SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO: | SCA & Staff |
DATE: | Tuesday, September 10, 2024 6:30 AM ET |
Afghanistan
White House Says G.O.P.’s Afghanistan Report Offers ‘Little or Nothing New’ (New York Times)
New York Times [9/9/2024 4:14 PM, Peter Baker, 831K, Neutral]
The White House dismissed on Monday a new House Republican investigative report castigating President Biden’s administration for the chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying that it offers “little or nothing new” and ignores critical facts.
John F. Kirby, a national security spokesman for the president, took the lectern at the White House to issue a lengthy rebuttal to the report that was released earlier in the day. It came more than three years after the event and less than two months before the November election.
Mr. Kirby derided what he called the “one-sided partisan nature of this report” and noted that it was not the only one issued by Republicans. “This comes, of course, two years after their first report, and this one says little or nothing new,” he said.
He pointed out that in pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, Mr. Biden was following a withdrawal agreement negotiated with the Taliban by President Donald J. Trump before leaving office.“Ending wars is more difficult than starting them,” Mr. Kirby said. “President Biden knew that. He acknowledged that. But it doesn’t mean that the decision to end this one was wrong or that the withdrawal wasn’t conducted as professionally and as bravely as it was humanly possible given the circumstances. It doesn’t mean we don’t grieve and mourn with the families of those whose lives were tragically taken during the withdrawal, especially at Abbey Gate on the 26th of August of that year.”
The report, prepared by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, accused the Biden team of ignoring security warnings, failing to adequately plan an evacuation and lying to the public about the risks and the missteps that led to the bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members at Abbey Gate outside the airport in Kabul, the Afghan capital. The attack, which also killed as many as 170 civilians, punctuated a hasty and chaotic evacuation as the Taliban advanced, but Pentagon reviews have concluded that U.S. troops could not have prevented the violence.
The House report largely spared Mr. Trump of responsibility even though he sealed the original deal with the Taliban leading to the pullout and wanted to withdraw even more hastily.
The release of the report came as Mr. Trump has been blaming Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in the fall election, for “the humiliation in Afghanistan.” His campaign posted videos from some relatives of those killed at Abbey Gate criticizing her. Ms. Harris, for her part, has accused Mr. Trump of politicizing the tragedy, pointing to his photo opportunity at Arlington National Cemetery in defiance of rules barring political events.
Mr. Kirby rejected the report’s criticism, saying that planning for the withdrawal started in the spring of 2021 and that no one had anticipated how quickly the Taliban would take over the country. He noted that Mr. Trump’s agreement resulted in the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters held in Afghan prisons and that U.S. equipment left in the country was given to the Afghan government, not to the Taliban, and wound up in enemy hands only when the government collapsed.
Mr. Kirby added that the administration continues to “look with awe and admiration at the many thousands of men and women who waged this war over the course of 20 years — troops, diplomats, intelligence experts, contractors and civilian employees from this and dozens of other nations.”
He also denied that the administration was not candid with the public. “There was no deception, lying or lack of transparency by this administration, either during or after the withdrawal,” he said. “We did the best we could every day to keep the American people informed of what was happening. We conducted our own after-action reports and shared those, too, with the public.” State Department denies lack of planning for withdrawal laid out in GOP-led Afghanistan report (FOX News)
FOX News [9/9/2024 11:15 AM, Morgan Phillips, 48844K, Negative]
The State Department stood by the frenzied 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal in a new statement after House Foreign Affairs Republicans released a scathing 350-page report detailing dysfunction and a lack of planning leading up to the pullout.
Republicans have "issued partisan statements, cherry-picked facts, withheld testimonies from the American people, and obfuscated the truth behind conjecture," according to a statement put out by a State Department spokesperson.
The report, led by Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, disputed Biden’s assertion that his hands were tied to the Doha agreement former President Donald Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021, and laid much blame on a lack of planning by the State Department for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them.
"There are valid and important criticisms of the two-decade-long war in Afghanistan and how it concluded, which is why the Department has remained focused on evolving and growing from this moment, learning important lessons and making sustainable changes to crisis operations," the State Department statement said.
"The Department stands ready to work alongside any Member who expresses serious interest in finding legislative and administrative solutions. However, we will not stand by silently as the Department and its workforce are used to further partisan agendas."
The department said the idea that they lacked a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) plan to close operations in Afghanistan is "one of the most persistent misunderstandings."
The State Department did not initiate a NEO to begin removing U.S. personnel and American allies until Aug. 14, as the Taliban marched into Kabul, and one day before President Ashraf Ghanifled his country in a helicopter full of cash.
There were not enough troops present to begin the NEO until Aug. 19.
The report lays blame on former Afghanistan Ambassador Ross Wilson, who instead of shrinking, increased the embassy’s presence as the security situation deteriorated - despite warnings from military officials.
The statement noted that the U.S. had intended for the embassy in Kabul to remain open after the evacuation - "a decision Congress broadly supported."
"While U.S. military forces would end combat operations, Department personnel planned to operate out of Embassy Kabul to assist Americans and Afghan allies, coordinate diplomatic and development activity and investments, and help protect and advance U.S. national security interests after August 2021."
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul closed officially on Aug. 31, 2021 and has not reopened since.
The statement said that "executing the NEO before [August 15] would have signaled to the people of Afghanistan the U.S. had lost all confidence in the then-Afghan government and precipitated the very collapse we sought to avoid."
Still, the department admitted it had no idea Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban so quickly. "Even the most pessimistic assessments did not predict the government forces in Kabul would collapse while U.S. forces remained."
McCaul’s investigation found the State Department had been warned repeatedly about the Taliban takeover but refused to draw down its presence in the region.
The department said it had been recommending Americans living in Afghanistan leave since March of that year.
"In total, between March and August, the Department sent 19 unique messages with warnings to Americans living in Afghanistan to leave, as well as offers of help, including financial assistance to pay for plane tickets."
Despite such efforts, nearly 6,000 Americans remained as Kabul fell, mostly dual citizens, prompting an evacuation effort of "unprecedented scope and scale."
McCaul contends that the State Department left some 1,000 Americans in Afghanistan, but the State Department said it evacuated "almost all" Americans by Aug. 31.
The department said it helped another 500 U.S. citizens evacuate between Aug. 31 and the end of the year - and noted that it helped some 120,000 Americans, Afghans and third-country nationals flee the country in the last two weeks of August 2021.
It also noted that when President Biden took office in January 2021, thespecial immigrant visa (SIV) program to offer visas to foreign nationals who assist U.S. missions abroad had a backlog of 14,000 and "there had not been a single SIV applicant interview in Kabul in nine months, going back to March 2020." State Department Says House Report On Withdrawal From Afghanistan ‘Cherry-Picked Facts’ (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [9/9/2024 5:28 AM, Staff, 1251K, Negative]
The State Department accused House Republicans of cherry-picking the facts and withholding information in a lengthy report on the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in August 2021.The State Department’s response to the report issued by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on September 9 also highlighted the deeply partisan nature of the report in the midst of the U.S. presidential campaign.The Republicans on the committee and other Republicans in the House of Representatives, where the party holds the majority, "issued partisan statements, cherry-picked facts, withheld testimonies from the American people, and obfuscated the truth behind conjecture," the State Department said.The report specifically points to the Biden-Harris administration and their "failure to plan for all contingencies."The House Republicans blamed the disastrous end of the United States’ longest war on the Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ current presidential nominee. The role of former President Donald Trump, who had signed the withdrawal deal with the Taliban, was minimized.Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the review revealed that the Biden administration "had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government."But instead of taking steps toward a safe evacuatation "the administration picked optics over security," McCaul said in a statement.The review lays out the final months of military and civilian failures, following Trump’s February 2020 withdrawal deal, that allowed the fundamentalist Taliban to sweep through and conquer all of the country even before the last U.S. officials flew out on August 30, 2021.The chaotic exit left behind many U.S. citizens, Afghan battlefield allies, women activists, and others at risk from the Taliban.The State Department said Biden "acted in the best interests of the American people when he decided to bring our troops home and end America’s longest war."The department’s response also drew similarities to a 2022 report prepared by Republican lawmakers, which it said "did a deep disservice to the American people by further politicizing U.S. policy towards Afghanistan instead of focusing on bipartisan solutions." McCaul says he will hold Blinken in contempt after State Department shrugs off his demands for testimony (FOX News)
FOX News [9/9/2024 7:54 PM, Morgan Phillips, 48844K, Negative]
Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul said he still intends to haul in Antony Blinken on the Afghanistan withdrawal even after his sprawling report was completed, and will hold him in contempt of Congress if he does not comply. "This was a catastrophic failure of epic proportions," the Texas Republican told reporters on Monday. "This is a disgrace. I will hold him in contempt if that’s what it takes to bring him before the American people.""Secretary Blinken refuses to take one day out of this month to come before the [Gold Star] families." McCaul’s comments came on the heels of a 350-page report he released Monday on the withdrawal that the committee worked on for much of the past nearly two years of the Republican majority. It laid much blame on the State Department and detailed how State officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them. McCaul subpoenaed Blinken last week, saying he must appear before the committee by Sept. 19. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel shrugged off the committee’s threats. "The majority isn’t truly interested in legislating on Afghanistan policy. If they were, they would have sought to speak to the secretary long ago," he told reporters Monday. "They would have sought to speak to him to get his input as they make this report," he said. "Instead they waited until the report was completely finished to come back to us." In May, McCaul asked Blinken to appear at a hearing in September on the committee’s report on its investigation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The State Department failed on several occasions to provide a date for Blinken to appear before lawmakers, McCaul said.But the State Department said Monday Blinken had testified before House and Senate committees 14 times on the withdrawal, including four times before the Foreign Affairs Committee. McCaul also hinted that he believes there should still be a small contingency of U.S. forces in Afghanistan."We cannot see now into Afghanistan except through over the horizon, which doesn’t work. We can’t see Russia, China and Iran, either, because of this tragic failure of foreign policy," he told reporters."We can’t see all of ISIS gathering in the Korazhan region of Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, making their way to the United States of America. That is what they did to us," the chairman went on. "They embolden the unholy alliance of Putin, Xi, the Ayatollah and Kim Jong Un," he said, referring to the leaders of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. The Biden administration has long claimed the president’s hands were tied by the Doha agreement negotiated under President Trump that laid out a deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. But the new report detailed how the Taliban had failed to hold up their end of the deal, absolving the U.S. of any obligation to adhere to it. "Biden, for his part, faced a stark choice when he came to office, abide by the flawed agreement and end America’s longest war, or blow up the deal, extend the war, and see a much smaller contingent of American troops back in combat with the Taliban," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. "He chose the former and was able to buy additional time to prepare for that withdrawal all the way into the summer. And we, as a nation are safer for it. Any and every discussion about what happened in Afghanistan has to start right there. Sadly, the report does not dwell on it."The damning report claims that while US military personnel were drawing down their footprint in the nation, the State Department was growing theirs. And according to the report, U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson was on vacation in mid-July 2021. He allegedly hightailed it out of the country and left some local embassy staff behind. According to the report, he had COVID-19 at the time and forced a foreign service officer to take his COVID test so he could get on the plane.Wilson previously said the Covid-19 allegation is "false" and he never asked anyone to take a test for him. Patel defended Wilson. "I’m just not going to get into a tit-for-tat with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but what I can say is that it is not my understanding that he was on vacation at the beginning of August. Beyond that, I will just echo what I said previously about Ambassador Wilson, that this is an esteemed individual, a decorated Foreign Service officer." He claimed the GOP-led report chose "scandal over substance" and called it a "collection of cherry-picked comments… designed to paint an inaccurate picture of this administration’s efforts" and said Wilson was the "last diplomat to leave Afghanistan after the United States ended its military presence."He claimed the withdrawal was carried out in a way that was consistent with department policy. "The drawdown in Kabul was conducted in a manner which is consistent with our departments and our country’s standards and protocols when faced in those circumstances." He said he did not have a headcount on how many Americans are still in Afghanistan, but touted the more than 18,000 Afghan special immigrant visas (SIVs) for the U.S.’s Afghan allies, such as interpreters, that were processed in 2023. The Taliban’s repression of women in Afghanistan is outrageous, the UN rights chief says (AP)
AP [9/9/2024 12:04 PM, Staff, 31638K, Negative]
The Taliban’s repressive control over women and girls in Afghanistan is unparalleled and will jeopardize the country’s future, the U.N. rights chief warned Monday.Volker Türk said new morality laws that ban women’s voices and bare faces in public, along with sweeping bans on education and most jobs, were outrageous and amounted to systematic gender persecution.“I shudder to think what is next for the women and girls of Afghanistan,” Türk told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. The Taliban were not immediately available for comment.The Taliban — who took over Afghanistan in 2021 during the final weeks of U.S. and NATO withdrawal — have excluded women from most areas of public life and stopped girls from going to school beyond sixth grade, despite initial promises of a more moderate rule.They are also restricting women’s access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or don’t have a male guardian, and punishing those who don’t comply with the Taliban’s interpretation of hijab, or Islamic headscarf.The Taliban last month issued the ban on women’s voices in public under new laws approved by the supreme leader in efforts to combat vice and promote virtue.“I want to make clear my abhorrence of these latest measures, which include forbidding even eye contact between women and men who are not related and imposing mandatory covering for women from head to toe, including their faces,” Türk said.Taliban policies are propelling Afghanistan further down a path of isolation, pain and hardship, he added.Last year, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the country needs $4.62 billion in aid for nearly 24 million people in need. The Taliban takeover drove millions into poverty and hunger after foreign aid stopped almost overnight.Sanctions, a halt on bank transfers and frozen billions in Afghanistan’s currency reserves restricted access to global institutions and the outside money that supported the country’s aid-dependent economy before the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.The situation for children was especially devastating, with 12.4 million children in desperate need, Türk said, but a massive shortfall in funding was “sharply undercutting” the response by the U.N. and its partners.Another speaker at the council session was Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan. Bennett has frequently criticized the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls. Last month, he confirmed he was no longer allowed to visit the country.In his first address since being barred from Afghanistan, Bennett said the morality laws reinforced the Taliban’s institutionalized system of sex and gender discrimination, segregation and oppression and affected almost the entire population.“Unaddressed, the repercussions will shape future generations,” he said.Bennett said he had talked to Afghans in several provinces who had described a visible increase in the presence of morality inspectors as well as tightening restrictions, in particular on people’s freedom of movement.“We have also received information that barbers are instructed not to shave men’s beards shorter than the specified length, while the ban on broadcasting of images of human beings is impacting the media,” he said.Afghan media have reported that the Vice and Virtue Ministry has stopped female journalists from working in Daikundi province and administered a religious test to government employees, warning they risk dismissal if they do not participate.There have also been reports that the state-controlled broadcaster RTA has stopped airing in Kandahar province, the Taliban’s power center in the south and the base of its leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, because morality laws prohibit the depiction of living beings.The Taliban have not responded to requests for comment on the reports. UN: Taliban’s morality laws targeting women deepen Afghanistan’s isolation (VOA)
VOA [9/9/2024 5:39 PM, Ayaz Gul, 4566K, Negative]
The United Nations rights chief expressed his “abhorrence” Monday at the recent promulgation of “so-called morality laws” in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan that silence women or order them to cover their faces and bodies in public.Volker Türk told a U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva that the new laws were implemented alongside bans on Afghan girls attending secondary school, prohibiting female students from accessing university education, and severely curtailing women’s access to public life and employment opportunities.“I shudder to think what is next for the women and girls of Afghanistan. This repressive control over half the population in the country is unparalleled in today’s world,” the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner stated.Türk denounced the morality laws as outrageous and amounting “to systematic gender persecution.” He warned that the intensifying curbs on women are “propelling Afghanistan further down a path of isolation, pain, and hardship.” It would also jeopardize the country’s future by “massively stifling its development,” he added.Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of Afghan human rights, also spoke and informed Monday’s session in Geneva that the Taliban had lately barred him from visiting the country to conduct assessments in line with his mandate.He added that the morality law “marks a new phase in the ongoing repression of respect for human rights” since the Taliban regained control of the country three years ago.The 114-page, 35-article law enacted by the Taliban last month outlines various actions and specific conduct that the Taliban consider mandatory or prohibited for Afghan men and women in line with their strict interpretation of the Islamic law of Sharia.The restrictions prohibit Afghan women from traveling without a male guardian, require them to be silent in public, enforce mandatory covering of females from head to toe, including their faces, and forbid eye contact between women and unrelated men.The law empowers the Taliban’s contentious Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice to enforce it strictly.Ministry enforcers are ordered to discipline offenders, and penalties may include anything from a verbal warning to fines to imprisonment for offenses such as adultery, extramarital sex, lesbianism, taking pictures of living objects, and befriending non-Muslims.Taliban leaders did not comment on Monday’s U.N. assertions, but they have rejected previous international criticism of the morality laws.Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, recently stated that “non-Muslims should educate themselves about Islamic laws and respect Islamic values" before rejecting or raising objections to them. “We find it blasphemous to our Islamic Sharia when objections are raised without understanding it,” he said.No country has officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan, citing human rights concerns, particularly the harsh treatment of women.“Any normalization of engagement with the de facto authorities must be based on demonstrated, measurable, and independently verifiable improvements in human rights,” Bennett stressed in his speech Monday, urging the Islamist Taliban to reverse current policies. Afghanistan’s London embassy to close after its diplomats were disowned by the Taliban (AP)
AP [9/9/2024 8:01 AM, Staff, 31638K, Neutral]
Afghanistan’s embassy in London is being shut down after it was disowned by the country’s Taliban rulers, the U.K. government said Monday.
The Foreign Office said "the embassy is being closed following the dismissal of its staff by the Taliban." Britain does not recognize the Taliban government.
Ambassador Zalmai Rassoul wrote on the social network X that the embassy would shut its doors on Sept. 27 "at the official request of the host country."
Neither the U.K. government nor the ambassador said what would happen to the embassy’s staff.
Diplomats who served under Afghanistan’s former Western-backed government were left in limbo when the Taliban seized Kabul and returned to power in August 2021. Many embassies in Europe and beyond have continued to operate, but have been accused by Kabul of failing to cooperate with the government. Afghanistan has sent Taliban-approved diplomats to some countries, including Pakistan and China.
The U.K. decision comes after the Taliban administration announced in July that it no longer recognized diplomatic missions set up by the former government and that documents issued by embassies in Britain and 13 other mostly European countries were invalid.
Many Taliban leaders are under sanctions, and no country officially recognizes them as Afghanistan’s legitimate rulers, though some nations retain active diplomatic missions in Afghanistan, including Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and China.
The U.K. and other Western countries are grappling with how to provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan without recognizing the Taliban government, which has dramatically curtailed education, employment and personal freedom for women and girls. Afghanistan’s Norway embassy is closing this week, a statement from the mission says (AP)
AP [9/10/2024 3:01 AM, Staff, 456K, Neutral]
Afghanistan’s Norway embassy is closing, the country’s second diplomatic mission to announce closure this week.
The move comes months after the Taliban said they no longer recognize diplomatic missions set up by the former, Western-backed government, including the one in Norway.
In a statement on the social media platform X, the embassy announced the closure would take place on Thursday.“The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, like many other political and consular missions of Afghanistan, will continue its activities with the values of human rights, pluralism and peace, despite the many difficulties and limited resources,” the embassy statement said.
The embassy premises would be handed over to Norway’s Foreign Ministry, according to the statement in Dari.
The U.K. government said on Monday that the London embassy would close on Sept. 27, following the dismissal of its staff by the Taliban authorities in Kabul. Britain does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Diplomats who served under the former Afghan government were left in limbo when the Taliban seized Kabul and returned to power in August 2021. Many embassies in Europe and beyond continued to operate, but have been accused by the Taliban in Kabul of failing to cooperate with the authorities.
The Taliban have sent ambassadors or diplomats to most countries in the region, including China and the United Arab Emirates.
The Taliban were not available for comment on the Oslo and London embassy closures.Afghanistan’s Norway embassy is closing, the country’s second diplomatic mission to announce closure this week.
The move comes months after the Taliban said they no longer recognize diplomatic missions set up by the former, Western-backed government, including the one in Norway.
In a statement on the social media platform X, the embassy announced the closure would take place on Thursday.“The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, like many other political and consular missions of Afghanistan, will continue its activities with the values of human rights, pluralism and peace, despite the many difficulties and limited resources,” the embassy statement said.
The embassy premises would be handed over to Norway’s Foreign Ministry, according to the statement in Dari.
The U.K. government said on Monday that the London embassy would close on Sept. 27, following the dismissal of its staff by the Taliban authorities in Kabul. Britain does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Diplomats who served under the former Afghan government were left in limbo when the Taliban seized Kabul and returned to power in August 2021. Many embassies in Europe and beyond continued to operate, but have been accused by the Taliban in Kabul of failing to cooperate with the authorities.
The Taliban have sent ambassadors or diplomats to most countries in the region, including China and the United Arab Emirates.
The Taliban were not available for comment on the Oslo and London embassy closures. The Taliban Have Reached a New Low. How Can the World Respond? (New York Times – opinion)
New York Times [9/9/2024 4:14 PM, Metra Mehran, 831K, Neutral]
Ever since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in 2021 with promises that — this time — they would be more moderate, they have played a deceitful game.
The Taliban government has introduced one decree after another, incrementally stripping away the rights of women and girls to education, employment, justice, freedom of speech and movement, and it has progressively criminalized their existence outside the home. Taliban leaders reached a new low last month when they published rules that, among other restrictions, make it illegal for a woman’s voice to be heard by male strangers in public.
Each new tightening of the screw has sparked international condemnation — but no real consequences for the Taliban. The mullahs merely wait for the outrage to subside before further entrenching their misogynist rule, undeterred by criticism, the threat of repercussions for violating international laws or even the risk of losing badly needed humanitarian aid.
But a potential new international treaty covering the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity may finally provide the world with more legal and diplomatic leverage — and a new way to hold the Taliban to account for the repression they have unleashed on millions of women in Afghanistan. This is an opportunity that cannot be wasted.
In October a U.N. General Assembly legal committee will meet to decide whether the treaty should move forward to the stage of formal negotiations. The effort to create a better tool for prosecuting crimes against humanity has gained momentum because of growing alarm over conflicts in places such as Myanmar, Ukraine and Gaza, and the treaty includes a proposal to criminalize “gender apartheid.”
Fueled by the Taliban’s actions, the notion of making persons and states that enforce gender apartheid liable for criminal prosecution has gained global traction. Last October, I joined nearly 100 prominent organizations, jurists and individuals, including the Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem, in signing a legal brief that defines gender apartheid as the institutionalized, systematic subjugation of one gender. The brief urges U.N. member states to codify it as a crime against humanity in the proposed treaty. Many countries have indicated support for the proposal.
There is no better way to describe what Afghanistan’s women face than gender apartheid. Over the past three years, the Taliban have issued dozens of edicts curtailing or eliminating the basic rights of women and girls while abolishing laws and agencies that were dedicated to protecting those rights. The former Ministry of Women’s Affairs, for example, was disbanded by the Taliban and its building handed over to a reinstated Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which enforces the current government’s hard-line interpretation of Shariah.
Today, even when a woman is accompanied outdoors by a male relative, as required by law, judgments on the legality of her dress, behavior — and now even her voice — are at the total discretion of the Taliban’s ever-present morality enforcers. If one of them deems that a violation has occurred, a woman can be taken into custody, where many have reportedly been subjected to torture and rape. Afghanistan’s women now suffer from one of the world’s highest rates of gender-based violence, according to the United Nations. Women who complain about such violence have been sent to prison.
Women are now effectively confined to their homes and to the only roles deemed by the mullahs to be appropriate for them: caregiving and childbearing. Since men can be punished by the Taliban if their female family members break the rules, women are, in practice, under the strict control of their male relatives. All of this is counterproductive for the nation: By barring women from working outside the home, including as aid workers, the Taliban are harming the country’s economy and compounding its severe humanitarian crisis.
The Taliban’s new rules drag women even deeper into an abyss that seems to have no bottom. Besides muzzling women in public, the rules require women to completely conceal their faces and bodies and place new restrictions on their freedom of movement. I left Afghanistan after Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, but my work as an activist in exile keeps me in contact with many women still there who tell me that the latest rules add to the hurdles they face in getting access to even their most basic needs. As one woman recently said to me, even speaking to a shopkeeper to buy food is fraught when her voice is now considered awrah — a term referring to the intimate parts of the body that must be concealed to avoid tempting and morally corrupting others.
The codification of gender apartheid in international law will, of course, not automatically eliminate the crime, and bringing perpetrators to account will not be easy. But it’s an important first step toward providing victims and the global community with legal pathways to hold violators responsible and to deter other governments from committing the same crimes.
Beyond the legal aspect, international recognition of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity would have great moral power. The global condemnation of South Africa’s former apartheid regime galvanized political, legal and social resistance efforts that ultimately contributed to that system’s demise and later resulted in racial apartheid being classified as a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
There is still much work to be done. If the U.N. committee agrees to move the treaty to the next phase, a range of legal and other issues will have to be worked out, including the potential inclusion of gender apartheid as a crime, and the treaty would need to be ratified internationally.
Several countries already expressed in previous committee meetings their openness to codifying gender apartheid as a crime against humanity. For this to become a legal reality, many more nations will need to step up and join in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan, particularly those countries that claim to be leaders on women’s rights or have female heads of government.
The alternative is to continue on the current path, in which the world wrings its hands but essentially does nothing to stop the Taliban from rendering Afghanistan’s women faceless, silent and invisible. The Long Shadow of Biden’s Afghan Withdrawal Debacle (Wall Street Journal – opinion)
Wall Street Journal [9/9/2024 5:41 PM, Editorial Board, 810K, Neutral]
A House committee has released a report on the Biden Administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021, and the press is dismissing the effort as partisan. But credit to GOP Rep. Michael McCaul for adding to public knowledge about a debacle whose consequences continue to harm U.S. security and bear on the stakes in November’s election.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee report is a 350-page indictment of President Biden’s choices at every point, a portrait of a Commander in Chief “determined to withdraw.” A litany of military advisers counseled that the Afghan government would collapse if the U.S. removed the small complement of 2,500 troops in country.
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, who ran U.S. Central Command at the time, told the committee “he was unequivocal in his advice to the president.” Mr. Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan conducted a review of U.S. policy in Afghanistan—and allowed Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to attend merely “a single NSC deputies meeting,” the report says. Mr. Sullivan comes in for particular criticism.
The Administration also failed to plan properly for the possible evacuation of Americans. The committee “uncovered that the size of the U.S. Embassy Kabul instead grew during the retrograde,” owing to “a dogmatic insistence” on keeping a diplomatic footprint.
The report says “a significant amount of classified information was left to the Taliban” in the eventual rush to leave. U.S. personnel recalled a scramble to destroy documents and a bonfire in the Embassy courtyard.
The President’s refusal to maintain 2,500 troops meant the U.S. abandoned Bagram Air Base with its secure runway. That meant the evacuation had to be conducted in a panic from Kabul’s civilian airport, with security assistance from the Taliban. That nightmare resulted in 13 dead American service members from a suicide bomber. The report says “at least four Afghan civilians, including children,” fell to their deaths clinging to departing U.S. planes. The White House hailed the evacuation as if it were a Dunkirk-style triumph, when it was really a chaotic humiliation.
The Biden Team says Donald Trump left them little option after he negotiated a deal in 2020 with the Taliban to withdraw in 2021. As we said at the time, Mr. Trump struck a bad deal—not least in excluding the Afghan government from the talks.
But Mr. Biden has shown no such deference to Mr. Trump’s other policies, and the Taliban was violating its Doha promises in any case. Mr. Biden wanted out by the 20th anniversary of 9/11 for the political symbolism, and he imposed his own catastrophic political timetable. He owns that choice.
The press is wrong to consider this old news because the U.S. is still living with the damaging consequences. The report says the Taliban is even now holding seven American citizens, and the fate of Afghan women is horrific. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is again becoming a haven for the jihadists of ISIS-K and al Qaeda. The Islamic State attacks on Moscow and Iran could be preludes to an attack on U.S. targets. The Biden Administration “has not conducted a single strike against ISIS-K since 2021,” the report says.
More broadly, the Afghan withdrawal marked the end of credible American deterrence during the Biden Presidency. You can draw a straight line from the withdrawal to Vladimir Putin’s decision to roll into Ukraine, or why the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen aren’t afraid to fire missiles at commercial ships in the Red Sea.
Vice President Kamala Harris has trumpeted that she was the last person in the room when Mr. Biden decided to withdraw. What did she tell him? Mr. Trump or the moderators at Tuesday’s debate should ask Ms. Harris whether she still stands by Mr. Biden’s decision.
The most important duty of the next President is restoring U.S. deterrence to prevent a larger war. If Ms. Harris defends Biden’s withdrawal, then we’ll know she doesn’t understand the dangerous world we live in. Pakistan
Pakistan Arrests Imran Khan Loyalists, Stoking Tensions Again (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [9/10/2024 2:52 AM, Kamran Haider and Ismail Dilawar, 5.5M, Neutral]
Pakistan arrested top leaders of former premier Imran Khan’s political party on charges of attacking the police in a rally a day earlier, worsening the political strife in the country.
The police arrested Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Gohar Ali Khan, who is leading Khan’s party while he is in jail, according to the group’s text message and the police spokesman Taqi Jawad. The party said 13 key leaders have been picked up by the authorities.
The former cricket star has been languishing in jail for more than a year facing multiple cases after a fallout in relations with the nation’s powerful military. Khan faces charges from corruption to misuse of power and instigating attacks on the state properties. Khan says cases against him are politically motivated and were framed after he was removed from power in April 2022 in a parliamentary vote of confidence backed by the army - a charge denied by the military.
Khan has been convicted in four different cases since last year, all of which have either been overturned or his jail sentence was suspended by higher courts. The candidates loyal to Khan won the most seats in national election in February but failed to form a government as rivals including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif cobbled up a coalition government.“The political uncertainty will intensify,” Zafar Hilaly, a Karachi-based political analyst and a former diplomat, said by phone. “The lines have been crossed by both sides.”
Sharif’s government has seen a delay to secure a final approval from the International Monetary Fund’s executive board for its $7 billion loan that raised concerns among fund managers and traders. The government was expecting the lender to approve the program in August.
The arrests were made a day after these leaders led a rally on Sunday outside the capital, Islamabad, demanding Khan’s release from jail. Khan’s party leader Ali Amin Gandapur, who is the Chief Minister of northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, warned the coalition government to release Khan in two weeks or face consequences. The supporters of Khan clashed with police, which tried to disperse the rally, injuring people from both sides, local media has reported. Top leaders of Imran Khan’s party arrested in Pakistan after being accused of inciting violence (AP)
AP [9/9/2024 3:59 PM, Munir Ahmed, 31638K, Negative]
Pakistani police arrested Monday several top leaders from former imprisoned Prime Minister Imran Khan’s opposition party, a day after some people clashed with the police a mile from a protest calling for his release.
Among the detainees, accused of inciting violence, was the president of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Gohar Khan, who is not related to the former premier. Videos circulating online showed police taking the party head out of his vehicle before whisking him away to a police station. The PTI said in a statement other top party officials were arrested in multiple ongoing raids but didn’t disclose how many were detained.
There was no immediate comment from police.
Tens of thousands of supporters of the ex-prime minister, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in 2022 and whose arrest caused widespread violence, took to the streets Sunday demanding his release. The mostly peaceful event witnessed violence after some clashed with the police on a highway, a mile from the town of Sanjrani, on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad, where the protest took place.
The police said several officers were injured.
At Sanjrani, PTI party leaders addressed the protesters in fiery speeches, threatening to forcefully free Khan from prison if he is not released in the next two weeks. Authorities said charges will be brought against Ali Amin, the top elected official in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, for the two-week ultimatum and inciting people to violence.
His spokesman told a local news channel they had lost contact with him. It remained unclear if he was arrested or went into hiding.
Khan faces a slew of legal cases and has been in prison for nearly a year after being sentenced in a graft case. He is the main rival of current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and remains a popular figure despite these cases, which critics and his party say are politically motivated.
Zulfi Bukhari, Khan’s spokesman, denounced the arrests of the party’s top leaders and supporters. He called the arrests "a knee-jerk reaction" to the "huge numbers" of people who joined the protest that day before. He also said the party leaders were arrested because they "took a firm stance," demanding the popular politician’s release.
PTI in a statement on the social media platform X on Monday said Khan has thanked his supporters for peacefully holding the rally in Islamabad. It quoted Khan as saying: "You have all broken the shackles of fear to stand up & fight." Police Block Pakistani Highway Over Military, Intelligence Meddling (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [9/9/2024 8:30 AM, Staff, 1251K, Neutral]
Hundreds of policemen in northwestern Pakistan were blocking the Indus Highway that links Peshawar with the port city of Karachi on September 9 to protest alleged interference by Pakistan’s military and its intelligence agencies in their daily work.Senior officials of the local administration in the Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province were engaged in talks with the protesting policemen to try to resolve the standoff.Lakki Marwat is located on the periphery with the restive tribal region that borders Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters frequently target policemen and police stations.The protesting policemen accused the intelligence agencies Military Intelligence (MI) and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of interfering in their work.Addressing the gathering, police officer Rashid Khan said the army should leave the district and let the police department work freely."We promise that we would restore peace in the area within three months" if the military officers stopped interference, he said.Criticism of the Pakistani military and especially its powerful ISI have long been considered a red line by some elements in the country. ‘No One Is Safe’: Life Under The Rule Of The Pakistani Taliban (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [9/10/2024 4:17 AM, Abubakar Siddique and Abdul Hai Kakar, 235K, Neutral]
The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group has regained a foothold in northwestern Pakistan, imposing its brutal rule on hundreds of thousands of people.
Those who live under the TTP say the hard-line Islamist group has severely curbed freedoms and rights, including those of women. Assassinations, kidnappings, extortion, and harassment dominate daily life in some areas, they say.
The TTP was ousted from its bases by a major Pakistani military offensive in 2014. But in recent years it has reestablished its control in pockets of Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where it is currently active in 10 of the 34 districts.
The TTP often rules during the night. After dark, government forces frequently retreat to their posts and bases, and many civilians refuse to venture outside for fear of the militants, locals say.
The return of the TTP to the region has triggered an exodus that has seen thousands of professionals, businesspeople, and wealthy landowners flee the region.“No one is safe, and no place is immune from their presence,” said Humayun Mehsud, who recently fled the district of South Waziristan. “They have returned in strength.”
Mehsud said he escaped his village after the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, kidnapped and killed his brother, a government worker.
Mehsud, who now lives in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said the TTP has established its own government in South Waziristan, which is home to around 900,000 people. The militants, he said, control the local economy and have established makeshift courts to settle disputes among locals.‘Atmosphere Of Fear’
The TTP has imposed its extremist version of Islam in areas they control, locals say.
Listening to or playing music is banned. Barbers are barred from shaving or trimming men’s beards. Some girls’ schools have been shut or destroyed and restrictions have been placed on women leaving their homes in some areas.
"They want to limit our lives here the same way the Afghan Taliban did in their country,” said Saleem, a resident of the district of Lakki Marwat.
The TTP and Afghan Taliban have close ideological and organizational ties. Pakistan has accused the Afghan Taliban, which seized power in 2021, of sheltering the Pakistani militants.
Saleem, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, said the TTP has replaced the local authorities in Lakki Marwat, which is home to around 1 million people.
The police, he said, have abandoned their posts after coming under constant TTP attacks and locals are fleeing by their thousands.
Mohsin Tabeer Khan, a political activist and former university lecturer, is among those who have stayed in Lakki Marwat. Critical of the TTP, he has received threats from the militant group.
"The atmosphere of fear is pervasive," said Khan. "Everyone locks themselves up after sunset."
Khan said the TTP has targeted local government workers and security personnel in the district.“If they catch you carrying a government ID card, you have to worry about your life,” he said.
Abubakar Kurmiwal said the TTP has recently made inroads in the district of Kurram.
He said the TTP on August 14 kidnapped his cousin, who was accused of being a government spy. Four days later, his body was found on the side of the road, he said.“Women cannot leave their houses because of these militants,” he said. ‘The militants often force locals to feed them.”
Last month, the only school in his village was closed after all its teachers fled, he said.‘State Authority Collapses’
Mohsin Dawar, a former lawmaker, has witnessed the TTP’s growing influence in his native district of North Waziristan.
First, it started with TTP fighters forcing locals to feed them, said Dawar. Soon after, the militants extorted businessmen and wealthy landowners. Now, they are destroying schools for girls in the district, he said.“As the [Pakistani] Taliban gains strength, the state authority collapses,” said Dawar, who heads the secular National Democratic Movement (NDM) party.“They first want to kill people whose deaths will generate news,” he said. "Everyone is at risk, but those who have some prominence in society are in their crosshairs,” added Dawar, who has survived several assassination attempts.
The TTP’s attacks have surged in Pakistan in recent years. The militant group has often targeted the army and police and largely refrained from hitting civilian targets.
Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based researcher who tracks the TTP, said the group is “primarily targeting” the security forces in an attempt to drive them out of the region.
Pakistan earlier this year said the military would launch a new offensive to root out militants in the region. The planned military operation has been fiercely opposed by locals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the scene of numerous offensives that killed thousands and uprooted millions of civilians in the past.
Protests have similarly been staged against the TTP and its return to the region.
Abdul Wahid, a local leader of the secular Awami National Party, said locals no longer fear the militants or the Pakistani military after enduring years of strife.“There is a lot of political awareness here now,” said Wahid, who is from the district of Khyber. “We will protest and resist peacefully.” Bomb blast hits Pakistan polio team amid national immunization drive (VOA)
VOA [9/9/2024 7:13 AM, Ayaz Gul, 4566K, Negative]
Authorities in northwestern Pakistan said Monday that a roadside bomb explosion injured at least 10 people, including anti-polio vaccinators and police personnel escorting them.The bombing in the South Waziristan district near the border with Afghanistan targeted a convoy carrying polio workers and their guards on the opening day of a nationwide immunization campaign.Area security and hospital officials reported that three health workers and six security personnel were among the victims. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the violence in a region where security forces are fighting militants linked to the outlawed Pakistani Taliban.Last week, Pakistan reported its 17th wild poliovirus case of the year from Islamabad, saying it paralyzed a child and marked the first infection in 16 years in the national capital.Pakistani health officials said in the lead-up to Monday’s polio campaign that it is designed to vaccinate more than 33 million children under five in 115 districts nationwide.Muhammad Anwarul Haq, coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication, stated that the immunization drive would primarily focus on districts where "the virus has been detected and the risk of continued transmission and spread is really high.”Haq encouraged all parents and caregivers to ensure their children get vaccinated, lamenting that “parents have not always welcomed and opened their doors to the vaccinators when they visit their homes.”Pakistan and Afghanistan, which reported nine paralytic polio cases so far in 2024, are the only two remaining polio-endemic countries globally. Polio immunization campaigns have long faced multiple challenges in both countries, such as security and vaccine boycotts, dealing setbacks to the goal of eradicating the virus from the world. A Dutch court convicts 2 Pakistani men over death threats to anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders (AP)
AP [9/9/2024 12:16 PM, Mike Corder, 31638K, Neutral]
A Dutch court convicted two Pakistani religious and political leaders in their absence Monday over calls to their followers to murder anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom that won last year’s general election in the Netherlands.
Wilders has lived under round-the-clock security for nearly 20 years due to the thousands of threats to his life following his outspoken criticism of Islam. His bodyguards and two armed military police sat in the courtroom for Monday’s hearing.
Neither of the defendants was in court to hear the verdicts. They are believed to be in Pakistan and are unlikely to be turned over as Pakistan has no extradition agreement with the Netherlands. Prosecutors said last week that requests they sent to Pakistani authorities seeking legal assistance to serve subpoenas on the two men were not executed.
The court found Muhammad Ashraf Asif Jalali guilty of attempting to provoke murder and incite Wilders’ murder with a terrorist intent and of issuing threats. He was sentenced to 14 years, in line with a sentence demand made last week by prosecutors.
The court said that Jalali is a religious leader whose website claims he has millions of followers around the world. It said his comments to his followers "infringed Wilders’ personal privacy very seriously," and added that such threats "can also harm freedom of expression in general, while a democratic society benefits from being able to exchange opinions without physical danger."
In the second case, the court convicted Saad Rizvi, who leads the radical Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, or TLP, for incitement to murder and threatening Wilders. He was sentenced to four years, two years less than prosecutors had requested. He got a lower sentence in part because the court ruled that his comments posted on social media did not amount to a terrorist crime.
Wilders welcomed the verdicts and sentences from the three-judge panel.
"I’m very pleased about it. It’s really, I believe, the first time ever in Holland that an imam, from abroad in this case, is being sentenced for an a long jail sentence for putting a fatwa on the head of a parliamentarian in the Netherlands. My head. And I’m very pleased about that," he said outside the courtroom.
They are not the first Pakistani men convicted and sentenced in the Netherlands for threats targeting Wilders.
Last year, a former Pakistani cricketer, Khalid Latif, was sentenced to 12 years in prison over allegations that he had offered a reward for the death of Wilders. Latif also did not appear for trial and is not in custody in the Netherlands. Rizvi publicly praised Latif, the court ruled Monday.
Also, in 2019, a Pakistani man was arrested in the Netherlands, convicted and sentenced to 10 years for preparing a terrorist attack on Wilders, who is sometimes called the Dutch Donald Trump.
A prosecutor, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, told judges last week that threats began to be aired on social media after Wilders’ announcement that he was organizing a competition for cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2018. The planned contest sparked angry protests in Pakistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world.
Physical depictions of the prophet are forbidden in Islam and deeply offensive to Muslims.
Wilders told judge last week about the way the threats had affected his life.
"Every day you get up and leave for work in armored cars, often with sirens on, and you are always aware somewhere in the back of your mind that this could be your last day," he said. India
India edges warily toward accepting more Chinese investment (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [9/9/2024 5:00 PM, Kiran Sharma, 2376K, Positive]
As Narendra Modi moves ahead with his third term as prime minister of the world’s most populous nation, there is growing recognition that his Make in India drive to transform the country into a global manufacturing powerhouse is not fully living up to expectations.Despite showcase successes like Apple’s move to make its latest iPhone model in India, progress on targets for industrial investment, factory job creation and expanding manufacturing’s share of gross domestic product has lagged. While the government has offered production subsidies and protective tariffs, many companies have not boosted manufacturing capacity at a rate commensurate with India’s rapid economic growth.Indeed, announced private investment in the April-June period fell to a 20-year quarterly low, according to economists at state-owned Bank of Baroda. In the fiscal year which ended in March, total foreign direct investment dropped for the second year in a row.For some voices inside and outside the Indian government, the solution is to allow more Chinese investment into the country.Hundreds of proposals from Chinese companies such as electric car maker BYD have been stalled or rejected by New Delhi in recent years amid a military faceoff along the two countries’ frontier. The sheer volume of submissions, though, reflects the keen interest of Chinese businesses in building capacity in India at a time when others are hesitating and as they seek to diversity production away from their homeland due to trade tensions with the West and rising costs.There are some signs the Modi government may be easing up on its controls on Chinese investment. In July, the Indian Ministry of Finance endorsed the notion of more Chinese investment in its annual economic review. A senior Commerce Department official then briefed reporters last month that some policy changes are in the works. Meanwhile, a number of long-pending investment proposals from Chinese companies, including one from Luxshare Precision Industry, the second-largest assembler of iPhones, have quietly been approved in recent weeks."Money is available only in China, particularly for investment outside, and they have the companies that are looking for expansion also," said N.R. Bhanumurthy, director of the Madras School of Economics in Chennai. "There is nothing wrong," he said, in India widening its door to Chinese investment.Yet this remains a highly charged question in New Delhi. Asked two weeks ago after a news conference about reports of the recent investment approvals, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal told Nikkei Asia that there has been no rethinking of the government’s stance. "A report is just a report" until the government officially says otherwise, he said.It is clear the Modi government has many considerations to weigh as it balances its desire to boost domestic manufacturing with avoiding increased dependence on China, which continues to press aggressive claims on Indian territory, including most of the state of Arunachal Pradesh."On the investments issue, I think, to me, it’s common sense that investments from China would be scrutinized," said External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at an Aug. 31 conference. "I think the border and the state of relations between India and China call for it.""Let’s not make out as though it’s only India which has a China problem," he added. "[Yet] India has a China problem, a special China problem that is over and above the world’s general China problem."A key dimension of India’s China problem is the massive trade imbalance between the two nations.While bilateral trade rose 4% to $118.4 billion in the last financial year, the northbound component amounted to just $16.66 billion, or 14.1%, of the total. While India mostly imported manufactured goods from China, especially electrical equipment, its shipments north were predominantly commodities like iron ore.By loosening up on Chinese investment, New Delhi might be able to chip away at its trade imbalance with Beijing, argues Indian Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran, who authored the Finance Ministry’s annual review. "We have a large trade imbalance with them, and it also means you are making yourselves vulnerable," Nageswaran said at the report’s release. "Whereas if you balance, if you choose areas in which you can have investment inside the country, then you also have a chance of Indian entrepreneurs picking up the know-how and at one point also becoming self-sufficient."Until now, China has played a minor role in India’s foreign direct investment (FDI).While India’s FDI figures are distorted by investment treaties that mean a disproportionate volume of inbound capital is routed through the island nations of Mauritius and Singapore, China ranked at just No. 32 among India’s FDI sources during the last fiscal year, with flows of only $42.29 million, according to Indian Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade data. While Chinese inflows have been particularly meagre since New Delhi tightened controls on FDI from bordering nations in 2020, they were hardly robust before that, with China ranking No. 22 for cumulative investments since 2000.Some Chinese companies have found success in India by joining hands with strong local groups to advance their ambitions. SAIC Motor’s MG brand has become the second-biggest player in India’s EV market via a joint venture with local steelmaker JSW. Online fashion retailer Shein is now preparing to launch sales in India through a partnership with Reliance Industries, the country’s largest conglomerate.Still, whether or not greater Chinese investment would boost exports to China, Nageswaran argues it would enable India’s overall exports to grow significantly."As the U.S. and Europe shift their immediate sourcing away from China, it is more effective to have Chinese companies invest in India and then export the products to these markets rather than importing from China, adding minimal value, and then re-exporting them," the annual review he led said. "Focusing on FDI from China seems more promising for boosting India’s exports to the U.S., similar to how East Asian economies did in the past."Some Indian scholars believe increased Chinese investment could also help defuse political tensions."Obviously, China will remain the foremost security challenge for India, but if Chinese companies create large assets via investment in India and aid Indian economic growth, it might reduce the large uneasiness associated with the strategic asymmetries between India and China," said Prerna Gandhi, an associate fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation, a New Delhi-based security think tank.Last month, New Delhi moved to address complaints from Chinese and non-Chinese companies about the difficulty of arranging visas for Chinese technicians dispatched to train local workers by launching a dedicated online portal for application processing.
“It has been really difficult to apply for work visas for our Chinese colleagues," said a supply chain manager at a company involved in the production of Google smartphones in India. "Very often applying for 10 people would only get five visas."Yet the notion that Chinese investment might reduce New Delhi’s trade deficit with Beijing is undercut by expectations that Chinese companies opening factories in India will seek to import industrial inputs from their homeland."The point is that in trade, you are dependent upon all the countries in the value chain," said Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal last month. "So as long as you are part of the value chain, there will be imports, there will be exports. ... When we export more, obviously it will require more inputs."Moreover, even scholars who endorse the notion of more Chinese investment argue that New Delhi has to be selective about which industries to open up. "There should be some strategic investments that will support India’s sectors like EVs and the chip industry," said Bhanumurthy of the Madras School of Economics.New Delhi’s rethinking of economic links with Beijing since border clashes in 2020 has extended well beyond FDI. Companies including phone makers Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo have been targeted in tax and customs evasion probes. Over 200 Chinese phone apps, including popular social platforms TikTok and WeChat, have been banned. New Delhi has declined Chinese calls to resume direct flights suspended amid the COVID pandemic. Any revived exchange of media correspondents remains on hold too.Wariness in India of China’s intentions thus makes some observers question the potential benefit of more investment.Skeptic Ajay Srivastava, founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative in New Delhi and a former government trade negotiator, queries China’s willingness to allow significant transfers of industrial know-how. "Allowing Chinese firms to ‘Make in India’ risks overwhelming domestic industries, potentially leading to the closure of many Indian businesses," he wrote in a rebuttal to Nageswaran’s review. "Dependence on Chinese firms for key manufacturing capabilities could expose India to supply chain vulnerabilities and geopolitical risks."The worst outcome will be psychological: India will lose its confidence in manufacturing," said Srivastava, arguing instead that New Delhi should pursue deregulation and lower operating costs to boost industrial production. "We need to reduce business costs at every step, from start to port, and improve infrastructure and ease of doing business."Economist Ashwani Mahajan, national co-convenor of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, a self-reliance movement indirectly linked to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, argues that looking inward is a better choice than either Chinese investment or Chinese imports."When there are two bads, why choose any one of them?" he said. "The idea is we should stick to our [self-reliant India] plan. Whether it is defense, digital economy, telecom, or electronics, India is doing well in every sector."All in all, New Delhi is unlikely to make more than "tweaks here and there" to its policies on Chinese investment while prioritizing national security measures in the medium term, said Harsh V. Pant, a professor of international relations at King’s College London."One of the lessons that I think has been learned is that it can be very harmful or disadvantageous for India to have blanket endorsement of China’s role in [the] Indian economy," he said. "Unless India continues to grow economically, unless India develops its own manufacturing base, it would be very difficult to deal with China on a long-term basis." India’s Modi had advantage in ‘controlled’ election, opposition leader Gandhi says (Reuters)
Reuters [9/10/2024 4:58 AM, Shivam Patel, 37270K, Negative]
India’s opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday he did not view this year’s two-month general elections as a free exercise, but rather as one structured to deliver an advantage to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, without citing evidence.But Modi suffered a rare setback instead, as the opposition made a strong showing, costing his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) its outright majority and forcing it to turn to coalition partners for the first time in a decade to retain power."They (BJP) had a huge financial advantage and they had locked our bank accounts," Gandhi said at an event at Georgetown University in Washington."The Election Commission was doing what they wanted. The entire campaign was structured so that Mr. Modi could do his thing across the country," he added."I don’t view it as a free election. I view it as a controlled election."Gandhi said, "I don’t believe that in a fair election, the BJP would come anywhere near 240 seats. I would be surprised."Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 240 seats on its own, or 32 short of half the 543 members in parliament’s lower house, but formed the government, as his 15-party National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 293 seats.The opposition INDIA alliance led by Gandhi’s centrist Congress party won 230 seats. Congress on it own won 99.The Election Commission did not respond to the comments.In response, Agricultural Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Gandhi was trying to besmirch the image of the nation, an activity he sought to portray as treasonous."Due to being defeated consecutively for the third time, anti-BJP ... anti-Modi sentiments have taken root in his mind," Chouhan told reporters."He is constantly trying to malign the image of the country, which is equivalent to treason."In the weeks before the vote, Gandhi’s Congress party received income tax notices, seeking payments of about 35 billion rupees ($417 million), which it described at the time as politically motivated.It was eventually given time to resolve the payments until after the vote.The accusation that voting was not entirely free is not new, with Congress and some allies in the opposition alliance having aired accusations of voting machines having been tampered with in prior elections since Modi won power in 2014.In public denials, the Election Commission has said its systems are secure and cannot be interfered with. India’s Supreme Court has also rejected petitions seeking a return to the old system of balloting. India says mpox case involving traveller is not from current outbreak (Reuters)
Reuters [9/9/2024 12:48 PM, Pushkala Aripaka, 37270K, Neutral]
India said on Monday a case of mpox it reported in a traveller a day earlier was from the older strain of the virus, not from the new, fast-spreading strain that had led the outbreak to be classified as a global health emergency."Laboratory testing has confirmed the presence of mpox virus of the West African clade 2 in the patient," the government said in a statement. "This case is an isolated case, similar to the 30 earlier cases reported in India from July 2022 onwards."India has so far not recorded a case of the new mpox strain but the government earlier on Monday issued an advisory to all states in the country to remain vigilant and be prepared to address potential cases.The caution comes amid the rapid spread of the new strain of mpox worldwide that has prompted the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a global health emergency for the second time in two years.Mpox typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions, and is usually mild but can kill. Children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, are all at higher risk of complications. The U.S.-India relationship will shape the 21st century (The Hill – opinion)
The Hill [9/9/2024 1:00 PM, Arthur Herman and Aparna Pande, 19591K, Positive]
The key foreign relationships for American presidents have historically been with democratic allies in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. But there is one nation that is not a formal security ally but can become a natural partner for U.S. national security and economic interests: India.In fact, how America approaches its relations with India — the world’s largest democracy, its most populous nation and very soon its third-largest economy — may determine the balance of global power for the 21st century.Since the end of World War II, American grand strategy has focused on building a network of global alliances that will halt the rise of a peer competitor. As the U.S. looks for a strong strategic partner to contain China’s current hegemonic ambitions, India stands out as the one country whose economic might, military potential and political values can decisively shift the balance of power toward the U.S. and other democracies around the world.Over 17 percent of the world’s population lives in India. India is poised to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2030 (its GDP stands at $3.94 trillion and is expected to hit $10 trillion by 2035). Its economic growth has stayed around 7 percent per year for the last decade, and it promises to remain robust in the future.India also has a vast labor force of 594 million that is projected to hit around 1 billion by 2030, with a youthful median age of 28 that promises decades of labor productivity. India’s human capital has already acquired a global reputation, especially in the high-tech sector, while India’s educational institutions produce 1.5 million engineers annually. That’s more than China with its 1.38 million graduates per year (while the U.S. produces 197,000 annually).As of April 2024, India had over 127,000 recognized startups with over 107 “unicorns” — i.e. startups valued above $1 billion. India’s IT industry is likely to hit the $350 billion mark by 2026 and contribute 10 percent towards GDP. India has over 450 million smartphone users, one of the reasons why the Indian government has pushed projects like digital public infrastructure as a means to address socio-economic disparities and provide access to basic facilities to millions.India — the fourth-largest military in the world after the U.S., China and Russia — has been steadily modernizing its armed forces, including deploying an impressive nuclear arsenal and missile defense system. Its two aircraft carriers and two nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines give the Indian navy a blue-water capability that would make it a valuable ally in defending a “free and open” Indo-Pacific.India would also make an impressive ally in space, with its 124 active satellites circling the globe. In fact, India is one of only four countries to make a successful moon landing, on a budget of just $74 million, smaller than many Hollywood movies.As for cultural affinities with the U.S. and the West, it’s important to remember that India is the largest English-speaking nation in the world. It’s a vocal supporter of the global norms and multilateral trade institutions such as GATT and the WTO, which sustain a liberal global order. While seeing itself as a future major power — even superpower — India is positioned as the voice of equity in international bodies, demanding that more powerful nations voluntarily cede some of their influence for the sake of greater fairness in world affairs.India and the U.S. share a similar vision of global security and multilateral architecture, even though they have different views based on their geography and history. For example, while the U.S. sees Russia as a tangible threat to its Atlantic alliance, India views Russia as a key geopolitical counterweight to China.For the partnership to really deepen, however, there are important steps both sides must take.First, India needs to open up its still relatively closed economy, a legacy from its socialist past. It needs to undertake the next generation of market reforms, bolster manufacturing, continue to build up its infrastructure and invest even more in its human capital. India also needs to increase its defense spending from the current 1.6 percent to 2.5 to 3 percent, and diversify its suppliers to include more important ones from Western countries, including the U.S.Second, the U.S. would benefit from American companies treating the Indian market as their alternative to China in the civilian manufacturing, high-tech and defense-industrial spheres. We also need to respect the fact that as a post-colonial country with a world-class economy, and one with a 5,000-year-old civilization, India will always see itself as a global power, not as a junior American ally, with strategic interests separate from — albeit largely aligned with — those of the U.S.The emergence of India as a global power will permanently alter the dynamic of competition between the U.S. and China. A president who can correctly guide a closer strategic partnership between India and America will not only counterbalance China’s global ambitions and economic and military might, but could trigger a new era of growth and prosperity for both countries — indeed, for all three. NSB
US plans economic talks with Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus (Financial Times)
Financial Times [9/10/2024 12:35 AM, James Politi and John Reed, 14.2M, Neutral]
The US is set to launch economic talks this week with the interim government of Bangladesh, including its leader Muhammad Yunus, as Washington seeks to help one of the world’s biggest garment exporters boost its economy.
The discussions to be held in Dhaka on September 14 and 15 represent the first high-level economic discussions between the US and Bangladesh since a student-led protest movement toppled long-serving authoritarian leader Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India.
Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel laureate, microlending pioneer and founder of Grameen Bank, took the helm of the interim government as its chief adviser last month and is expected to participate in the talks along with other senior Bangladeshi officials.
The US delegation will be led by the Treasury department and include officials from the state department, the US Agency for International Development and the Office of the US Trade Representative.“The United States is optimistic that, by implementing needed reforms, Bangladesh can address its economic vulnerabilities and build a foundation for continued growth and increased prosperity,” Brent Neiman, assistant US Treasury secretary for international finance, told the Financial Times.
He said Washington planned to “underscore US support for Bangladesh’s continued engagement with the IMF and other international financial institutions” as Bangladesh “seeks to strengthen economic growth by deepening financial sector reforms, improving fiscal sustainability and reducing corruption”.
Bangladesh, once a star regional economic performer, turned to the IMF for a bailout worth $4.5bn in 2022 after the Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine disrupted world markets and caused its energy and other import costs to soar.
The discussions with the US are expected to span fiscal and monetary policy, as well as the health of the financial system. US officials will also meet representatives of the private sector.
The collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government last month followed weeks of violent protests during which about 500 people were killed. The turmoil disrupted south Asia’s second-largest economy and its economically vital garments sector, which is the second largest after China and a major employer. Industry officials told the FT last month that some chains had shifted orders to rival producers in south-east Asia.
The US has called on Bangladesh to implement reforms in the industry, including the decriminalisation of trade unions, and Yunus has called for labour reforms to help garment producers win more orders.
Sheikh Hasina’s overthrow was greeted with jubilation from opponents who saw her as a tyrant, but the development was widely seen in India — the ousted leader’s top foreign supporter — as advancing US foreign policy aims that could undermine India’s interests and influence in a country it sees as a leading regional ally.
The events have revived lingering antipathy towards the US in India, which backed Sheikh Hasina’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence, while Washington supported Pakistan.
Last month, the US state department denied it played any role. “Any implication that the United States was involved in Sheikh Hasina’s resignation is absolutely false,” Vedant Patel, a state department spokesperson, told reporters. Bangladesh taking steps to extradite former PM Hasina from India (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [9/9/2024 7:38 AM, Staff, 25768K, Negative]
Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) says it is taking steps to secure the extradition of ousted leader Sheikh Hasina from neighbouring India.The chief prosecutor of the body said on Sunday that the legal process to bring Hasina back to Bangladesh, to face trial for the deadly violence waged by the authorities before she was unseated by mass protests in August, has started.Following weeks of protests and a vicious crackdown by authorities, Hasina fled by a military helicopter on August 5 and landed at an airbase near New Delhi seeking refuge. Her presence in India has affected relations between Dhaka and New Delhi, and a diplomatic dispute is possible as Bangladesh moves to bring her back to face trial.Mohammad Tajul Islam, the ICT’s chief prosecutor, said Hasina, accused of ruling the country with an iron fist during her 15-year reign, is being sought for her role in overseeing “massacres” during the uprising.“As the main perpetrator has fled the country, we will start the legal procedure to bring her back,” he told reporters.“Bangladesh has a criminal extradition treaty with India which was signed in 2013, while Sheikh Hasina’s government was in power,” Islam added.“As she has been made the main accused of the massacres in Bangladesh, we will try to legally bring her back to Bangladesh to face trial.”The ICT was set up by Hasina in 2010 to investigate atrocities during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.Diplomatic strainAccused of widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of her political opponents, Hasina’s government was brought down as weeks of student-led demonstrations escalated into mass protests.More than 600 people were killed in the weeks leading up to Hasina’s ouster, according to a preliminary United Nations report, suggesting the death toll was “likely an underestimate”.Hasina, 76, has not been seen in public since fleeing. Dhaka has revoked her diplomatic passport.A clause in the extradition treaty between the two countries states that extradition might be refused if the offence has a “political character”.However, Bangladeshi officials have made it clear that Dhaka will push hard to bring the deposed leader back to face justice.Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after the uprising, last week said Hasina should “keep quiet” while exiled in India until she is brought home for trial.“If India wants to keep her until the time Bangladesh wants her back, the condition would be that she has to keep quiet,” Yunus told the Press Trust of India news agency.His government is under significant public pressure to demand her extradition, with anti-India sentiment increasing among the wider population in Bangladesh.The general secretary of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, told Indian media that Hasina must be tried in Bangladesh.The pressure has put India in a tricky position and soured relations between New Delhi and Dhaka. Anger drives Sri Lanka’s first vote after meltdown (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [9/9/2024 10:06 PM, Amal Jayasinghe, 88008K, Neutral]
Retired Sri Lankan accountant Milton Perera had hoped to use his vote in upcoming presidential elections to vent his fury at political mismanagement and an economic crisis that slashed healthcare.Instead, his widow Pushpalatha will cast her ballot in the September 21 polls in memory of her husband, mourning a man who died with chronic asthma unable to afford medicine.Like many disillusioned by the chaos of direct protest, and ground down by tough day-to-day living, Pushpalatha says she will vote to show her anger at established politicians she blames for the mess.Pushpalatha, 70, from the rundown and congested Slave Island district of the capital Colombo, said her 75-year-old husband died in December, just a few months after government welfare payments stopped."I had no money to buy his medicines," Pushpalatha told AFP, while clutching a photo of her late husband, sitting in a damp home with crumbling walls.It will be the first vote since an unprecedented economic crisis two years ago led to months-long food and fuel shortages, with protesters in July 2022 toppling strongman president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.President Ranil Wickremesinghe, elected by parliament to lead the interim government, is seeking a mandate to continue tightening fiscal screws in line with a $2.9 billion IMF bailout loan to stabilise the economy.While the economy of the South Asian island shows "signs of stabilisation", according to the World Bank, poverty rates rose for the fourth year in a row last year.Around a quarter of its 22 million people lived below the poverty line in 2023, the Bank says.Poverty will remain above 22 percent until 2026, it estimates.Pushpalatha said her late husband -- the same age as 75-year-old Wickremesinghe -- had previously been provided free life-saving inhalers through a now scrapped government programme."We couldn’t afford it," she said.Nearly four million Sri Lankans were still facing "moderate food insecurity" in 2023 a year after the crisis peaked, according to a UN Food and Agriculture Organization report.The same report said that more than a quarter of all households had employed "crisis-level strategies" by cutting health expenses, taking children out of school or selling off farming equipment to make ends meet.The country has also haemorrhaged talent, with many families spending savings to send at least one relative abroad.Murtaza Jafferjee, head of Advocata, a Colombo-based independent policy think tank, said the cost of living was the key election issue."There is a significant number of voters who are trying to send a strong message to the established political parties, that they are very disappointed with the way this country has been governed," Jafferjee said.But he expects that will be expressed in protest votes, not street marches."Anger on the street is not manifesting... because there is a realisation of many of these people that there is nothing that they can do," he added.Ousted ex-president Rajapaksa is not running in the polls.Instead, analysts say voters may shun the tough economic policies of Wickremesinghe -- who has doubled taxes, cut subsidies and raised energy prices while president.It could also deter voters from his key rival Sajith Premadasa, 57 -- the largely ideologically aligned opposition leader -- and push voters left.That would benefit the National People’s Power (NPP) coalition, led by Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, 55, head of the Marxist People’s Liberation Front (JVP), Jafferjee suggested.Dissanayaka came a distant third in the 2019 presidential polls, taking just 3.0 percent, but considered far stronger this round.While Dissanayaka has been in government -- he was briefly agriculture minister -- his party’s relative inexperience could woo voters frustrated at veteran politicians.Jafferjee, however, is sceptical about all the promises from the main contenders -- including Dissanayaka -- to raise salaries while reducing taxes, and follow IMF requirements.Sri Lanka has not begun repaying external loans after a sovereign default in April 2022, when the foreign debt was at $46 billion."The reality is that we had to go through some painful medicine to repair ourselves," Jafferjee said. "So we are on a very tight fiscal contractionary path".In Pushpalatha’s Slave Island district -- the historic area where the Portuguese imprisoned slaves from East Africa -- there is little optimism polls will bring change."They usually come and promise a lot, but don’t deliver," said Pushpalatha, describing the rallies by politicians to woo voters."I don’t have much hope. I can’t think of anyone who will help us." Central Asia
Kazakh Ex-President Nazarbaev Meets With Uzbek Leader Mirziyoev (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [9/9/2024 5:43 AM, Staff, 1251K, Negative]
The Ozbekiston-24 state television channel and other state media outlets in Uzbekistan reported over the weekend that former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev visited the Uzbek city of Bukhara last week, where it said he held "unofficial" talks with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev.Nazarbaev disappeared from public life and the political scene after unprecedented antigovernment protests in 2022.Neither Nazarbaev’s website nor his representatives said anything about the September 6 trip.There did not appear to be any coverage of the visit among Kazakh media outlets.It remains unclear what Nazarbaev and Mirziyoev discussed.Nazarbaev, 84, resigned as president in 2019, picking longtime ally Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev as his successor. But he retained sweeping powers as the head of the Security Council, enjoying almost limitless powers as "elbasy," the leader of the nation.Meanwhile, many of his relatives continued to hold important posts in the government, security agencies, and profitable business and energy groups.Nazarbaev and his clan lost influence in the oil-rich Central Asian nation after unprecedented antigovernment protests in January 2022, which started over a fuel price hike and spread across Kazakhstan over underlying discontent over the cronyism that had long plagued the country.At least 238 people were killed across Kazakhstan, mostly in the country’s largest city, Almaty, after the protests turned violent.Toqaev subsequently stripped Nazarbaev of the security council role, taking it over himself.Since then, several of Nazarbaev’s relatives and others close to the family have been pushed out of their positions or resigned. Some have been arrested on corruption charges.Critics said at the time that Toqaev’s initiatives were mainly cosmetic and would not change the nature of the autocratic system in a country beleaguered for years by rampant corruption and nepotism.In December 2023, Nazarbaev unexpectedly appeared in Moscow, where he held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Before that, Nazarbaev had met with Putin in Moscow in June 2022.Weeks before the deadly unrest in Kazakhstan and two months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Nazarbaev, Toqaev, and authoritarian Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka held talks with Putin in Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg. Kazakh Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Opposition Politician’s Appeal (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [9/9/2024 2:53 PM, Staff, 1251K, Neutral]
Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court on September 9 refused to hear an appeal filed by the leader of the Democratic Party of Kazakhstan, Zhanbolat Mamai, against a parole-like six-year prison sentence, citing "lack of reasons" for the appeal. Mamai was sentenced in April 2023, and a court of appeals in June upheld the ruling. Mamai, his supporters, and a rights group have insisted the case is politically motivated. The charges are related to the unprecedented mass protests in January 2022 that turned deadly. Mamai has been trying to register his party for years, but claims he is being prevented from doing so by the government. Russia pressing Central Asian states to embrace nuclear power (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [9/9/2024 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K, Neutral]
Hoping to drum up some much-needed cash to help fuel the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine, Rosatom, Russia’s state-controlled nuclear entity, is hyping atomic energy as a “green” solution to Central Asia’s power problems. But Rosatom’s efforts to assuage Central Asian citizens on the safety and greenness of Russian nuclear solutions are undermined by reports of haphazard operational practices.
The rickety electricity grid across Central Asia is struggling to meet rising demand, with even Kazakhstan, the region’s most economically advanced state, grappling with power outages. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are all considering nuclear energy as a potential solution to electricity-supply challenges. The main concern about building nuclear plants in Central Asia involves safety in a seismic zone: the region is prone to powerful earthquakes.
Rosatom is hard at work trying to reassure Central Asian leaders and citizens alike that it has the answers to meet the region’s nuclear needs.
In an interview with Kyrgyzstan-based Kaktus Media, Dmitry Konstantinov, Rosatom’s chief representative in the Central Asian state, attempted to dispel concerns about the safety standards of Russian-designed reactors. Such concerns are not just connected to the legacy of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, but also such tragedies as the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk in 2000. “The increased seismic activity of the region [Central Asia] requires increased attention to ensuring the safety of a nuclear power plant,” Konstantinov said. “Modern Russian reactors … fully comply with them [safety standards].”
The reactors that Rosatom is seeking to build in Central Asia are small, low-power models, dubbed RITM-200N. So far, these reactors have been deployed mainly at sea, powering three Russian icebreakers plying Arctic waters, as well as on the floating nuclear reactor Akademik Lomonosov.
Konstantinov asserted that “active and passive safety systems” allow RITM-200N reactors to operate safely under “high shock loads,” thereby protecting against accidents caused by earthquakes registering 8 on the Richter Scale. To sharpen his sales pitch, Konstantinov noted nuclear power generation does not emit greenhouse gases and is compatible with other “green” energy sources, including wind and solar power. He said nuclear power can act as a “base,” working in tandem with renewable energy sources to "smooth out peak loads.”“Only Russia has experience in the construction of low-power stations,” Konstantinov claimed.
In the interview, he made it sound like Rosatom was close to finalizing a deal with Kyrgyzstan to build a nuclear plant with six RITM-200N reactors with a total capacity of 330 Megawatts annually, and an operational lifespan of up to 60 years. Kyrgyz officials have not made any public announcements concerning a decision to build a plant, although the country’s parliament earlier in 2024 approved the resumption of uranium mining.
Uzbekistan in June signed an agreement with Russia to install up to six low-power reactors, each with a generating capacity of 55 MW, similar to those planned in Kyrgyzstan. Kazakhstan will be holding a nationwide referendum in October on whether to proceed with plans to build a nuclear plant there. Kazakh officials have not disclosed which entity would get the contract to build the plant, if the referendum is approved.
While the designs of modern Russian nuclear reactors may meet international safety standards, Russia has a history of haphazard practices in the operation of plants, as well as in the handling of nuclear waste. In late 2023, for example, Rosatom used a cargo vessel with a history of safety violations to deliver a fresh supply of nuclear fuel to the Akademik Lomonosov. Last April, a state of emergency was declared in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk due to a radiation leak.
Russia likewise has a spotty legacy of disposing of spent nuclear fuel. With Russian resources focused on supporting its war effort in Ukraine, the state’s ability to pursue cleanup efforts of nuclear pollution in the Arctic are on hold. Indo-Pacific
Heavy Fighting Breaks Out Again On Afghan-Pakistan Border (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [9/9/2024 8:19 AM, Staff, 1251K, Negative]
Fighting erupted again on September 9 between Taliban forces and Pakistani security forces in the Kurram-Khost border areas, with eyewitnesses saying the violence included heavy weaponry and one elder saying a Pakistani soldier had been killed, although that could not be confirmed.The outbreak follows reports of intense clashes in the same border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan that caused multiple casualties over the weekend.Locals on the Afghan side of the border told Radio Mashaal that the latest fighting started around 1 p.m. local time on September 9.Residents were said to be fleeing the villages of Palotsa and Setwan in the Zazai Maidan district of Afghanistan’s Khost Province.A local elder told Radio Mashaal that a Pakistani soldier had been killed but Radio Mashaal could not independently confirm that report.Intermittent outbreaks of violence have heightened concerns about security in the region, with recent fighting sparked by an attempt to erect a security outpost on the Afghan side that Pakistani troops tried to stop.Islamabad insists mutual agreements preclude the construction of new security posts by either side.The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan has disputed Pakistani accusations that it is allowing gunmen linked to the outlawed Tehrik-e Taliban to shelter in the area and launch cross-border attacks in Pakistan.The Taliban has moved reinforcement troops, artillery, and tanks to the area.Radio Mashaal’s Khost correspondent said the Taliban was preventing locals and journalists from sharing information with media or outsiders. Twitter
Afghanistan
Bilal Sarwary@bsarwary
[9/9/2024 6:07 PM, 254.4K followers, 45 retweets, 46 likes]
The Taliban has initiated a nationwide campaign to search people’s cell phones at checkpoints across Afghanistan. Officially, the group states that the purpose of the campaign is to discourage Afghans from downloading music and other "non-Islamic" content. However, reports indicate that the searches extend beyond this, with Taliban fighters scrutinizing personal communications and checking the apps installed on people’s phones. Individuals found with the encrypted messaging app Signal on their devices face immediate arrest for further investigation. The Taliban claims that those working for Western intelligence agencies often use the app to communicate. This move has raised concerns among many Afghans, who see it as a broader attempt to control information and monitor dissent.
Jahanzeb Wesa@JahanzebWesa
[9/9/2024 6:16 PM, 3.7K followers, 1 like]
Free Afghanistan The people of Afghanistan remain trapped under brutal terrorism, & the world must not forget their suffering. Stand in solidarity with those fighting for freedom in Afghanistan on 9/11 an important day the world declared the war against terrorism decades ago.
Jahanzeb Wesa@JahanzebWesa
[9/9/2024 2:29 PM, 3.7K followers, 6 retweets, 15 likes]
Richard Bennet: at —HRC update reveals severe Taliban human rights violations, including systematically erasing women and targeting marginalized communities. The recent ban on women’s voices highlights the crisis. —The Taliban acts with impunity; accountability is crucial.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[9/9/2024 2:27 PM, 236.2K followers, 377 retweets, 959 likes]
The silence of Western feminists and Afghan men about the plight of 20 million women in Afghanistan is utterly disgraceful. These women have been deprived of all their rights— for more than three years—while both global and national discourse remains largely absent.
Habib Khan@HabibKhanT
[9/9/2024 1:53 PM, 236.2K followers, 355 retweets, 1K likes]
A lone woman, dressed in men’s attire, protests on the streets of Kabul: “I am a woman and I don’t have a male guardian”. Under the Taliban’s vice and virtue law, women are forbidden from leaving home without a male escort.
Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office@amnestysasia
[9/9/2024 4:13 AM, 91.3K followers, 6 retweets, 8 likes]
AFGHANISTAN: Open Letter on Afghanistan to the Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States of the United Nations Human Rights Council https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa11/8500/2024/en/ Pakistan
Government of Pakistan@GovtofPakistan
[9/9/2024 2:30 PM, 3.1M followers, 25 retweets, 97 likes]
Islamabad: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif meets the Parliamentarians at the dinner hosted in honour of the Parliamentarians of Coalition parties of the Government.
Government of Pakistan@GovtofPakistan
[9/9/2024 2:36 PM, 3.1M followers, 2 retweets, 4 likes]
Islamabad: Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif addresses at the dinner hosted in honour of the Parliamentarians of Coalition parties of the Government.
Imran Khan@ImranKhanPTI
[9/9/2024 5:59 AM, 20.8M followers, 21K retweets, 43K likes]
I am grateful to Allah for giving my people strength & courage to rise against tyranny. I want to thank all our people who came to our Islamabad jalsa overcoming all obstructions & impediments placed along the way. You have all broken the shackles of fear to stand up & fight for Haqeeqi Azadi. I am proud of each & everyone of you. We will succeed in our struggle inshaAllah as we keep our belief in “اِیَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَ اِیَّاكَ نَسْتَعِیْن”
Hamid Mir@HamidMirPAK
[9/9/2024 2:37 PM, 8.5M followers, 2.1K retweets, 6K likes]
Supreme Court Bar Association not only condemned the arrest of senior lawyers but also declared that a new law with the name of peaceful protest & public order act 2024 used for these arrests is unconstitutional.
Hamid Mir@HamidMirPAK
[9/10/2024 2:59 AM, 8.5M followers, 895 retweets, 2.3K likes]
Ali Muhammad Khan blasted all those who ordered a crackdown inside the Parliament House last night to arrest PTI MNA’s. His speech in parliament session was coming live but suddenly PTV censored his speech and he disappeared from all TV channels. #StopCensorship
Ashok Swain@ashoswai
[9/9/2024 2:07 PM, 615K followers, 3.7K retweets, 8.7K likes]
In Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister, Imran Khan party PTI’s Ali Amin Gandapur, is missing. In Modi’s India, opposition Chief Ministers are being put in jail, in Munir’s Pakistan, police are looking for opposition chief ministers to put them in jail.
Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office@amnestysasia
[9/10/2024 1:08 AM, 91.3K followers, 1.3K retweets, 2.1K likes]
PAKISTAN: The new Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Act threatens the right to protest “The Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Act 2024 is yet another attack on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly in Pakistan which has a long history of enacting draconian legislation to criminalize peaceful protest and suppress the expression of dissent," said Babu Ram Pant, Deputy Regional Director for South Asia at @amnesty. READ MORE: https://amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/09/pakistan-the-new-peaceful-assembly-and-public-order-act-threatens-the-right-to-protest #ProtecttheProtest India
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[9/9/2024 7:44 AM, 101.7M followers, 4.3K retweets, 24K likes]
Over the last decade, we have honoured countless grassroots level heroes with the #PeoplesPadma. The life journeys of the awardees have motivated countless people. Their grit and tenacity are clearly visible in their rich work. In the spirit of making the system more transparent and participative, our Government has been inviting the people to nominate others for various Padma awards. I am happy that several nominations have come. The last day to nominate is the 15th of this month. I urge more people to nominate inspiring personalities for the Padma Awards. You can do so on- https://awards.gov.in
Dr. S. Jaishankar@DrSJaishankar
[9/9/2024 8:03 AM, 3.2M followers, 904 retweets, 8.4K likes]
A useful conversation with FM Sergey Lavrov of Russia today on the sidelines of the GCC meeting.
Rahul Gandhi@RahulGandhi[9/10/2024 1:16 AM, 26.9M followers, 2.6K retweets, 8.4K likes]
The caste census is now an unstoppable idea. The critical question of whether 90% of our population is meaningfully represented in India’s institutional structure - economy, government, education - demands an answer. At its core, this is an issue of fairness and justice. Anything less than a comprehensive caste census, along with an economic and institutional survey is unacceptable. NSB
Awami League@albd1971
[9/9/2024 10:20 PM, 646K followers, 8 retweets, 40 likes]
Within a month the @ChiefAdviserGoB failure to prevent politically motivated #arson, #vandalism and #looting on industries affiliated with #AwamiLeague and refusal to sit in dialogue with labours cost the country BDT 5000 Cr according to business estimates. Read @ProthomAlo https://prothomalo.com/business/industry/nchva3zhkk #Bangladesh #BangladeshCrisis
Sabria Chowdhury Balland@sabriaballand
[9/9/2024 7:27 PM, 7.1K followers, 2 retweets, 3 likes] “A Bangladeshi teen was shot dead and two others were injured by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) members along the Kantivita border in Baliadangi upazila of Thakurgaon early on Monday.” India spreads vicious lies that Hindus are not safe in #Bangladesh. However, it is the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) that indiscriminately kills them. Is it any wonder that India has no friends in South Asia? Bangladeshi teen killed by BSF gunfire in Thakurgaon https://dhakatribune.com/357794
Sabria Chowdhury Balland@sabriaballand
[9/9/2024 6:27 PM, 7.1K followers, 3 retweets, 3 likes]
The Communiqué that we, from the Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy in Bangladesh (CHRD Bangladesh), sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC), requesting them to prosecute Former #Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina For Genocide & Crimes Against Humanity, has been published in 2 magazines, as follows: South Asia Journal https://southasiajournal.net/communique-to-the-prosecutor-at-the-international-criminal-court-to-prosecute-former-bangladesh-prime-minister-sheikh-hasina-for-genocide-crimes-against-humanity/
The Bangladesh Chronicle https://bangladeshchronicle.net/communique-to-the-prosecutor-at-the-international-criminal-court-to-prosecute-former-bangladesh-prime-minister-sheikh-hasina-for-genocide-crimes-against-humanity/
Twitter: @chrdbangladesh
Facebook page: https://facebook.com/CHRDBangladesh?mibextid=LQQJ4d
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[9/9/2024 5:11 AM, 109.8K followers, 229 retweets, 223 likes]
Digitalisation is the cornerstone of our national vision - President https://presidency.gov.mv/Press/Article/31557
The President’s Office, Maldives@presidencymv
[9/9/2024 4:15 PM, 109.8K followers, 264 retweets, 257 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu participates the Summit of the Future Side Event- A vision for an intelligence-driven future for Maldives. This event is being organized by @MoFAmv in collaboration with @UNMaldives as part of the buildup to the Summit of the Future, which will take place in New York during the High-Level Week of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly on September 22 and 23. #OurCommonFuture #FutureIntelligenceMaldives #SummitOfTheFuture
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maldives@MoFAmv
[9/9/2024 12:56 PM, 54.7K followers, 75 retweets, 74 likes]
Today, the Ministry and @UNMaldives co-hosted a National Side Event preceding the #SummitOfTheFuture under the theme “A Vision for an Intelligence-driven Future for the Maldives”. #FutureIntelligenceMaldives Joint Statement | https://t.ly/dqSMc
Moosa Zameer@MoosaZameer
[9/9/2024 8:22 AM, 13.8K followers, 38 retweets, 64 likes]
I am honoured to join President Dr @MMuizzu to the National Side Event held today, in anticipation of the #SummitOfTheFuture, under the theme “A Vision for an Intellgience-driven Future for the Maldives”. The event, co-hosted by @MoFAmv and @UNMaldives provided an ample opportunity for the Government to showcase the progress made by the #Maldives in embracing digitalisation and innovation as effective means to achieve sustainable development and socio-economic resilience. It also paved the way for fruitful discussions among an esteemed panel representing the Government, the academia and experts in the field. I extend my gratitude to the Global Tech Leader and Innovation Ecosystem Builder Steve Leonard for his insightful contributions to the event from a global lens. The #Maldives remains committed to a future that embodies inclusive and sustainable digital transformation in its truest sense. #FutureIntelligenceMaldives @presidencymv @HomeMinistrymv @MHLUDmv @IUM_official @VillaCollegeMv @womenintechmv
M U M Ali Sabry@alisabrypc
[9/9/2024 10:36 PM, 6.4K followers, 2 likes]
35 Sri Lankans remain trapped in Myanmar : Foreign Ministry https://www.newswire.lk/2024/09/09/35-sri-lankans-remain-trapped-in-myanmar-foreign-ministry/ Central Asia
Leila Nazgul Seiitbek@l_seiitbek
[9/9/2024 3:51 PM, 3.9K followers, 20 retweets, 60 likes]
Kyrgyzstan suddenly started importing ship propellers from China... sanctions evasion? Unless we started building ships in Issykkul.Leila Nazgul Seiitbek@l_seiitbek
[9/9/2024 1:46 PM, 3.9K followers, 9 retweets, 12 likes]
Uzbek authorities continue holding Karakalpak lawyer and HRD Dauletmurat Tajimuratov in inhumane conditions, denying medical help, subjecting him to cruel treatment, life-threatening chemicals in prison factories. This is premeditated murder.
Leila Nazgul Seiitbek@l_seiitbek
[9/9/2024 1:15 PM, 3.9K followers, 5 retweets, 7 likes]
On September 12, a crucial hearing will be held by the Commission in Kazakhstan regarding the refugee status application of Karakalpak human rights defender @muratbaiman. If denied, Akylbek faces transfer from Almaty’s detention center to Uzbekistan.
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[9/9/2024 2:52 PM, 2.6K followers, 3 retweets, 7 likes]
The international rating agency Moody’s upgraded Kazakhstan’s long-term rating from Baa2 to Baa1, driven by improvements in institutional and political reforms, steady economic diversification, and financial stability.
Uzbekistan MFA@uzbekmfa
[9/9/2024 8:31 AM, 7.8K followers, 2 likes]
On September 9, 2024, a meeting was held between the Special Representative of the President of Uzbekistan for Afghanistan Ismatulla Irgashev and the Advisor of the independent non-profit center for strategic and security studies of India "NatStrat" Shantanu Mukherjee.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[9/9/2024 3:23 AM, 198.8K followers, 13 retweets, 39 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev attended the opening ceremony for the V World Nomad Games in #Kazakhstan. The event took place at Astana Arena, where leaders from #Kazakhstan🇰🇿 and #Kyrgyzstan, as well as representatives from international organizations, were also in attendance. Athletes from over 90 countries, including #Uzbekistan, are participating in the games. Following the ceremony, President of Uzbekistan returned to #Tashkent.
Navbahor Imamova@Navbahor
[9/9/2024 4:16 PM, 23.6K followers, 4 retweets, 7 likes]
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., met with Uzbekistan’s Chief of General Staff Gen. Maj. Shukhrat Khalmukhamedov today at the Pentagon. Discussed terrorist threats (ISIS-K) and regional cooperation.{End of Report} To subscribe to the SCA Morning Press Clips, please email SCA-PressOfficers@state.gov. Please do not reply directly to this email.