Central Asian state to sign an EPCA. Kazakhstan’s EPCA with the EU was signed back in 2015 but didn’t enter into full force until March 2020, after all EU member states had ratified it (this will be one aspect to watch with regard to Kyrgyzstan’s EPCA, too). Uzbekistan, meanwhile, completed negotiations with the EU in July 2022 on an EPCA and in January 2024 was reported as “eager” to speed up signing – no word yet on when that may be.
Is Kyrgyzstan’s Bloodiest Ex-President Being Rehabilitated? (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/27/2024 6:41 AM, Aibek Biybosunov, Chris Rickleton, and Tumonbai Abdinabi-uulu, 1530K, Neutral]
Almost a decade has passed since a Bishkek court sentenced Kyrgyzstan’s second president to 30 years in jail for the murders of scores of protesters during the April 2010 revolution.

But now the Belarus-based ex-president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, might be about to make a highly controversial return to his Central Asian homeland -- this time as an investor.

Current President Sadyr Japarov is the third president in Kyrgyzstan to gain office after a predecessor’s term was cut short by a political crisis.

But populist Japarov was a top-ranking member of the Bakiev regime who was ousted -- an adviser to the president and then his anti-corruption czar -- and went into opposition to the new government after the revolution that left more than 80 protesters dead.

In media comments on June 22, Japarov confirmed reports on social media about plans for the 74-year-old Bakiev to build a garment factory where relatives of the victims of the April 2010 shootings would be able to work.

At the same time, Japarov stressed, the initiative had come from the relatives themselves, who he said reached out to the Bakiev family with a request for compensation. An agreement for the factory was the result of the talks.

Does that mean the rehabilitation of Kyrgyzstan’s bloodiest ex-president is now imminent?

If it is, it is unlikely to be popular, not least with other so-called Aprilites -- those involved in the 2010 protests -- who remain firmly opposed to any reconciliation with the authoritarian former leader.

Pax Kyrgyzus

Despite a giant crackdown on political opposition, independent media, and civil society, Japarov has portrayed himself as something of a peacemaker when it comes to what he calls Kyrgyzstan’s "old wounds."

This positioning was embodied in his extraordinary achievement of hosting a meeting involving all five former Kyrgyz leaders in Dubai in February 2023.

"Of course the former presidents spoke bitter words, aired grievances, and admitted their mistakes. But most importantly they were able to forgive each other. This was my goal," Japarov said of the meeting at the time.

Whether or not they truly managed this, suspicions were aired that the gathering was more about rehabilitating one ex-leader in particular -- Japarov’s former boss, Bakiev.

Japarov, however, insisted that was not the case. The talks would not have been able to take place in Bishkek, he said, because Bakiev has an outstanding conviction, meaning he would be arrested if he arrived on Kyrgyz soil.

But Japarov -- himself a former convict -- did not reinforce that point in his most recent comments about his former boss.

Instead, the head of state confirmed that he had twice received delegations from a public association consisting of Aprilites who had claimed to be in contact with the Bakievs.

"Looking at their situation, on the one hand, I felt sympathy for them. And on the other hand, I thought that if it is possible to help 200 families, then this is a good thing," Japarov told the state information agency Kabar, noting the poverty of many of the families.

He added that the land near Bishkek airport would be returned to the state if the investment did not happen.

That doesn’t look likely for the moment.

The decision to allocate 1.6 hectares of land to the organization called April 7 Solidarity was rubber-stamped by the cabinet on May 29.

Private news agency AKIpress reported that the garment factory investment could total 1 billion soms (about $11.5 million).

When correspondents of RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service visited the plot of land intended for the textile factory on June 26, they found that the area was already being transformed with heavy machinery.

Plant construction foreman Jenish Nusubaliev told the correspondents that work had begun about two weeks ago.

But to what extent does April 7 Solidarity truly represent the revolution’s victims?

Whose ‘Solidarity’?

According to the April 7 Solidarity’s public registration documents, it was registered on April 8, 2024.

It is therefore not one of those Aprilite organizations that emerged soon after Bakiev’s overthrow that became important lobbying groups before fading from the political scene.

The three founders of the group are a trio of men that share a single patronym: Bakytbekovich.

The group’s leader and apparent spokesman is Usupbi Sherimbaev, who first went public with the news about the Bakiev-linked textile investment on Facebook on April 18.

In his video post, Sherimbaev suggested he had spoken to Bakiev directly, in Minsk, where he and other top members of the family are living in exile.

But when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service on June 24, Sherimbaev conceded that the talks had instead been in Kyrgyzstan with children of the former president’s brothers, whose names he did not provide.

The relative with whom Sherimbaev spoke "is the son of one of [Bakiev’s] younger brothers. I don’t know exactly whose son this is. It is not known how much money will be allocated for the construction of the factory. This will become known during construction," Sherimbaev said.

He further acknowledged that he could not have flown to Minsk anyway due to an outstanding conviction against him, the veracity of which he refutes.

The details of that court judgment were made public on Facebook by opposition politician Temirlan Sultanbekov several days before Japarov’s comments to Kabar.

The conviction, said Sultanbekov, was for child molestation and was handed down in 2022.

But after spending some time in jail, Sherimbaev’s eight-year sentence was inexplicably shortened and converted to a probation-like sentence instead.

Sultanbekov is presently the chairman of the opposition Social Democrats party, but he is also the secretary of a large group of April 7 relatives that joined forces shortly after Japarov held talks with some 200 Aprilites -- Sherimbaev among them -- at the beginning of the year.

Sultanbekov’s group is firmly opposed to any rehabilitation of Bakiev or his regime.

"How can [authorities] allocate land for the construction of a factory by a person sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment in Kyrgyzstan?" Sultanbekov asked in an interview with RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service. "How would they even invest the money? This money should be immediately confiscated!" the politician fumed.

Belarus Exile

In Facebook postings, Sultanbekov speculated that Sherimbaev had agreed to the take on the role of a "prominent Aprilite" prepared to deal with Bakiev in exchange for an end to his "hopeless situation" in jail.

He provided no evidence of that claim.

Sultanbekov told RFE/RL that his group represented "10 out of 11" organizations set up by April 7 relatives and boasted a membership of up to 2,700 people.

April 7, 2010, was certainly a before-and-after in Kyrgyz politics.

The heavy human sacrifice -- not a feature of the Tulip Revolution that brought Bakiev to power five years earlier or the unrest that catapulted Japarov to the presidency in 2020 -- drove significant changes, even if corruption remained rampant and development slow-paced.

Under the constitution passed in a referendum in June 2010, the parliament was empowered and presidents were restricted to a single six-year term in office.

A decade later, Japarov took power less than two weeks after being freed from jail and oversaw the reversal of all those changes in another constitutional reform drive.

But he continues to publicly acknowledge the revolution’s importance.

April 7 ended "family clan rule" and "showed that a government that does not take into account the will of the people is doomed to a short life and deprived of the future," Japarov said in an address on this year’s anniversary.

After being overthrown, Bakiev and other key members of the former ruling family eventually fled to Belarus, with many alleging the family took millions of dollars in state funds with them.

Minsk sometimes looked like an awkward exile both for them and Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

And with Belarus joining Russia under Western sanctions over its support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, it has surely become even more awkward.

Lawyer Leila Nazgul Seiitbek, chairwoman of the Vienna-based NGO Freedom For Eurasia, argued that sanctions had "had an impact on Belarus’s government and those associated with it," but she said she believes Japarov’s regime is just as eager to bring Kyrgyzstan’s second president back as Bakiev is to make a return.

"The ill-gotten money of the Bakievs will, of course, be a real asset to Japarov and Tashiev," Seiitbek told RFE/RL, referencing Kyrgyzstan’s national security chief, Japarov’s de facto co-ruler, and another Bakiev protege, Kamchybek Tashiev.

In this sense, the garment factory "served under the guise of reconciliation with the families of protesters who died in April 2010" may just be the tip of the iceberg, Seiitbek argued.
U.S. Commission On Religious Freedom Concerned Over New Tajik Law (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/27/2024 7:40 AM, Staff, 1530K, Neutral]
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has expressed concern over recently adopted amendments to Tajikistan’s law on the regulation of traditions and ceremonies, saying it worsens religious freedom violations in the Central Asian state.

The amendments, signed by President Emomali Rahmon on June 20, among other restrictions bans children’s games of "idgardak" during two major Islamic holidays -- Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha -- and forbids the sale, import, promotion, and wearing of clothes that are "foreign to national culture."

That provision is considered as targeting traditional Islamic head scarves for women, known as hijab.

Previously adopted regulations in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic have also imposed restrictions on circumcisions, baby-naming rituals, weddings, religious pilgrimage ceremonies, and funerals.

"The Tajik government, undeterred by the repeated CPC [country of particular concern] designations [by the U.S. government], continues to find new ways to further restrict religious freedom, as evident by its tightening of the already repressive 2007 traditions law," USCIRF Vice Chairman Eric Ueland said in the June 26 statement.

"While the State Department importantly designates Tajikistan as a CPC, naming and shaming is evidently not enough. The designation will only be effective if accompanied by actions, such as targeted sanctions or other consequences."

In an apparent attempt to target hijabs and other Islamic clothing, the Tajik government carried out a campaign to promote national dress in recent years.

In 2018, the government introduced a 376-page manual -- The Guidebook Of Recommended Outfits In Tajikistan -- which outlined what Tajik women should wear for different occasions.

The country has also unofficially banned bushy beards. Thousands of men in the past decade have reportedly been stopped by police and had their beards shaved off against their will.

"It is troubling to witness the recent onslaught of harassment against those who express their faith in ways that do not correspond with the state’s preferred interpretation," USCIRF Commissioner Susie Gelman said.

"We urge the U.S. government to condition security assistance to the Tajik government on reform of the traditions law, the 2009 religion law, and all other legislation that criminalizes the peaceful expression of religion in the country," she added.
Prominent Tajik Journalist And Politician Arrested In Unclear Circumstances: Sources (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [6/27/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 235K, Neutral]
Ahmadshoh Komilzoda, a well-known journalist and the first deputy chairman of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, has been arrested, a Tajik law enforcement source told RFE/RL on June 27.

The details surrounding his arrest remain murky as law enforcement authorities have not made any official statements and his family members were unavailable for comment.

The source, who spoke with RFE/RL on condition of anonymity, said Komilzoda has been held in the a temporary detention center since June 15. The source declined to provide further information.

Another source close to the Tajik Prosecutor-General’s Office confirmed the arrest and disclosed that on June 16 Komilzoda’s residence was searched, resulting in the confiscation of his computer, notes, and a phone.

According to the source, Komilzoda’s arrest is linked to the case of Saidjafar Usmonzoda, a former chairman of the Democratic Party and a member of parliament. Usmonzoda was arrested on June 12 under suspicion of "attempting to usurp the government."

In early May, a group claiming affiliation with the Democratic Party dismissed Usmonzoda and elected Shahboz Abror, a journalist and owner of several print media outlets, as its leader.

Komilzoda, who previously served as Usmonzoda’s deputy, was subsequently elected as the first deputy to Abror. Komilzoda also was expected to replace Usmonzoda as a member of parliament on behalf of the party.

Komilzoda has a background in journalism and politics. He was a board member of the national movement Rastohez and served as a manager at Tajikistan National Television in the late 1990s.

In 1993, he was arrested along with several other journalists and spent time in prison. Following the signing of the Peace Agreement and the establishment of the National Reconciliation Commission, Komilzoda became its spokesman.

Until 2011, he worked as a correspondent for Voice of America in Tajikistan.

RFE/RL has reached out to the Prosecutor-General’s Office seeking an explanation of the situation but has not received a response.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[6/27/2024 6:07 AM, 81.3K followers, 15 retweets, 53 likes]
In a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association - Amnesty International expressed concern about stigmatising narratives and implications on the exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. In recent years, authorities in #Afghanistan, #Bangladesh, #India, #Pakistan, and #SriLanka have framed and sustained harmful and stigmatizing narratives against peaceful protesters, with the intention of silencing critical voices and movements, justifying repression, and evading accountability. (1/3)

Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[6/27/2024 6:07 AM, 81.3K followers, 6 retweets, 16 likes]
Amnesty International calls on states to:
Refrain from spreading stigmatizing narratives against protesters and condoning such narratives from non-state actors such as the media;
Ensure accountability of public authorities for failing to respect, protect and fulfil the right to non-discrimination by engaging in hateful, stigmatizing and discriminatory expression and narratives against peaceful protesters.
Publicly and officially condemn hateful, stigmatizing and discriminatory narratives against peaceful protesters.
Refrain from criminalizing peaceful protests and prosecuting peaceful protesters. This includes urging the governments to release from prison those serving prison terms merely for exercising their right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression. (2/3)

Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[6/27/2024 6:18 AM, 81.3K followers, 1 retweet, 3 likes]
To read more, please visit: https://amnesty.org/en/documents/asa04/8167/2024/en/ (3/3)

Fawzia Koofi
@Fawziakoofi77
[6/28/2024 3:33 AM, 563.2K followers, 2 retweets, 3 likes]
If UNAMA and others in the international community see the Taliban as the only reality for Afghanistan, they need to look at our history. Millions of Afghans risked life and limb to cast their votes in the 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections, despite threats, fraud and irregularities. They believed in the democratic values and principles which the international community propagated to them for more than 20 years. Yet Afghans today are bewildered that the same international community which championed free elections and women’s rights is willing to compromise its own moral values to cave in to an extremist ideological group. A group that represents a ruling armed clerical regime which has established gender-apartheid in Afghanistan and directed the subjugation of more than 20 million women and girls into an abyss of hopelessness. https://theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jun/27/un-doha-summit-taliban-afghan-women-rights

Fawzia Koofi
@Fawziakoofi77
[6/27/2024 12:19 PM, 563.2K followers, 45 retweets, 94 likes]
The Taliban have silenced women’s voices inside the country using violence and torture. And by excluding women’s participation at the Doha meeting, the UN and others in the international community have enabled the Taliban to try to silence our voices outside Afghanistan, too. If the international community and the UN want to be useful, let the women of Afghanistan directly talk to the Taliban. This is something that the leaders of the gender-apartheid regime fear the most.@antonioguterres @MaltaUNMission @UKUN_NewYork @chiccavenza https://theguardian.com/global-develop

Heather Barr
@heatherbarr1
[6/27/2024 8:49 AM, 62.8K followers, 84 retweets, likes]
Let’s talk about who has raised grave concerns about @UN excluding women--& any agenda item on human rights--from the Doha 3 meeting on Afghanistan convening, with the Taliban and special envoys, in three days. We’ll kick off w/G7+--that’s 12 countries. https://amu.tv/106007/

Heather Barr
@heatherbarr1
[6/27/2024 8:50 AM, 62.8K followers, 17 likes]
Then there’s this letter, signed by women leaders including not one or two or three but five current and former prime ministers and presidents. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/news/global-leaders-urge-un-to-include-afghan-women-in-upcoming-doha-meeting-with-afghan-officials-taliban/

Heather Barr
@heatherbarr1
[6/27/2024 8:56 AM, 62.8K followers, 1 retweets, 12 likes]
That’s just a few of the non-Afghans. But what should be more important to all of us is the groundswell of anger at the @UN from Afghan women’s rights defenders. Like this: https://x.com/AWCSWO/status/1804785310561128946

Heather Barr
@heatherbarr1
[6/27/2024 9:07 AM, 62.8K followers, 1 retweet, 6 likes]
The question is whether @antonioguterres is listening. @unwomenchief @UNAMAnews @DicarloRosemary @otunbayeva

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/27/2024 11:43 PM, 211K followers, 4 retweets, 35 likes]
Since Afghanistan featured so heavily, worth noting the full context: Trump made the decision to withdraw & signed a deal w/the Taliban to leave. Biden (who also had long wanted to leave Afg) honored the deal & left-totally botching the execution-as Taliban were nearing victory.
Pakistan
Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[6/27/2024 1:17 PM, 3.1M followers, 11 retweets, 29 likes]
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif interacts with the members of National Assembly during a session of the National Assembly, today in Islamabad.

Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
[6/27/2024 11:36 AM, 3.1M followers, 20 retweets, 65 likes]
A delegation of Young Parliamentarians calls on the Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, today in Islamabad.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/27/2024 12:38 PM, 211K followers, 11 retweets, 41 likes]
ICMYI: Here’s the video from our conference yesterday on US-Pakistan relations. It reflected on how past experiences can help guide US policymakers working on the relationship today, and it examined prospects for future cooperation—and how to get there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oJoVMiRLVs&t=82s

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[6/27/2024 4:50 PM, 42.8K followers, 4 retweets, 20 likes]
Pakistan is launching a counterterror operation called Azm-i-Istehkam against the Pakistan Taliban (TTP), about 3 years after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. That’s no coincidence: there’s a direct causal line between the Taliban takeover and a rise in terrorism in Pakistan.

Madiha Afzal
@MadihaAfzal
[6/27/2024 4:54 PM, 42.8K followers, 2 retweets, 4 likes]
This comes exactly 10 years after Zarb-e-Azb, Pakistan’s major counterterror operation against the TTP, which seemed to have kinetically defeated the group. It also drove many TTP fighters into Afghanistan, where they were freed from jails in Aug 2021 during the Taliban takeover.
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/27/2024 5:00 AM, 99.3M followers, 4.6K retweets, 31K likes]
Had a great meeting with @Jduonline MPs. Our Parties have a long history of working together and fighting poor governance, corruption and criminalisation in Bihar. The leadership of Shri @NitishKumar Ji has taken Bihar on the path of development. We will keep working together for good governance.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/27/2024 4:11 AM, 99.3M followers, 8.7K retweets, 59K likes]
Rashtrapati Ji’s address to both Houses of Parliament was comprehensive and presented a roadmap of progress and good governance. It covered the strides India has been making and also the potential that lies ahead. Her address also mentioned some of the major challenges we have to collectively overcome to ensure a qualitative change in the lives of our citizens. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2028958

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/27/2024 6:50 AM, 3.2M followers, 1.6K retweets, 8K likes]
Hon. CM of Tamil Nadu Thiru @mkstalin has written to me about the detention of Indian fishermen in Sri Lanka. My communication in response: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GRExKt_XIAASwym?format=jpg&name=large

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[6/27/2024 5:22 AM, 3.2M followers, 323 retweets, 2.4K likes]
Privileged to attend Rashtrapati ji’s Address to the Parliament this morning. Honoured to be part of a Government that has been voted back as an expression of trust in policy, intention, dedication and decisions. As @rashtrapatibhvn enunciated, under PM @narendramodi’s leadership, Indian foreign policy has made giant strides. As a Vishwa Bandhu, Bharat is a first responder in crisis, a strong voice of the Global South and a shaper of global debates. At the same time, our commitment to Neighbourhood First remains rock solid. #TeamMEA reaffirms its commitment to keep working to fulfill this vision. http://presidentofindia.gov.in/speeches/address-honble-president-india-smt-droupadi-murmu-parliament-0
NSB
Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[6/27/2024 9:38 PM, 99.4K followers, 4 retweets, 27 likes]
One of the advantages to tourists of an early-morning arrival to Bhutan is that you get a whole extra day to spend exploring our beautiful country. For me, I get to attend the ongoing Parliament session today.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@MoFAmv
[6/27/2024 5:21 AM, 54.2K followers, 11 retweets, 20 likes]
#FOSIM concluded the second day of its Stakeholder Awareness Programmes for the staff of @MoFmv. Today’s session on "Protocol and Etiquettes, and Other Diplomatic Practices" was conducted by Ambassador Farzana.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@MoFAmv
[6/28/2024 1:04 AM, 54.2K followers, 12 retweets, 18 likes]
Minister @MoosaZameer had the opportunity to join the Maldivian community in New York and New Jersey for evening tea, today. Minister ensured that efforts to maintain and enhance the consular services provided through @PMNY is of high priority.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives
@MoFAmv
[6/28/2024 2:51 AM, 54.2K followers, 3 retweets, 5 likes]
Minister @MoosaZameer met with USG Li Junhua of @UNDESA this afternoon. Discussions focused on ways the Maldives🇲🇻 can work in partnership with the UN🇺🇳 system to make advancements in building resilience, productive capacity, & ensuring implementation of the #ABAS for #SIDS.

Moosa Zameer
@MoosaZameer
[6/28/2024 12:58 AM, 13.5K followers, 15 retweets, 19 likes]
Had the pleasure of meeting with Under-Secretary-General Li Junhua of @UNDESA. Spoke on the importance of utilising the momentum of the #SIDS4 conference to ensure the ambitious and effective implementation of #ABAS, and discussed ways that the Maldives can work in partnership with the UN system to build a resilient, sustainable & digital driven future.

Moosa Zameer
@MoosaZameer
[6/27/2024 8:59 PM, 13.5K followers, 29 retweets, 42 likes]
Honoured to meet with UN Secretary-General @antonioguterres today. We discussed the importance of the UN’s continued support to #SIDS for the accelerated implementation of #ABAS. The SG expressed his expectation that President Dr @MMuizzu to play a lead role in the Summit of Future to be held at UNGA in September. I also reiterated my commitment to enhance and expand #Maldives-#UN collaboration.

Moosa Zameer
@MoosaZameer
[6/27/2024 6:32 AM, 13.5K followers, 32 retweets, 52 likes]
Just arrived in New York! I look forward to discussions with the UNSG @antonioguterres on the accelerated implementation of #ABAS and other issues of crucial importance to the Maldives and other #SIDS. I will meet with H.E. Riyad H. Mansour @Palestine_UN to discuss the ongoing crises in Gaza.I also look forward to meeting with Permanent Representatives of various Regional Groups at the UN, and also meet with tour operators and travel advisors to promote the #Maldives in NY.

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[6/27/2024 9:44 PM, 5.8K followers, 3 retweets, 21 likes]
Pleased to join @USAmbSL at the celebrations for the 248th anniversary of U.S. independence. Sri Lanka & the United States share a multifaceted bilateral relationship based on shared values, & we look forward to further strengthening the ties between our nations. @MFA_SriLanka

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[6/27/2024 7:18 AM, 5.8K followers, 5 retweets, 24 likes]
Sri Lanka’s agreements with China and other creditor nations to restructure about USD 10 billion in bilateral debt brought it a step closer towards restoring debt sustainability - International Monetary Fund (IMF)-

Mahinda Rajapaksa
@PresRajapaksa
[6/28/2024 2:26 AM, 556.7K followers, 5 retweets, 25 likes]
Glad to meet Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Sun Weidong in Beijing today. Appreciate China’s unwavering support and our strong partnership under the Belt and Road Initiative. Looking forward to further collaboration for Sri Lanka’s development. @ChinaEmbSL
Central Asia
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/27/2024 3:34 PM, 194.8K followers, 3 retweets, 17 likes]
#Jizzakh region hosted the grand opening of the second International Maqom Art Forum. In his address, President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev emphasized the significance of Maqom as a reflection of our nation’s long-standing history and cultural wealth. The forum was graced with international representatives,including @UNESCO and @ICESCO_En representatives, who lauded Uzbekistan’s commitment to cultural heritage preservation. This year, the forum attracted around 400 contributors from over 80 countries, marking a significant step towards enhancing cultural connections and introducing Maqom to a global audience.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/27/2024 2:33 PM, 194.8K followers, 18 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev has launched the first projects involving Chinese investments in the Zaamin district’s industrial #Technopark. These projects are expected to attract $1.2 billion in investment and create 5,000 new jobs. The technopark will serve as a hub for the production of goods with high added value and import-substituting products.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/27/2024 11:09 AM, 194.8K followers, 1 retweet, 9 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev met with @BYDCompany President Wang Chuanfu in the Jizzakh region. During the meeting, he emphasized the need to expand the model range and increase production capacity to 500,000 units annually in the near future. Special attention was given to localization projects for components and spare parts to reduce production costs, as well as organizing the export of cars to Central Asian and #CIS markets.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/27/2024 11:08 AM, 194.8K followers, 4 retweets, 15 likes]
Today President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev got acquainted with the innovative enterprise "#BYD Uzbekistan Factory", which was launched in January. The plant produces up to 50,000 electric vehicles per year and is the first phase of a $160 million project. This modern facility is equipped with advanced equipment and robotic systems. Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed on the first #EV produced at the factory, emphasizing the significance of this project for the future of #Uzbekistan’s industry.

{End of Report}
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