epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Tuesday, January 21, 2025 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
2 Americans Held in Afghanistan Are Freed in Prisoner Swap (New York Times)
New York Times [1/21/2025 12:26 AM, Adam Goldman, Carol Rosenberg, and Julian E. Barnes, 831K, Positive]
In one of its final acts, the Biden administration secured the release of two Americans held in Afghanistan in a prisoner swap for a Taliban member imprisoned in the United States on narcotics charges.

The Taliban government freed Ryan Corbett and William Wallace McKenty in exchange for Khan Mohammed, who was released from a U.S. federal prison.

Mr. Biden issued a conditional commutation to Mr. Mohammed before he left office, though officials did not disclose the order until Mr. McKenty and Mr. Corbett were free.

Mr. Corbett’s case had received public attention. Earlier this month, his wife, Anna, visited with Donald J. Trump in Mar-a-Lago and had a call with President Joseph R. Biden Jr. His family released a statement after midnight on Tuesday praising both the Trump administration and the Biden administration for making the exchange.

Mr. Corbett, 42, had long lived in Afghanistan until the fall of the U.S.-backed government in 2021. He had returned to the country to help the microlending and consulting business he had created when he was taken captive in the country’s north.

Far less was known about Mr. McKenty, 69, whose family had asked the U.S. government to keep his identity private.

Two other American captives remain in Afghanistan. George Glezmann, a former airline mechanic, and Mahmood Habibi, a naturalized American, who was seized soon after a U.S. strike in Afghanistan killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Al Qaeda.

In their statement, members of Mr. Corbett’s family expressed regret Mr. Glezmann and Mr. Habibi were also not freed.

“It was our hope that Ryan, George and Mahmoud would be returned to their families together, and we cannot imagine the pain that our good fortune will bring them,” the statement said.

Biden officials wanted Mr. Glezmann and Mr. Habibi to be included in a trade and were disappointed when they were not, two former senior officials said. But the administration did not want to pass up the chance to bring home the two other men, one of the officials said. Biden officials had made multiple proposals to the Taliban to secure all the hostages, but those offers were rejected. Mr. Habibi’s whereabouts remain unknown, and the Taliban have claimed they did not know what happened to him.

Qatar helped negotiate the final deal and provided logistical support for the exchange, according to one of the former officials.

In all, the Biden administration secured the release of more than 80 hostages and other wrongfully detained people around the world, officials said.

Mr. Mohammed was convicted in 2008 and was one of several people whom the Taliban government wanted freed.

During his trial, Mr. Mohammed was accused of helping the Taliban obtain rockets to attack an U.S. military base in Afghanistan and selling heroin intended for distribution in the United States.

He was indicted in 2006, then brought to the United States in 2007 for trial and ultimately to serve his prison sentence.

The deal to free the two Americans, reached in the past week, did not include the release of Muhammad Rahim, an Afghan who has been held at Guantánamo Bay since 2008. Some officials in the Biden administration had opposed his release as long as Mr. Habibi remained in Afghan custody.

The U.S. government considers Mr. Rahim a former operative of Al Qaeda who worked for Osama bin Laden and knew about or abetted Qaeda and Taliban attacks on U.S. and coalition forces. Advocates for his release have cast doubt on his role in the organization, suggesting that he was a courier and a translator and would not pose a threat to the United States if he were released.

“The former administration seems to have missed an opportunity to bring an American home in an exchange for a person with no intelligence or security value to the United States,” said James G. Connell III, Mr. Rahim’s lawyer.
Americans freed in Afghanistan-U.S. prisoner swap, Taliban says (Washington Post)
Washington Post [1/21/2025 5:45 AM, Victoria Bisset, 33.4M, Positive]
An unidentified number of Americans were freed as part of a prisoner swap between the United States and Afghanistan, the Taliban said Tuesday.

The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry did not name or specify the number of the Americans released in the deal but said in a statement on X that the prisoner exchange took place after “extensive & productive negotiations.” The State Department did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment.

The family of Ryan Corbett, a New Yorker who was detained in Afghanistan over two years ago, confirmed his release in a statement Tuesday: “We are overwhelmed with joy that Ryan is on his way home.”

“Today, our hearts are filled with overwhelming gratitude and praise to God for sustaining Ryan’s life and bringing him back home after what has been the most challenging and uncertain 894 days of our lives,” the family said, thanking President Donald Trump, who was inaugurated Monday, and former president Joe Biden alongside other current and former U.S. officials.

The Taliban statement identified the freed Afghan prisoner as Khan Mohammed, who it said was arrested in the Afghan province of Nangahar nearly two decades ago and was serving a life sentence in California.

A Justice Department statement from May 2008 said that a man of the same name, from Nangahar province, was convicted of narcotics distribution and narcoterrorism. According to the statement, Khan Mohammed was a member of a Taliban cell and “part of a Taliban plan to obtain rockets to attack U.S. military and Afghan civilian personnel” at an airfield in Jalalabad, and that he “also sold opium and heroin that he knew was intended for importation into the United States.”

Records from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons early Tuesday suggested that Khan Mohammed, 55, was not in its custody.

Corbett and his wife and children lived in Afghanistan for over a decade until the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, according to his family. He was detained in August 2022 while living there on a visa to pay and train staff working in the social enterprise he founded.

On social media, Taliban supporters welcomed the news of the deal on Tuesday.

In a statement, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said the “steps taken by the United States of America contribute to the normalization and development of relations between the two countries.” Both the ministry and Corbett’s family thanked Qatar for their role in facilitating the releases. Qatar has since late 2021 acted as the United States’ “protecting power” in Afghanistan, charged with handling U.S. consular affairs in the wake of the Taliban takeover.

The Taliban-run government has been largely cut off from international banking and direct foreign funding since it took power in August 2021, and blames the United States for much of its financial plight. It has repeatedly demanded that the United States release Afghanistan’s Central Bank reserves that were frozen in the wake of the fall of Kabul.

The United States remained a major contributor of financial aid to the Afghan people under Biden, sending money through U.N. agencies and other organizations.

The Taliban has grown increasingly nervous over Trump in recent weeks, as he suggested that U.S. funding would be cut unless the Taliban returns military equipment that was left behind by American troops in 2021 and made other references to a more confrontational approach with the Taliban.
Taliban say 2 Americans held in Afghanistan were freed in a prisoner exchange (AP)
AP [1/21/2025 3:25 AM, Staff, 456K, Positive]
A prisoner swap between the United States and Afghanistan’s Taliban freed two Americans in exchange for a Taliban figure imprisoned for life in California on drug trafficking and terrorism charges, officials said Tuesday.

The deal came as Joe Biden, who oversaw the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, handed power over to returning President Donald Trump. The Taliban praised the swap as a step toward the “normalization” of ties between the U.S. and Afghanistan, but that likely remains a tall order as most countries in the world still don’t recognize their rule.

The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry in Kabul confirmed the swap, saying two unidentified U.S. citizens had been exchanged for Khan Mohammed, who was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment in 2008.

The family of Ryan Corbett, one American held by the Taliban, confirmed he had been released in a statement. Corbett, who had lived in Afghanistan with his family at the time of the 2021 collapse of the U.S.-backed government, was detained by the Taliban in August 2022 while on a business trip.

“Our hearts are filled with overwhelming gratitude and praise to God for sustaining Ryan’s life and bringing him back home after what has been the most challenging and uncertain 894 days of our lives,” the family’s statement said. They thanked both Trump and Biden, as well as many government officials, for their efforts in freeing him.

Corbett’s family also praised the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar “for their vital role in facilitating Ryan’s release, and for their visits to Ryan as the United States’ Protecting Power in Afghanistan.” Energy-rich Qatar, which hosted negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban over the years, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Both CNN and The New York Times, relying on anonymous U.S. officials, identified the second American released as William McKenty, though no other details have emerged about his identity or what he was doing in Afghanistan.

Mohammed, 55, was a prisoner in California after his 2008 conviction. The Bureau of Prisons early Tuesday listed Mohammed as not being in their custody.

Hafiz Zia Ahmad Takal, deputy spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said Mohammed had arrived in Afghanistan and was with his family. There were no immediate plans to celebrate or mark his freedom, Takal added.

Mohammed was detained on the battlefield in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and later taken to the U.S. A federal jury convicted him on charges of securing heroin and opium that he knew were bound for the United States and, in doing so, assisting terrorism activity.

The Justice Department at the time referred to Mohammed as “a violent jihadist and narcotics trafficker” who “sought to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan using rockets.” He was the first person to be convicted on U.S. narco-terrorism laws.

Before Biden left office, his administration had been trying to work out a deal to free Corbett as well as George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi in exchange for Muhammad Rahim, one of the remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta, was taken by the Taliban’s intelligence services in December 2022 while traveling through the country. Habibi, an Afghan-American businessman who worked as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecommunications company, also went missing in 2022. The Taliban have denied they have Habibi.

Officials in Washington did not respond to requests for comment early Tuesday after Trump’s inauguration the day before.

The Taliban called the exchange the result of “long and fruitful negotiations” with the U.S. and said it was a good example of solving problems through dialogue.

“The Islamic Emirate looks positively at the actions of the United States of America that help the normalization and development of relations between the two countries,” it said.

The Taliban have been trying to make inroads in being recognized, in part to escape the economic tailspin caused by its takeover. Billions in international funds were frozen, and tens of thousands of highly skilled Afghans fled the country and took their money with them.
Trump’s Suspension of Refugee Admissions Puts Afghans at Risk, Advocate Says (New York Times)
New York Times [1/20/2025 4:14 PM, Yonette Joseph, 831K, Neutral]
An executive order signed by President Trump on Monday that suspends refugee admissions to the United States puts at risk thousands of citizens of Afghanistan who helped the American mission during the war there, the president of a California-based resettlement group said.

The order would affect not only scores of Afghans who are now in hiding from the Taliban’s repressive rule, but also family members of active-duty U.S. troops, said Shawn VanDiver, the president of AfghanEvac, a coalition of more than 250 organizations helping to resettle Afghans who worked with the Americans before the U.S. withdrawal in 2021.

The order amounts to “another broken promise” by the United States, Mr. VanDiver said by email. It “risks abandoning thousands of Afghan wartime allies who stood alongside U.S. service members during two decades of conflict,” he added.

Mr. Trump’s order, titled “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program,” is set to take effect next Monday. It does not specify when the suspension will end, saying that it will continue “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

Refugee programs have historically been a point of pride in the United States, reflecting its ambition to be seen as a leader on human rights. The president has usually made an annual determination about how many refugees to let into the country in any given year.

After the U.S. military’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan as the Taliban took power, the Biden administration launched Operation Allies Welcome, allowing 76,000 evacuated Afghans to enter the United States for humanitarian reasons, according to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

As of 2023, more than 90,000 Afghans had settled in the United States, according to statistics cited by Mustafa Babak, an advocacy and resettlement expert with the Emerson Collective. But U.S. refugee agencies had been bracing for the admissions program to be gutted since Mr. Trump won the November election.

During his first term as president, Mr. Trump signed an executive order barring people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the country. He slashed the annual U.S. refugee cap; in 2020, the final full year of his term, the United States admitted a record low number of refugees, about 11,000. The move left thousands of refugees stranded in camps in Kenya, Tanzania and Jordan.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. revived the program after becoming president in 2021. In the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2024, about 100,000 refugees arrived in the United States, the most in nearly three decades, records show.

After Mr. Trump declared his candidacy for the 2024 election, a conservative policy blueprint called Project 2025 suggested that he would cite the record number of migrant crossings at the southern border during the Biden administration as a justification for halting refugee resettlement.

The suspension of refugee admissions was one of a blizzard of executive orders signed by Mr. Trump within hours of his swearing-in on Monday. Other orders cracked down on illegal immigration and ended the U.S. program that allowed migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua to enter the United States for up to two years if they had a financial sponsor and passed security checks.

The refugee order states, “Over the last four years, the United States has been inundated with record levels of migration, including through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). Cities and small towns alike, from Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Ohio, to Whitewater, Wisconsin, have seen significant influxes of migrants. Even major urban centers such as New York City, Chicago, and Denver have sought federal aid to manage the burden of new arrivals.”

But Mr. VanDiver said surveys had shown strong support among the American public for the continued relocation and resettlement of Afghan allies.

He noted that people vetted under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program entered the country “only after receiving a government or U.S. run nonprofit referral and after undergoing extensive service verification, background checks, medical screening and rigorous security vetting.”

Now, he said, Mr. Trump’s executive action will plunge thousands of Afghan refugees into limbo by freezing all cases where they stand and preventing Afghans from boarding flights to the United States. He said another executive order by Mr. Trump — about protecting the country from “foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats” — had provisions that could further affect Afghan nationals seeking refuge in the United States.

Mr. VanDiver said his coalition, which works to secure special visas for Afghans who assisted the U.S. mission, had sent a letter signed by more than 700 people, including veterans and civilians who worked in Afghanistan, “urging the administration to exempt Afghan allies from this pause.”

Among those who could be shut out are “family members of active duty DoD service members and partner forces who trained, fought and died alongside U.S. troops,” Mr. VanDiver said, referring to the Department of Defense.

“Failing to protect our Afghan allies sends a dangerous message to the world: that U.S. commitments are conditional and temporary,” he said. “This decision undermines global trust in our leadership and jeopardizes future alliances.”
Trump to pull nearly 1,660 Afghan refugees from flights, say US official, advocate (Reuters)
Reuters [1/20/2025 8:03 PM, Jonathan Landay, 48128K, Negative]
Nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. government to resettle in the U.S., including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump’s order suspending U.S. refugee programs, a U.S. official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday.

The group includes unaccompanied minors awaiting reunification with their families in the U.S. as well as Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution because they fought for the former U.S.-backed Afghan government, said Shawn VanDiver, head of the #AfghanEvac coalition of U.S. veterans and advocacy groups and the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. decision also leaves in limbo thousands of other Afghans who have been approved for resettlement as refugees in the U.S. but have not yet been assigned flights from Afghanistan or from neighboring Pakistan, they said.

Trump made an immigration crackdown a major promise of his victorious 2024 election campaign, leaving the fate of U.S. refugee programs up in the air.

The White House and the State Department, which oversees U.S. refugee programs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"Afghans and advocates are panicking," said VanDiver. "I’ve had to recharge my phone four times already today because so many are calling me.

"We warned them that this was going to happen, but they did it anyway. We hope they will reconsider," he said of contacts with Trump’s transition team.

VanDiver’s organization is the main coalition that has been working with the U.S. government to evacuate and resettle Afghans in the U.S. since the Taliban seized Kabul as the last U.S. forces left Afghanistan in August 2021 after two decades of war.

Nearly 200,000 Afghans have been brought to the U.S. by former President Joe Biden’s administration since the chaotic U.S. troop withdrawal from Kabul.

One of the dozens of executive orders Trump is expected to sign after being sworn in for a second term on Monday suspended U.S. refugee programs for at least four months.

The new White House website said that Trump "is suspending refugee resettlement, after communities were forced to house large and unsustainable populations of migrants, straining community safety and resources.".

"We know this means that unaccompanied children, (Afghan) partner forces who trained, fought and died or were injured alongside our troops, and families of active-duty U.S. service members are going to be stuck," said VanDiver.

VanDiver and the U.S. official said that the Afghans approved to resettle as refugees in the U.S. were being removed from the manifests of flights they were due to take from Kabul between now and April.

Minority Democrats on the House Foreign Relations Committee blasted the move, saying in a post on X that "this is what abandonment looks like. Leaving vetted, verified Afghan Allies at the mercy of the Taliban is shameful.".

They include nearly 200 family members of Afghan-American active-duty U.S. service personnel born in the U.S. or of Afghans who came to the U.S., joined the military and became naturalized citizens, they said.

Those being removed from flights also include an unknown number of Afghans who fought for the former U.S.-backed Kabul government and some 200 unaccompanied children of Afghan refugees or Afghan parents whose children were brought alone to the United States during the U.S. withdrawal, said VanDiver and the U.S. official.

An unknown number of Afghans who qualified for refugee status because they worked for U.S. contractors or U.S.-affiliated organizations also are in the group, they said.
Scores of Afghans have left for the US after their visas were processed in the Philippines (AP)
AP [1/18/2025 11:17 PM, Jim Gomez, 33392K, Neutral]
Nearly 200 Afghan nationals have been flown on to the United States after their special immigration visas were processed in the Philippines as part of an agreement between Manila and Washington, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said Sunday.

The Afghans left the Philippines in several groups on commercial flights last week after completing their application process for resettlement in the U.S., according to the embassy spokesperson Kanishka Gangopadhyay.

An embassy statement expressed "deep appreciation to the government of the Philippines for their cooperation and support for U.S. efforts to assist Afghan special immigrants.".

The Afghans, including many children, arrived in the Philippines on Jan. 6. Details of their numbers and location were kept secret by U.S. and Philippine officials. Washington covered the cost of their stay in the Philippines.

The Afghans primarily worked for the U.S. government in Afghanistan or were deemed eligible for U.S. special immigrant visas but were left behind when U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan after 20 years of war in August 2021 as the Taliban seized power.

At the time, the Taliban takeover exposed Afghan supporters of U.S. forces to potential retaliatory attacks by Afghanistan’s new rulers.

Outgoing President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump have blamed one another for the chaotic pullout of U.S. forces.

Biden discussed the Afghan resettlement issue with Philippines leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr. when he visited the U.S. last year, Philippine officials said. In July, the Philippines agreed to temporarily host a U.S. immigrant visa processing center for the Afghan nationals although there were concerns over security due to threats faced by some of the Afghans trying to flee from the Taliban rule.

A senior Philippine official said last year that the accommodation in the Philippines was a one-time deal.

Marcos has rekindled relations with the U.S. since his 2022 election victory and has allowed an expansion of the American military presence under a 2014 defense agreement in a decision that has alarmed China.

The Marcos administration has also broadened military and defense ties with the U.S., Japan and Australia and moved to build stronger security relations with France, New Zealand and Canada to strengthen its territorial defense, including in the disputed South China Sea.

That has dovetailed with the Biden administration efforts to boost an arc of security alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better address concerns over China’s increasingly aggressive actions, including in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait, that have raised tensions to their highest level in decades.
Trump seeks return of US military equipment from Afghan Taliban (VOA)
VOA [1/20/2025 9:40 AM, Ayaz Gul, 2717K, Neutral]
President-elect Donald Trump says that future financial assistance to Afghanistan will be contingent upon the return of U.S. military equipment by the Taliban leaders currently in power.

Trump’s remarks at a Sunday rally in Washington on the eve of his January 20 inauguration have heightened uncertainty regarding his administration’s stance on the crisis-hit South Asian nation.

"They [Biden administration] gave billions of billions of dollars to the Taliban. They gave our military equipment, a big chunk of it, to the enemy," Trump said. He referred to the tumultuous and hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ordered by President Joe Biden.

"If we’re going to pay billions of dollars a year, tell them we’re not going to give them the money unless they give back our military equipment. ... So, we will give them a couple of bucks; we want the military equipment back," Trump stated without elaborating.

A report issued by the U.S. Department of Defense in 2022 revealed that approximately $7 billion worth of military equipment was left behind in Afghanistan following the completion of the military withdrawal. The equipment in question, which included aircraft, air-to-ground munitions, military vehicles, weapons, communications equipment, and other materials, was subsequently seized by the Taliban.

The de facto Afghan rulers have since repeatedly displayed the U.S. military gear in their so-called victory day celebrations over the past three years.

The foreign troop exit stemmed from the February 2020 Doha Agreement that the first Trump administration negotiated with the then-insurgent Taliban. Biden completed and defended the military withdrawal, saying the choice he had was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban.

Following the withdrawal, the Biden administration largely isolated the Taliban and imposed new sanctions on the group. Washington, however, has continued to be the largest donor to Afghanistan, a country that the United Nations says is suffering through one of the severest humanitarian crises in the world. U.S. officials have also engaged in diplomatic efforts with the Taliban to negotiate the release of certain U.S. detainees and assisted in relocating Afghan allies who had helped American forces.

US gives cash for humanitarian aid

The billions of dollars that Trump repeatedly has referred to are likely the cash shipments being channeled through the U.N. and non-governmental organizations to support humanitarian programs in Afghanistan. Washington remains the primary donor and has spent approximately $3 billion in humanitarian aid since the U.S. withdrawal.

Thomas Ruttig from the independent Afghanistan Analysts Network warned of challenges for the Taliban under the Trump administration. He noted that some members of Congress and incoming administration officials took part in the 20-year U.S. mission in Afghanistan and have been highly critical of the Taliban.

Despite this, he stated that countering regional terrorism is a significant concern in Washington, and it could potentially encourage the Trump administration to seek cooperation with the Taliban to combat terrorist organizations, including the Afghanistan-based affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist organization known as IS-Khorasan.

Ruttig said that Tim Burchett, Republican vice chair of the U.S. Congress’s Foreign Affairs Committee, recently introduced a bill, the "No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act," to ensure that U.S. tax money does not end up in the hands of the Taliban.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan denies that cash shipments for humanitarian programs are financing the Taliban. The mission says the current setup – in which cash is physically brought to Afghanistan and placed in designated U.N. accounts in a private bank – is in place because of a ban on international banking transfers and ongoing liquidity issues.

"All these funds are then distributed directly to the United Nations entities, as well as to a small number of approved and vetted humanitarian partners in Afghanistan," according to the mission.

Taliban leaders have rejected Trump’s assertions that their government received U.S. financial aid, stating that they do not expect or seek any assistance from Washington. "Instead, it (U.S.) has confiscated and frozen billions of dollars that rightfully belong to the people of Afghanistan," said a Taliban statement in response to Trump’s remarks earlier this month.

Ruttig warns that punitive measures and sanctions to pressure the Taliban into submission might also provoke them to stop cooperation with international stakeholders.

"Today, the US-Taliban Doha Agreement is still considered valid and obliges the Taliban to restrict ISKP and other groups from using their shelter in Afghanistan to commit terrorist acts in the West. This could be jeopardized by new quasi-sanctions on them," he said in written comments.

Taliban hopes for better relations

Masuda Sultan, an Afghan American advocate for women’s rights, is doubtful the new Trump administration will substantially change its stance on the Taliban. Instead, she expects the U.S. will cut aid contributions to U.N.-funded programs like the World Food Program that have supported the country’s most vulnerable.

At the same time, Taliban leaders appear publicly optimistic about a favorable shift in U.S. policy under the Trump presidency, attributing this to their Doha pact with his previous Trump administration. Kabul promptly welcomed Trump’s election victory just one day after he was declared the winner of the United States presidential vote.

The Taliban foreign ministry issued a formal statement expressing its hope that "the incoming U.S. administration will adopt a pragmatic approach to ensure tangible advancement in bilateral relations, allowing both nations to open a new chapter of relations grounded in mutual engagement.".

Earlier this month, Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai commended Trump as a "decisive" and "courageous" leader. Stanikzai suggested that Trump reconsider Biden’s policy and adopt a new approach.

"We want to build good relations with the international community and the Western countries," Stanikzai said in televised remarks in local language. "An enemy doesn’t remain an enemy forever, and a friend doesn’t remain a friend forever either," he added.
Taliban Rejects Trump’s Call to Return US Weapons Worth Billions (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [1/21/2025 5:12 AM, Eltaf Najafizada, 1286K, Negative]
The Taliban won’t return any of the military equipment left behind by the US troops while exiting Afghanistan in 2021, a person familiar with the matter said, as relations between Kabul and the Donald Trump administration start on a wobbly note.

Instead of taking back the equipment, the US should provide Taliban with more advanced weapons to fight the Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, an offshoot of the broader Islamic State organization, said the person, who did not want to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to the media.

The response comes after Trump’s remarks at a Sunday rally, in which the US President threatened to cut any financial assistance to Afghanistan if the South Asian nation does not return US aircraft, air-to-ground munitions, vehicles and communications equipment.

“If we’re going to pay billions of dollars a year, tell them we’re not going to give them the money unless they give back our military equipment,” Trump said.

Spokesmen for the Taliban didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Military equipment, reportedly worth more than $7 billion, were taken over by the Taliban when US troops made a rushed withdrawal from Afghanistan after more than 20 years in the country.

Despite rejecting Trump’s demand, the Taliban-led government wants a fresh start with the US under the new president, and gain access to over $9 billion in frozen foreign exchange reserves.

Establishing normal relations with the US would help the Taliban’s efforts to get international recognition for its pariah government, and the funds would provide relief for the cash-strapped Taliban, which has been battling to rebuild an economy devastated by sanctions and the loss of international aid.

Meanwhile, the Taliban government on Tuesday said it released American citizens in a prisoner exchange for an Afghan jailed in a US prison.

While a handful of countries, including China, Pakistan and Russia, have accepted Taliban diplomats, they don’t formally recognize the government, which has been condemned internationally for repeated human rights violations. China was the first nation to grant diplomatic credentials to the Taliban last year.
For Trump’s national security adviser, Afghanistan still looms large (Washington Post)
Washington Post [1/18/2025 7:00 AM, Craig Whitlock, 40736K, Neutral]
In February 2020, Rep. Michael Waltz, then a first-term GOP lawmaker, received a coveted invitation to fly to his home state of Florida aboard Air Force One. During the flight, he seized the opportunity to lobby President Donald Trump about an issue to which he had devoted most of his career: the war in Afghanistan.

Trump had just approved a conditional peace agreement with the Taliban that called for the full withdrawal of U.S. troops within 14 months. Waltz, a Green Beret who had served two combat tours in Afghanistan, pleaded with the president to reconsider, arguing that the Taliban couldn’t be trusted and that the U.S. military needed to stay indefinitely. Yet Trump, who had campaigned on a promise to end the war, was unmoved. “We’ve been there so long,” he told Waltz, according to the congressman’s recently published memoirs. “It’s time.”

Despite their fundamental disagreement over the longest war in American history, Trump has tapped Waltz to return with him to the White House as national security adviser. The job does not require Senate confirmation but is one of the most powerful posts in Washington. In an administration that Trump is stacking with figures who share his isolationist leanings, Waltz stands out as the opposite: a post 9/11 veteran who still favors long-term commitments of U.S. troops to fight al-Qaeda, Islamic State and other terrorist groups overseas.

Waltz’s views are a reminder that sharp differences exist within Trump’s inner circle about how his “America first” campaign rhetoric should apply to myriad national-security challenges that his administration will inherit when it takes power next week.

In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Waltz, 50, downplayed his differences with Trump over Afghanistan and pledged to faithfully execute the boss’s wishes, pointedly drawing a contrast with aides who tried to obstruct Trump’s foreign policy decisions during his first term. “He welcomes disagreement. He welcomes the vigorous debate. But when he makes the decision, he expects you to implement it, and I will do that,” Waltz said.

At the same time, Waltz has made clear that his National Security Council staff at the White House — including career government employees — must be loyal to Trump. Last week, he told Breitbart News that he would ensure all staffers “are 100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

Brian Hughes, a spokesman for Trump’s transition team, described Waltz’s difference of opinion with Trump over the 2020 deal with the Taliban as “not a disagreement but a discussion. Rep. Waltz clearly agreed with President Trump that there had to be a political solution in Afghanistan.”

In an email, Hughes noted that Trump decided at the end of his first term to leave a small military presence at Bagram air base in Afghanistan “to ensure the Taliban would honor their agreement.” Hughes blamed the Biden administration for bungling the final withdrawal.

When he moves into his West Wing office on Monday, Waltz will be responsible for coordinating U.S. policy on the world’s most pressing flash points, including relations with China, Russia, Ukraine and Iran. But he — and Trump — will also have to confront lingering fallout from Afghanistan and who should be held responsible for the war’s many failures.

After Trump’s term ended, President Joe Biden upheld his accord with the Taliban and ordered the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan to leave by September 2021. That culminated in the sudden collapse of the Afghan government, the emergency evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the frenzied exodus of thousands of Afghans who helped the United States during the war. Thirteen U.S. troops were killed in an attack during the final week of the withdrawal.

During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump promised to fire generals and diplomats who oversaw the 2021 pullout, excoriating them — and Biden — for the disastrous retreat. “We’ll get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity to be on my desk at noon on Inauguration Day,” he told a National Guard conference in August.

Waltz also has criticized the Biden administration for botching the U.S. exit from Afghanistan. But unlike Trump, he has said it was a mistake for U.S. troops to leave and that they should have stayed for decades, if necessary, to deter jihadists and to maintain control over Bagram, a strategic air base near China’s western border.

In interviews, televised appearances and his writings, Waltz has repeatedly warned that terrorists are regrouping in Afghanistan and will try to attack America again as they did on 9/11. He has suggested the Pentagon may have to send forces back to Afghanistan eventually, just as it did to Iraq to fight the Islamic State three years after pulling out of that country in 2011.

“If we don’t fight the war on terrorism in places like Kandahar, that war will come to places like Kansas City,” Waltz wrote in “Hard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret,” a memoir that he published in October. “That’s not hyperbole — it is historical fact.”

In his interview with The Post, Waltz declined to specify how U.S. policy toward Afghanistan might change under Trump or to elaborate on scenarios under which U.S. forces could return there. But he emphasized that the United States needed to improve its ability to collect intelligence from inside the country.

The Trump administration will “be taking a hard look at the intelligence community and the counterterrorism enterprise, and what kind of eyes and ears do we have, to make sure we’re not surprised again — yet again — from that part of the world,” Waltz said. “I wouldn’t interpret that as, ‘We’ve got to go back and fight in Kandahar.’ I would interpret it as, ‘I don’t want to wait until a Kansas City is hit.’”

Ever since Waltz rejoined the U.S. Army in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan has shaped his entire career in the military, politics, media and business. His extensive experience in the field left him more hawkish on Afghanistan than Trump, who soured on the war more than a decade ago and once called the prolonged conflict “a complete waste.”

Colleagues and friends say the lessons Waltz drew from Afghanistan have influenced his worldview and given him credibility with Trump, even if he and the president-elect have disagreed on the war.

“If you look at the breadth and depth of his experience, this guy has done it all, from the street level to the pinnacle of national security and his time in Congress,” said Ryan McCarthy, who served as Secretary of the Army during Trump’s presidency and has known Waltz since the 1990s, when they attended Virginia Military Institute, or VMI. “National security runs through his veins. It’s his passion, his life.”

Michael Vickers, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and Green Beret who worked with Waltz during the Bush and Obama administrations, said his main challenge as national security adviser would be to serve as “an honest broker” in the decision-making process at the White House and as a conduit between Trump and senior members of his Cabinet. He said Waltz was well-qualified for the role.

“The key thing is really the relationship with the president,” said Vickers, who also served as an independent director for a defense-contracting firm that Waltz co-founded. “It’s a pretty high-level political job as well as a national security job.”

From Florida to Afghanistan

A native Floridian, Waltz grew up in Jacksonville, raised by a single mother. In 1992, he moved to Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to attend VMI, a state-supported military college known for its exacting academic, physical and disciplinary standards.

Of the 430 “rats” — VMI’s term for new cadets — who enrolled with him, fewer than half made it to graduation four years later, he said in an oral-history interview for the Library of Congress. “You get your head shaved every Monday. You get the crap beat out of you by the upperclassmen. And eventually, at the end, you’re recognized as a human being,” he added.

Waltz received an Army ROTC scholarship and majored in international relations. He studied abroad at the University of Valencia and became fluent in Spanish. He also boxed for the VMI club team.

One of his roommates, Jon Sherrod, said Waltz thrived on the challenges that the school threw at them. “Mike chose VMI because of its rigorous standards. At 18, he was more clear-eyed about that than I ever was,” Sherrod recalled.

Upon graduation, Waltz was commissioned into the Army and assigned to an armored cavalry unit. He graduated from the Army’s Ranger school, a notoriously grueling course, and was selected to join the Special Forces and become a Green Beret.

In October 2000, Waltz left the Army to take a job as a management trainee with a diamond company. But a year later, after the 9/11 attacks, he rejoined the military as a part-time soldier in the Army National Guard, he said in his interview with The Post.

His introduction to Afghanistan came when he deployed with a Special Forces unit to Central Asia in 2003. From a base in neighboring Uzbekistan, he made brief trips into Afghanistan that didn’t involve combat, he told The Post.

When his call-up with the National Guard ended the following year, he landed a civilian staff job at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, focusing on counternarcotics policy. Because Afghanistan produced most of the world’s opium, he wrote in his memoir, the country demanded much of his time.

In September 2005, his National Guard unit returned to Afghanistan for a year-long deployment. As a captain with the 20th Special Forces Group, Waltz led a team of Green Berets that served as a liaison to NATO forces and other allies in southern Afghanistan.

Conditions had deteriorated since his last call-up. In remote areas, U.S. troops began to find themselves outnumbered by the resurgent Taliban.

‘You’re in the buzz saw’

In May 2006, Waltz and five other U.S. Special Forces personnel were guiding about three dozen allied troops from the United Arab Emirates on a mission to Musa Qala, in northern Helmand Province, to scout a location for a new firebase, according to an account provided by Waltz in “Warrior Diplomat,” another book that he published in 2014.

An operations officer at command headquarters had warned Waltz not to go, saying the route was too risky because of an influx of Taliban fighters. But Waltz and the UAE forces, which were part of the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan, resolved to press ahead anyway, he wrote.

After a few hours, their convoy of about eight vehicles ran into an ambush in the town of Sangin, where Taliban armed with mortars and rocket launchers pinned them down in a crossfire. The convoy became separated and struggled to fight its way out, Waltz wrote.

As Waltz’s armored Humvee hurtled along a dirt track, a Taliban sniper took aim at Gordon Cook, a Special Forces medic riding in the exposed rear of the vehicle. Cook was hit in the chest, right arm and left thigh, opening his femoral artery. In an interview with The Post, Cook said he remained conscious, but began to bleed out.

Under fire, Waltz crawled into the back of the Humvee and applied a tourniquet to Cook’s leg just below the crotch, tying it so tightly that it tore muscle, ligaments and tendons, according to Cook. The wounded medic said he was drenched in blood and in the “worst pain of my life.” But the tourniquet worked and the bleeding slowed.

Yet they weren’t out of danger. Moments later, Cook recalled, he saw Waltz briefly knocked cold by a Taliban rocket that landed nearby. “I looked over and he had dirt and black s--- all over his face and eyelids,” Cook said. “But then he got up, kind of shook it off and started returning fire.”

Miraculously, the convoy escaped without suffering any fatalities. Cook and two UAE soldiers were evacuated by helicopter to a field hospital.

Despite the ambush, Waltz and the UAE commander wanted to continue with their original mission, Waltz wrote in his book. The convoy regrouped and prepared to drive onward to Musa Qala, 30 miles to the north.

When Waltz radioed their plan to headquarters, however, the staff warned him that the firefight in Sangin was just a taste of what lay ahead. Surveillance aircraft showed a larger Taliban force massing nearby, according to Scott Mann, an Army lieutenant colonel who was on the headquarters staff.

“Of course, like a good Special Forces captain, he wanted to push on,” Mann, now retired, recalled in an interview. “I said, ‘Hey man, you’re going into a buzz saw. In fact, you’re in the buzz saw.’”

This time, Waltz listened and the convoy turned around. Over the following 12 hours, his team narrowly eluded Taliban fighters in close pursuit, thanks in part to a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship that arrived in time to wipe out two groups of insurgents. “His guys were really pinched,” Mann said in an interview. “I still get chills thinking about it because it was very, very bad.”

For his actions, Waltz was awarded a Bronze Star with a “V” device, denoting valor in combat. Cook, the medic, said he thought Waltz deserved additional recognition.

Years later, he offered to help nominate Waltz for a Silver Star, the U.S. military’s third-highest war decoration, for gallantry in action. But Waltz demurred. “He just said something to the effect of, ‘I’m not a medal chaser. Don’t do that,’” Cook recalled.

Cook said he remains a fervent admirer of Waltz — even though he’s not a fan of Trump.

“I’m not at all on the same political wavelength as Mike Waltz, but he saved my life that day and his bravery was unquestionable,” he said.

‘I knew they were full of it’

Waltz returned to his civilian job at the Pentagon in late 2006 and grew frustrated by a disconnect between how senior officials in Washington viewed the war and what he had observed in the field.

In his first book, Waltz wrote that the war had become “rudderless” because the Bush administration was preoccupied with the war in Iraq and had “basically outsourced” Afghanistan to NATO allies. Waltz strongly felt NATO was not up to the task. He had dealt with French, Dutch and other NATO troops in Afghanistan and found them risk-averse, difficult to coordinate and badly equipped.

In his interview with The Post, Waltz said his experiences with NATO forces left a lasting impression — one that echoes Trump’s harsh criticism of the military alliance.

“NATO was a phenomenal alliance in deterring the Cold War,” Waltz said. “But to see what a sad state their equipment has become and how politicized their chain of command was operationally in the field has certainly impacted my views now.”

At the Pentagon, Waltz took a new policy job as a country director for Afghanistan, then was detailed to the White House to work on counterterrorism issues for Vice President Dick Cheney.

As a junior White House staffer, however, he often bit his tongue in briefings when generals gave rosy assessments about how the war was unfolding, he said in his oral history interview. He became especially irked when they exaggerated their progress in training the Afghan security forces, a keystone of the U.S. war strategy.

Waltz said he witnessed “general after general saying, ‘Mr. President, I can turn this military, this Afghan army, around on my watch.’ And I knew they were full of it.”

At the outset of the Obama administration, Waltz briefly returned to his civilian job at the Pentagon. In March 2009, however, his National Guard unit mobilized again and he deployed for a third time to Afghanistan, this time as a major.

Obama had campaigned on a promise to fix the war and eventually boosted the number of U.S. troops to 100,000. In his books, Waltz wrote that the wave of reinforcements created a new set of problems, including a top-heavy and unresponsive chain of command. As a company commander, he sometimes needed to obtain authorizations from 12 different offices before his Special Forces teams could conduct raids against Taliban targets.

He also disagreed with Obama’s strategy for exiting Afghanistan, according to his memoirs. The president said the troop surge would be temporary, to buy time for the Afghan government to build up its forces and pressure the Taliban into peace talks. Waltz felt the United States needed to make an open-ended military commitment and not let up in Afghanistan. Unlike many in Washington, he still believed the Taliban could be defeated outright.

“The underlying theme of everything we were discussing seemed to be how to end the war rather than how to win it,” he wrote in “Warrior Diplomat,” his 2014 book.

Federal contracts and TV interviews

Disenchanted with Obama’s policies, Waltz resigned from his civilian government job in 2011. While he remained a reservist in the Army, he co-founded two private-sector companies in the field of national security.

One was Askari Associates LLC, a small geopolitical consulting firm. The other was Metis Solutions LLC, a Virginia-based defense contractor that ultimately earned him millions of dollars, documents show.

According to federal contracting records, Metis operated primarily at first as a services provider for the U.S. Special Operations Command, which is headquartered in Tampa. In 2016, a Northern Virginia venture capital firm, Blue Delta Capital Partners, invested in Metis, fueling an expansion.

With Waltz as CEO, the company grew from a handful of staff to 400 employees, with operations in 20 states and nine countries, according to a podcast interview that Waltz gave last year.

Kevin Robbins, a general partner at Blue Delta, said the firm invested in Metis because it was impressed with Waltz’s management skills, calling him “a very tough Green Beret.”

“We were writing a check to back Mike and the team and take the company to the next level,” Robbins said. “It was a phenomenal run.”

Metis obtained other federal contracts, including from the Treasury Department. Much of its work focused on analyzing how terrorist networks raise money. The Defense Department also paid Metis to send advisers to Kabul to work alongside Afghan ministries, records show.

Waltz sold his stake in the company when he ran for Congress in 2018, ultimately netting him between $5 million and $26 million, according to a financial disclosure form he submitted in 2020.

Meanwhile, Waltz’s credentials as a Green Beret and Afghanistan veteran opened doors for him in the media world.

The impetus was a 2014 deal negotiated by the Obama administration for the release of Bowe Bergdahl, an Army private whom the Taliban had held prisoner for five years. When Bergdahl was freed, Obama met with his parents in the White House Rose Garden and praised the soldier as a hero.

The description angered Waltz, who went public in interviews with his concerns. Waltz had led Special Forces teams that carried out an intensive — and risky — search for Bergdahl in 2009 when he went missing from a tiny outpost in eastern Afghanistan.

Though the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl’s disappearance were murky at the time, Waltz and others viewed him as a deserter who had endangered hundreds of U.S. personnel by forcing them to conduct a search in hostile territory. Bergdahl later admitted that he abandoned his post because he was unhappy with conditions in the Army. He was captured by the Taliban shortly afterward.

A telegenic Green Beret, Waltz soon found a regular home on Fox News, where he expanded his repertoire beyond the Bergdahl case to become a national security commentator and a critic of Obama’s foreign policy.

In January 2018, he used his perch on Fox to declare his candidacy for Congress. Brian Kilmeade, a host on Fox & Friends, was effusive. “If you want a guy that’s good on business, good on camera, who served in the military with distinction, you’re looking at him,” Kilmeade said.

Waltz defeated Democrat Nancy Soderbergh in November 2018, making him the first Green Beret to win a seat in Congress. Though Waltz did not deploy again to Afghanistan, he remained in the Army National Guard until 2023, when he retired as a colonel. Over his 26-year military career, he received four Bronze Stars, including two with the “V” device for valor, according to his Army service records.

During his first term in Congress, Waltz bonded with Trump on a May 2020 trip to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to observe the launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and two astronauts to the International Space Station. Their relationship strengthened during last year’s presidential campaign.

In August, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery to mark the three-year anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans at the Kabul airport.

Federal law prohibits election-related activities at the hallowed site. A Trump campaign staffer got into an altercation with an Army official who tried to block the operative from recording video of Trump amid the gravestones.

The dustup kindled a national debate over whether Trump was politicizing the deaths of U.S. military personnel — or, in his supporters’ view, trying to hold the Biden administration accountable for botching the conclusion of the war.

One of the loudest voices defending Trump belonged to Waltz, who joined him at Arlington for the commemoration. Despite their past differences over Afghanistan, the retired Army colonel had built a rapport with Trump and introduced him to relatives of some of the fallen troops being honored that day. (While several of the Gold Star families supported Trump’s role at the ceremony, others declined to take part).

“Those families wanted him there,” Waltz said in an Aug. 30 interview on Fox News with Pete Hegseth, a talk-show host and fellow Afghanistan war veteran whom Trump has since nominated to serve as defense secretary. “And damn it, they deserve to have whatever they want.”
Taliban deputy tells leader there is no excuse for education bans on Afghan women and girls (AP)
AP [1/19/2025 2:18 AM, Staff, 1286K, Negative]
A senior Taliban figure has urged the group’s leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for them, in a rare public rebuke of government policy.

Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political deputy at the Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in a speech on Saturday in southeastern Khost province.

He told an audience at a religious school ceremony there was no reason to deny education to women and girls, “just as there was no justification for it in the past and there shouldn’t be one at all.”

The government has barred females from education after sixth grade. Last September, there were reports authorities had also stopped medical training and courses for women.

In Afghanistan, women and girls can only be treated by female doctors and health professionals. Authorities have yet to confirm the medical training ban.

“We call on the leadership again to open the doors of education,” said Stanikzai in a video shared by his official account on the social platform X. “We are committing an injustice against 20 million people out of a population of 40 million, depriving them of all their rights. This is not in Islamic law, but our personal choice or nature.”

Stanikzai was once the head of the Taliban team in talks that led to the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

It is not the first time he has said that women and girls deserve to have an education. He made similar remarks in September 2022, a year after schools closed for girls and months and before the introduction of a university ban.

But the latest comments marked his first call for a change in policy and a direct appeal to Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Ibraheem Bahiss, an analyst with Crisis Group’s South Asia program, said Stanikzai had periodically made statements calling girls’ education a right of all Afghan women.

“However, this latest statement seems to go further in the sense that he is publicly calling for a change in policy and questioned the legitimacy of the current approach,” Bahiss said.

In the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, earlier this month, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai urged Muslim leaders to challenge the Taliban on women and girls’ education.

She was speaking at a conference hosted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Muslim World League.

The U.N. has said that recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place and women can’t go out in public without a male guardian.

No country recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, but countries like Russia have been building ties with them.

India has also been developing relations with Afghan authorities.

In Dubai earlier this month, a meeting between India’s top diplomat, Vikram Mistri, and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi showed their deepening cooperation.
Taliban deputy foreign minister calls for girls’ high schools to open (Reuters)
Reuters [1/20/2025 2:53 AM, Staff, 48128K, Neutral]
The Taliban’s acting deputy foreign minister called on his senior leadership to open schools for Afghan girls, among the strongest public rebukes of a policy that has contributed to the international isolation of its rulers.

Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, who previously led a team of negotiators at the Taliban’s political office in Doha before U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, said in a speech at the weekend that restrictions on girls and women’s education was not in line with Islamic Sharia law.

"We request the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to open the doors of education," he said, according to local broadcaster Tolo, referring to the Taliban’s name for its administration.

"In the time of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), the doors of knowledge were open to both men and women," he said.

"Today, out of a population of forty million, we are committing injustice against twenty million people," he added, referring to the female population of Afghanistan.

The comments were among the strongest public criticism in recent years by a Taliban official of the school closures, which Taliban sources and diplomats have previously told Reuters were put in place by the supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada despite some internal disagreement.

The Taliban have said they respect women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan culture.

They made a sharp u-turn on promises to open high schools for girls in 2022, and have since said they were working on a plan for the schools to re-open but have not given any timeline. They closed universities to female students at the end of 2022.

The policies have been widely criticised internationally, including by Islamic scholars, and Western diplomats have said any path towards formal recognition of the Taliban is blocked until there is a change on their policies towards women.

A Taliban administration spokesman in the southern city of Kandahar where Haibatullah is based did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Stanekzai’s remarks.
Funding cuts to Afghanistan are the biggest threat to helping women, aid agency chief warns (AP)
AP [1/19/2025 12:15 PM, Staff, 33392K, Neutral]
Funding cuts to Afghanistan are the biggest threat to helping the country’s women, the chief of a top aid agency warned Sunday.

Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said women and girls were bearing the brunt of dwindling financial support for nongovernmental groups and humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

The NRC helped 772,484 Afghans in 2022. That number fell to 491,435 in 2023. Last year, the aid agency helped 216,501 people. Half of its beneficiaries are women.

Egeland, who has made several visits to Afghanistan since 2021, said: "We see one after the other peer organization cutting programming and staff in the last two years. The biggest threat to programs helping Afghan women is funding cuts. The biggest threat to the future well-being of Afghan women is (the lack of) education.".

The Taliban takeover in August 2021 drove millions into poverty and hunger after foreign aid stopped almost overnight.

Sanctions against the country’s new rulers, a halt on bank transfers and frozen billions in Afghanistan’s currency reserves have cut off access to global institutions and the outside money that supported the aid-dependent economy before the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.

The U.N. and others have urged the international community to continue supporting the beleaguered country.

Organizations like the Norwegian Refugee Council have helped keep public services afloat through education and health care programs, including nutrition and immunization.

But women and girls face more obstacles in accessing health care and education because of restrictions imposed by authorities and an ongoing shortage of female medical professionals, also exacerbated by Taliban decrees.

Egeland said Afghan women and girls had not forgotten world leaders telling them their "number one priority" was education and human rights. "Now we can’t even fund livelihood programming for widows and single mothers," he told The Associated Press by telephone from the western province of Herat.

The international community provided humanitarian assistance in many countries where they disagreed with local policies. But opposition to Taliban policies, together with a "general starving" of aid funding in many countries, was worsening the shortfall in Afghanistan, he said.

Egeland said most of his discussions with Taliban officials on his trip were about the need to resume classes for women and girls. "They still argue that it will happen, but the conditions are not right," he said. "They say they need to agree on what the conditions are.".
Pakistan
In Pakistan, Imran Khan’s Followers Are Counting on Trump to Free Him (New York Times)
New York Times [1/17/2025 4:14 PM, Salman Masood, 831K, Neutral]
In Pakistan’s turbulent politics, it has long been held that Allah, the army and America hold sway over who wields power.

Supporters of Imran Khan, the imprisoned former prime minister, are now pinning their hopes on getting him freed — however fanciful — on the wild card among the three: the incoming administration of Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Trump has said nothing publicly to indicate that he plans to intervene in Mr. Khan’s case. Once he is sworn in as president on Monday, Pakistan is unlikely to rank high among Mr. Trump’s foreign policy priorities.

But a series of posts on social media by one of Mr. Trump’s close allies has inspired almost messianic certainty among Mr. Khan’s followers that the once and future American president will help secure his freedom.

The Trump ally, Richard Grenell, has repeatedly demanded Mr. Khan’s release in messages on X. Mr. Grenell, who was ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence in the first Trump administration, was named last month by Mr. Trump as his “envoy for special missions.”

One of Mr. Grenell’s posts about Mr. Khan, written two days after his appointment, garnered more than 12 million views. In another December message on X that he later deleted, Mr. Grenell equated Mr. Trump with Mr. Khan, another celebrity-turned-politician.

“Watch Pakistan,” he wrote. “Their Trump-like leader is in prison on phony charges, and the people have been inspired by the US Red Wave. Stop the political prosecutions around the world!”

Another fierce Trump loyalist, Matt Gaetz, the ex-congressman from Florida, echoed Mr. Grenell with a call on X: “Free Imran Khan!”

It is unclear why Mr. Grenell, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has taken up Mr. Khan’s cause.

But members of the Pakistani diaspora have undertaken a vigorous lobbying campaign in the United States as Mr. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., has been battered at home by arrests, crackdowns and censorship.

Mr. Khan — who was once backed by the powerful military but later lost its support — has been jailed since 2023 on a variety of charges. He says the charges are politically motivated. On Friday, a court sentenced him to another prison term, for corruption, along with his wife, Bushra Bibi.

To Mr. Khan’s followers, the proclamations of support from Mr. Trump’s camp have felt like lifelines. “At last, our message is breaking through,” said Atif Khan, a Houston-based official in Mr. Khan’s party.

Hope has spread like wildfire in teeming WhatsApp groups and in living rooms where Mr. Khan’s supporters gather. Each social media post from a Trump ally has been dissected, celebrated and shared as proof that change is imminent.

Mr. Khan’s fervent followers draw parallels between him and Mr. Trump, casting them as outsiders besieged by entrenched elites. Both men have leaned heavily on social media to bypass traditional power structures.

At Raja Bazaar, a crowded marketplace in the city of Rawalpindi that often mirrors the national political mood, Mohammad Sarwar interrupted his search for bargains to voice a sentiment common among Mr. Khan’s followers.

“Trump will help free Imran Khan,” said Mr. Sarwar, 43, invoking the president-elect’s name as though it were an incantation.

Courting American intervention is a striking shift for P.T.I., which has long branded itself as critical of U.S. policies.

Mr. Khan, a former cricket superstar, accused the United States of orchestrating his ouster as prime minister in 2022. But his supporters now frame their struggle as one aligned with American values, saying they are fighting for democratic ideals and human rights.

In the past, Mr. Trump has spoken harshly of Pakistan. He accused its leaders of “lies and deceit” as he froze $1.3 billion in security aid in early 2018. His administration also spearheaded efforts that year to blacklist Pakistan at the Financial Action Task Force, a global watchdog that combats terrorism and money laundering. Those moves are still sore points in Pakistan, officials say.

Mr. Khan became prime minister later in 2018. Mr. Trump invited him for a meeting at the White House in July 2019. The next January in Davos, Switzerland, he called Mr. Khan “a very good friend of mine.”

Officials in Pakistan’s governing coalition have dismissed P.T.I.’s expectations for the incoming Trump administration as fantasy.

“P.T.I.’s hopes are unrealistic,” said Khurram Dastgir-Khan, a former defense and foreign minister who belongs to the governing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party. “The Trump administration, even if inclined to pressure Pakistan, would likely prioritize financial leverage, not the release or return of Khan to power.”

Pakistan’s military establishment, the invisible hand behind the country’s politics, has shown no signs of softening toward Mr. Khan.

Faisal Vawda, a senator with close links to the military, said he did not expect the Trump administration to make great efforts to aid Mr. Khan, noting that it had been several weeks since Mr. Grenell last called for his release.

“I don’t see any good news coming from the Trump administration for P.T.I.,” Mr. Vawda said. While P.T.I. has been working through lobbyists in the United States, he said, “similarly, the Pakistani establishment has done its own diplomacy, and this explains why the tweets have stopped.”

“I see Trump working with Pakistan, the army and the government,” Mr. Vawda said.
Palestinians must have ‘self-determination and statehood’, Pakistan tells UN (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [1/20/2025 7:00 PM, Staff, 19588K, Negative]
Pakistan’s UN envoy, Munir Akram, has expressed support for Palestinian "self-determination and statehood" in a speech to a UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting convened in response to the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

"Pakistan hopes that all stages of the ceasefire agreement will be fully implemented and that the ceasefire will become permanent," Akram said.

"We hope also that the Palestinians will be able to agree on arrangements for Gaza’s inclusive effective governance.".

Akram called for Israeli troops to fully withdraw from Gaza, noting that "their presence is illegal" and called for "accountability for the crimes committed in this brutal war".

He also called for Israel to immediately withdraw from the "separation zone" between Syria and Israel that Israeli forces occupied in December.

Pakistan began a two-year term as one of 10 elected members of the UNSC at the beginning of January.
Pakistan launches security operation in the northwest after surge in violence and sectarian strife (AP)
AP [1/20/2025 2:10 AM, Javed Hussain, 63029K, Negative]
Pakistani security forces launched an operation targeting militants in a restive northwestern district bordering Afghanistan, officials said on Monday, following a surge in attacks and sectarian strife. It is the first large-scale operation in the area in recent years.

The latest attack in Kurram, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was on Friday when unidentified gunmen ambushed and burned aid trucks, killing two security personnel and at least five drivers.

The district has been cut off from the rest of the country since November after authorities blocked roads following clashes between heavily armed Shiite and Sunni tribes. At the time, gunmen ambushed a convoy of vehicles carrying passengers, killing 52 people, mostly Shiites. Retaliatory attacks left over 70 others dead.

Hundreds of thousands of residents have since faced a shortage of food and medicine with aid organizations unable to enter the area.

Barrister Saif Ali, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the operation became “inevitable” following the surge in violence. He also said authorities are moving some residents to temporary governmental shelter camps while the operation is ongoing in several areas, including the city of Bagan from where most of the violence has been reported.

Motasim Billah, a government administrator, said the goal of the operation is to fully restore peace and ensure the writ of the government.

Shiite Muslims dominate parts of Kurram, although they are a minority in the rest of Pakistan, which is majority Sunni. The area has a history of sectarian conflict, with militant Sunni groups previously targeting minority Shiites.
Pakistan’s largest airport becomes operational, part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (AP)
AP [1/20/2025 6:06 AM, Abdul Sattar, 63029K, Negative]
Pakistan’s largest airport, funded and built in the country’s restive southwest by Beijin g, has become operational, officials said Monday.

Gwadar airport is in the province of Balochistan, which has for decades been the scene of an insurgency by separatists demanding autonomy or outright independence.

Pakistani Defense Minister, Khawaja Mohammad Asif, and Chinese officials were among those attending a ceremony at Gwadar airport and watched the arrival of the Pakistan International Airlines inaugural flight from the southern city of Karachi.

The ceremony came months after Chinese Premier Li Qiang and his Pakistani counterpart Shehbaz Sharif virtually inaugurated the airport, which has a capacity of handling 400,000 travelers annually.

Beijing has invested heavily in the coastal city of Gwadar. Besides the airport, which has an estimated cost of $230 million, China has also constructed a deep seaport as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative to increase trade by building infrastructure around the world. This aims to also give Beijing direct access to the shipping lanes of the Arabian Sea through Pakistan via the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Work started on Gwadar airport in 2019. It was supposed to be operational last year but was delayed after a surge in attacks by militants and separatists on Chinese nationals working on projects in the province.

In televised remarks, Asif thanked China for building the airport and said the airport would play a key role in improving the country’s economy, attracting international investment and bringing prosperity to Balochistan.

Ethnic Baloch, who accuse the Chinese and others of economic exploitation, oppose the project and other Chinese initiatives in the province.

The Ministry of Planning and Development stated that the airport can handle a combination of ATR 72, Airbus, (A-300), Boeing (B-737), and Boeing (B-747) for domestic and international routes.

Gwadar airport is the country’s largest in terms of area, spread over 4,300 acres of land, according to Pakistan’s civil aviation.
India
Trump’s Return Has Unnerved World Leaders. But Not India. (New York Times)
New York Times [1/18/2025 4:14 PM, Mujib Mashal, 831K, Neutral]
Over the past year, a pair of legal bombshells have put India’s growing relationship with the United States to one of its biggest tests yet.

Just as the two sides were announcing unprecedented expansions in defense and technology ties, U.S. prosecutors accused Indian government agents of plotting to assassinate an American citizen on U.S. soil.

Months later, the Justice Department filed fraud and bribery charges against India’s most prominent business mogul, whose enterprises have soared to dizzying heights on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s power.

Still, the relationship has held. After decades of mutual suspicion between the two countries, said Eric Garcetti, the departing U.S. ambassador to India, the fact that now nothing seems to derail their ties is proof of their strength.

“I don’t think there is anything out there big enough to threaten the trajectory of the U.S.-India relations,” Mr. Garcetti said on Saturday in an interview at the embassy in New Delhi, two days before President Biden leaves office and Donald J. Trump is sworn in as his successor.

“This is incredibly resilient and almost inevitable,” Mr. Garcetti added. “It’s really the pace and the progress that’s not inevitable, like how quickly we get there.”

The Biden administration’s doubling down on the relationship with India came after nearly two decades of efforts to shed Cold War-era suspicions that had culminated with U.S. sanctions on India’s nuclear program in 1998.

Washington sees great potential in India as a geopolitical counterweight to an increasingly assertive China. Already the world’s largest democracy, India took over from China as the world’s most populous nation in 2023. India’s demographic advantages and growing technological capacity could help diversify global supply chains away from China, a priority of the United States and other major powers.

Now comes Mr. Trump’s second presidency, with its America-first orientation and threats of steep tariffs on trading partners. While leaders of many countries are unnerved, Indian officials insist that they are not among them.

S. Jaishankar, the foreign minister, has said India enjoyed “a positive political relationship with Trump” that it hopes will only deepen. As he attended the opening of a U.S. Consulate on Friday in the tech hub of Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore, Mr. Jaishankar quoted Mr. Modi as saying that the two countries were overcoming “the hesitations of history.”

Mr. Modi has enjoyed a strong rapport with Mr. Trump, an important factor because of the incoming president’s personal approach to international relations. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Modi hosted him at a grand rally in his home state of Gujarat, as well as at a large gathering in Texas of the Indian diaspora — an increasingly crucial extension of the Indian influence in American politics.

But some analysts cautioned that Mr. Trump’s unpredictability and transactional approach could pose risks for India.

Two issues in particular are bound to test the relationship, and most likely soon. During the campaign, Mr. Trump criticized India as gaining an unfair advantage in trade by maintaining high tariffs. And India could be swept up in the controversy if Mr. Trump follows through on his promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Indians make up the third-largest group of illegal immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. If Mr. Trump sends large numbers of Indians back to their home country, it could be a major embarrassment for Mr. Modi.

Amita Batra, a New Delhi-based economist and trade expert, said that India should see warning signs in Mr. Trump’s threat of higher tariffs even against America’s traditional allies, as well as his stated willingness to unravel deals with countries like Mexico and Canada that his own first administration had put in place.

“You may say we are on great terms with Trump, we have an easy relation with the United States, but how Trump views that at a particular time is a different question altogether,” Dr. Batra said at an event at the Center for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi. “India has to be very cautiously approaching Trump 2.0.”

During the interview, Mr. Garcetti described the bilateral relationship as “the most compelling, challenging and consequential” for both countries.

A former Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Mr. Garcetti arrived in New Delhi in April 2023, after the mission had remained without an ambassador for two years. His confirmation process had hit a wall over accusations that he had overlooked complaints of sexual harassment by an aide when he was mayor.

He made up for the time lost with a burst of energy and outreach like that of a politician in campaign mode.

He was everywhere, from cricket grounds to cafeterias to cultural programs. Sporting a leather jacket, he even got behind the piano to open for the jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves, who had come to perform at the Piano Man Jazz Club in New Delhi.

But by the time Mr. Garcetti tried his hand at dancing to a viral Bollywood tune at a Diwali celebration, relations between the two countries had hit major obstacles.

In India, right-wing trolls had seized on the U.S. allegations of Indian government involvement in a plot to assassinate an American citizen advocating a separatist cause in India. That, along with the U.S. indictment of Gautam Adani, the business mogul, was evidence that the United States was trying to dampen India’s inevitable rise, the nationalist online voices argued.

The Biden administration appeared intent on addressing the assassination episode quietly with New Delhi, demanding accountability without allowing it to become a major diplomatic sore point.

“On Capitol Hill, within the White House, I think with those in the know it was a real moment of reflection and pause,” Mr. Garcetti said of the assassination case. “It didn’t pause the momentum — you know, relations between countries are always multifaceted and simultaneous and not just between governments. But I think it was an immediate gut check.”

Mr. Garcetti said that the Biden administration had been reassured by India’s response. New Delhi had accepted the U.S. demand, he said, “not just for accountability but for systemic reform and guarantees that this will never happen again.”

An Indian government inquiry that concluded last week recommended legal action against an unnamed person with “earlier criminal links.” It said that the action “must be completed expeditiously,” in what analysts saw as an attempt to begin the Trump era with a clean slate.

“If we want to cooperate in other areas that are important to us, intelligence sharing, et cetera, trust is the basis of everything,” Mr. Garcetti said. “But I’ve been pretty blown away with how trust can deepen through a challenge.”

One question hovering over the deepening ties between the two countries is whether India can truly emerge as an alternative to China in global supply chains — something that Mr. Garcetti also wondered.

India has reaped only a small part of the windfall from the moves away from China, with businesses preferring places like Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico, where it is easier to set up operations and where tariffs are lower.

Mr. Garcetti said India had made dramatic leaps after opening up its economy only in the 1990s, years after China. He picked up his iPhone to illustrate a widely highlighted recent success: About 15 percent of iPhone manufacturing now happens in India, a figure that could continue growing rapidly, he said.

More broadly, though, India still struggles to attract foreign investment, despite improvements in infrastructure and some streamlining of regulations. Manufacturing is not growing quickly enough to bring India the jobs it desperately needs.

“Where India’s leaving a lot of progress and jobs and growth on the table is figuring out a better way to make it seamless and frictionless to invest here for export,” Mr. Garcetti said. “Because it’s still, you know, for so many components of manufacturing, one of, if not the, highest tariffed economies.”

“They’re not wrong to look and say it used to be 95 percent worse,” Mr. Garcetti said. “But if that 5 percent is still double your competitor or 10 times your competitor — companies, you know, are like water. They flow where gravity takes them.”
India Set to Take Back 18,000 Citizens From US to Placate Trump (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [1/21/2025 5:02 AM, Sudhi Ranjan Sen and Dan Strumpf, 21617K, Negative]
India’s government is prepared to work with Donald Trump’s administration to identify and take back all its citizens residing illegally in the US, an early signal from New Delhi that it’s willing to comply with the incoming American president and avoid a trade war.

The two countries have together identified some 18,000 illegal Indian migrants in the US to be sent back home, according to people familiar with the matter. The figure could be much higher than that, though, given it’s unclear how many illegal Indian migrants live in the US, the people added, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.

Like several other nations, India is working behind the scenes to appease the Trump administration and avoid the brunt of its trade threats. The crackdown on illegal migration has been a signature campaign pledge for Trump. Within hours of his inauguration Monday, the new president moved to fulfill that pledge as he pushed to end birthright citizenship and mobilize troops on the US-Mexico border.

In return for its cooperation, India hopes that the Trump administration would protect legal immigration channels used by its citizens to enter the US, in particular the student visas and the H-1B program for skilled workers. Indian citizens accounted for almost three-fourths of the 386,000 H-1B visas granted in 2023, according to official data.

Any slack in taking back illegal US migrants could also adversely affect India’s labor and mobility agreements with other countries, the people familiar with the matter said. With a jobs shortage back home, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has signed migration agreements with an array of countries in recent years, including Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Israel and others.

“As part of India-US cooperation on migration and mobility, both sides are engaged in a process to deter illegal migration. This is being done to create more avenues for legal migration from India to the US,” said Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs. “The latest deportation of Indian nationals from the US by a chartered flight is a result of this cooperation,” he added, referring to an October repatriation action.

Rising Numbers

India is a relatively modest contributor of illegal migrants to the US, with its citizens accounting for about 3% of all unlawful crossings encountered by US border patrol officials in fiscal 2024, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. Latin American countries such as Mexico, Venezuela and Guatemala account for a far larger share.

However, the tally and share of Indian illegal migrants has been rising modestly in recent years. In particular, it has shot up at the less-trafficked northern US border, where Indians account for almost a quarter of all illegal crossings and also the biggest share of unlawful migrants stopped at that entry point, the data show.

While the total number of illegal Indian migrants in the US isn’t certain, a report published last year by the Department of Homeland Security estimated some 220,000 unauthorized Indian immigrants resided in the US as of 2022.

India has already sought to show a cooperative attitude toward US border enforcement efforts, including toward officials in the Biden administration. In October, the Department of Homeland Security said it chartered a “large-scale” repatriation flight of more than 100 Indian nationals without the right to be the US, building on the more than 1,100 Indian citizens deported during the previous 12 months.

Taking back illegal migrants could also further Modi’s goal of deterring secessionist movements overseas, according to people familiar with the discussions, including the so-called Khalistan movement, which seeks to establish a separate Sikh state on Indian soil. India has cracked down on the movement, and officials believe some of the group’s backers in the US and Canada are illegal migrants.

Trade Worries

While Modi is seen to have friendly ties with Trump, and has welcomed the new administration, it is cautious of any unpredictable action from the US president, which could lead to a costly trade war. Trump has repeatedly complained that India’s high import taxes hurt American businesses, and has vowed reciprocal duties on the South Asian nation.

In his first day in office, Trump has focused his attention on immediate neighbors. The US president said on Monday that he was planning to impose tariffs of as much as 25% on Mexico and Canada by Feb. 1, blaming them for “allowing vast numbers of people” into the country.

Canada in particular was “a very bad abuser,” Trump said, complaining about fentanyl and migrants crossing its US border.

While it’s not fully clear why the northern US border has become such a major entry point for unauthorized migrants from India, reasons could include a halt to visa-free travel for Indians to El Salvador in 2023, and the relative ease of travel to Canada for Indians, according to the Niskanen Center, a Washington-based think tank.
India likely to boost purchases of US oil, gas following Trump’s announcement (Reuters)
Reuters [1/21/2025 4:27 AM, Nidhi Verma, 5.2M, Neutral]
India is likely to increase its purchases of U.S. oil and gas after U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement to maximise U.S. oil and gas production.

"There is a possibility of more energy purchase between India and U.S.," India’s Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told reporters on the sideline of an event.

"More U.S. energy coming into the market is welcome."

Trump on Monday said he would immediately declare a national energy emergency, promising to fill up strategic reserves and export American energy all over the world.

During his inaugural address after being sworn in, Trump termed U.S. energy assets as "liquid gold" that would help the United States be a rich nation again.

Refiners in India, which imports over 80% of its oil, have been hit hard by a spike in global oil prices and shipping rates after Washington recently imposed sweeping new sanctions targeting Russian insurers, tankers and oil producers.

Puri said there was no shortage of oil in the market.

The world’s No. 3 oil importer and consumer became the top buyer of discounted Russian seaborne oil after the European Union shunned purchases and imposed sanctions on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russian oil accounted for more than a third of India’s imports last year, but U.S. sanctions are tightening supply, pushing the buyer back to traditional Middle East sources.
US Speaks to India’s Leaders for Easier Nuclear Liability Laws (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [1/18/2025 2:40 AM, Sudhi Ranjan Sen and Dan Strumpf, 21617K, Neutral]
The US has spoken with Indian leaders across the political spectrum to get them to review the South Asian nation’s strict regulations for makers of nuclear reactors, the outgoing US ambassador to India said.

In an interview in New Delhi on Thursday, Ambassador Eric Garcetti said leaders from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as opposition parties were interested in looking for a “way forward” on the matter.

Currently, India has some of the world’s strictest nuclear liability laws, under which not just the plant operators, but also makers of reactors can be held responsible in the event of an accident. These regulations have impeded several proposed projects in India, including one with France to construct the world’s largest nuclear power plant in the western Maharashtra state.

Garcetti’s remarks come just days after President Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US is finalizing steps to remove longstanding barriers to civil nuclear cooperation with India.

“Formal paperwork will be done soon” to scrap regulations that prevented Indian entities and American companies from cooperating on nuclear energy projects, Sullivan said during his last official visit to New Delhi.

President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is also “focused and excited” about making progress on the India-US civil nuclear deal, which was announced nearly two decades ago, Garcetti said. Last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Biden had discussed ways to revive the nuclear trade, he said.

The discussions come amid major breakthroughs in civil nuclear technology. Garcetti cited the example of US-made small nuclear reactors that can operate in places where traditional power plants cannot. The combination of India’s cheap and trained workforce and American technology could hold a “huge opportunity” for the South Asian nation, provided the laws are relaxed, he added.

India, one of the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitters, is seeking to rapidly expand use of nuclear power to both decarbonize and meet rising energy demand. Currently, there are 22 nuclear reactors in the country that are run by the state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India.

Lifting sanctions on Indian atomic research institutions by the US is a “welcome step,” said Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s Ministry External Affairs on Friday. It will lead “to greater collaboration and hopefully issues like the liability clause will also be discussed and taken forward.”
Rubio will meet with peers from India, Japan, Australia after expected confirmation, officials say (AP)
AP [1/19/2025 5:57 PM, Matthew Lee, 57114K, Neutral]
The Trump administration would begin formal international engagements this week when Marco Rubio — expected to be confirmed soon as secretary of state — meets with the foreign ministers of India, Japan and Australia, U.S. officials say.

The so-called Quad grouping is a main component of the U.S. strategy to blunt increasing Chinese influence and aggression in the Indo-Pacific, an initiative that Trump had championed during his first term in office but was elevated to the leaders’ level by outgoing President Joe Biden.

Rubio is expected to be confirmed by the Senate to the post of America’s top diplomat on Monday, just hours after President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in for his second term.

Rubio’s meetings, together and separately, on Tuesday with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and Japanese Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi, will be his first as secretary of state, the current and incoming officials said. The three ministers will all be attending Trump’s inauguration.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Rubio has not yet been confirmed as secretary of state.

Biden and his outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken have touted their work to rebuild ties with allies abroad after taking over from Trump in 2021. Trump has been skeptical of alliances, including NATO and defense partnerships in the Asia-Pacific.

"When we came in, we inherited partnerships and alliances that were seriously frayed," Blinken told The Associated Press on Friday.

The leaders of the Quad countries met with Biden near the U.S. president’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, in September. They agreed to expand the partnership among the four nations’ coast guards to improve interoperability and capabilities, with Indian, Japanese and Australian personnel sailing on U.S. ships in the region.

All the countries are worried about China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific, and the U.S.-China rivalry is set to intensify after Trump takes office. Beijing has sent Vice President Han Zheng to Trump’s inauguration after the U.S. president-elect invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping, but tariffs imposed on Chinese products in Trump’s first term were a hallmark of his trade policy, and he has signaled that he will increase and expand them in his second term.

Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke by phone Friday on trade fentanyl and TikTok. Trump said on social media that they agreed to "do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!".

Meanwhile, several of Trump’s nominees for key Cabinet positions are known China hawks, including Rubio. Rubio called China "the most potent, dangerous and near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted" during his confirmation hearing Wednesday.
India’s Economy Slows Down Just When It Was Supposed to Speed Up (New York Times)
New York Times [1/21/2025 12:00 AM, Alex Travelli, 831K, Neutral]
A year ago, India was bouncing back from a recession caused by Covid-19 with a spring in its step. The country had overtaken China as the most populous country, and its leaders were declaring India the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

This was music to the ears of foreign investors, and to India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who at every opportunity boasted about his country’s inevitable rise. Home to 1.4 billion people, an invigorated India could become an economic workhorse to power the rest of the world, which is stumbling through the fog of trade wars, China’s troubles and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

India displaced Britain in 2022 as the world’s fifth-biggest economy, and by next year it is expected to push aside Germany in fourth spot. But India has lost a step, revealing its vulnerabilities even as it moves up the global rankings.

The stock market, which soared for years, has just erased the past six months of gains. The currency, the rupee, is falling fast against the dollar, making homegrown earnings look smaller on the global stage. India’s new middle class, whose wealth surged like never before after the pandemic, is wondering where it went wrong. Mr. Modi will have to adjust his promises.

November brought the first nasty shock, when national statistics revealed that the economy’s annual growth had slowed to 5.4 percent over the summer. Last fiscal year, which ran from April through March, was clocked at 8.2 percent growth, enough to double the economy’s size in a decade. The revised outlook for the current fiscal year is 6.4 percent.

“It’s a reversion to trend,” according to Rathin Roy, a professor at the Kautilya School of Public Policy in Hyderabad. There was a brief period, 20 years ago, when India seemed poised to break into double-digit growth. But, Mr. Roy argued, that growth depended on banks pumping out loans to businesses at an unsustainable rate.

Ever since the government withdrew vast amounts of cash from circulation in 2016 in a vain effort to rein in underground commerce, Mr. Roy said, the economy has never recovered even its 8 percent pace. It only looked better, he said, because “you had the Covid dip, as happened in many economies. India’s economy didn’t get back in absolute size until last year,” later than most other countries.

The reasons behind the slowdown are up for debate. One effect is undeniable: Overseas investors have been heading for the exits.

“Foreign investment has taken the call that the Indian stock market is overvalued,” Mr. Roy said. “It’s quite logical that they would get out of pesky emerging economies and put their money where they can make more,” like on Wall Street, he added.

Investors who bought a broad mix of Indian stocks early in 2020 watched their worth triple by last September, as major market indexes hit record highs.

The number of Indians buying stocks grew even more rapidly, which helped drive up prices. Ahead of the Parliamentary election in June, Mr. Modi’s right-hand man, Amit Shah, predicted that India’s new investor class would help sweep their party to victory. During Mr. Modi’s first two terms, the number of Indians holding investment accounts went from 22 million to 150 million, according to a study by Motilal Oswal, a brokerage house.

“These 130,000,000 people will be earning something, no?” Mr. Shah reasoned to The Indian Express, a newspaper. The new investors were clearly spending. In particular, the luxury and other high-end sectors were doing well: cars more than motorcycles, high-end electronics more than household basics.

But that prosperity, concentrated among the top 10 percent, left the other 90 percent wanting more. Mr. Modi’s party lost its majority in Parliament, though it retained control of the government. Expanded welfare payments, like the free wheat and rice the government distributed to 800 million people, helped.

Despite such programs, the Modi government has been fiscally conservative and keeps a watchful eye on inflation. It has focused spending on big-ticket infrastructure items, such as bridges and highways, that are supposed to entice private enterprise into making investments of their own.

Indian businesses still have to contend with excessive red tape, political interference and other familiar difficulties. The Modi government has tried to reduce those burdens, but in recent years it has focused on increasing economic supply.

India’s government bet big on building new airports, for example. But the airlines that were set to serve them are pulling out. Vacationers who would have flown to beachy places like Sindhudurg, between Mumbai and Goa, are not buying enough tickets to keep a terminal there open.

Arvind Subramanian, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, traces the lack of demand back to the broader state of employment.

“Jobs are not being created, so people don’t have incomes and wages are depressed,” he said. There aren’t enough stockholders to make up the difference. The national minimum wage, which many workers in the informal economy are never paid, is just $2 a day.

Mr. Subramanian, who was the country’s chief economic adviser during Mr. Modi’s first term, said the government has gone “stale, and bereft” of ideas for tackling such problems. “Ideas for long-term growth and boosting employment — that is what we’re missing now,” he said.

He thinks the rupee’s fall is only natural, and should have happened sooner. Until recently, the central bank was spending billions of dollars to prop up the value of the national currency.

The psychological effect of a weakening rupee can be painful, but the cost of keeping it at a fixed rate of exchange to the dollar was “extremely damaging for the national economy,” he said.

No one is happy to see growth slowing. The government’s current chief economic adviser, V. Ananta Nageswaran, told a news briefing in November that the bad news could be a blip. “The global environment remains challenging,” he said, with a strong dollar and suspense over the possibility of sudden policy moves in the United States and China.

A year ago, the hope was that India’s own economic engine could push it through the global headwinds. The missing ingredients, then as now, start with too many people having too little money in hand.

“There simply isn’t enough demand,” said Mr. Roy, the professor in Hyderabad. “The idea that you can expect supply to create its own demand has its limits,” he said.

“Regular people,” Mr. Roy said, those between the top 10 percent seeing big stock market gains and the bottom 50 percent struggling to get by, still “don’t earn enough to buy the basics.” About 100 million of these regular people qualify for free grain.

The government is expected to release a budget for the new fiscal year on Feb. 1. Mr. Nageswaran, the current economic adviser, has stirred hope that it may include tax cuts, putting more money in the hands of consumers.

“This idea that India needs tax cuts, it has the causation exactly wrong and reversed,” said the former economic adviser, Mr. Subramanian. “Consumption is weak because incomes are weak.”

Last month, Mr. Nageswaran told Assocham, a group of business leaders, that employers need to pay their workers more, noting that wages were stagnant. “Not paying workers enough will end up being self-destructive or harmful for the corporate sector itself,” he warned.
Life in Prison for Hospital Rape and Murder That Shocked India (New York Times)
New York Times [1/20/2025 4:14 PM, Alex Travelli and Hari Kumar, 831K, Neutral]
An Indian court on Monday sentenced to life in prison the man convicted of raping and murdering a trainee doctor in Kolkata, sparing him the death penalty in a case that was a chilling example of how the country remains unsafe for women.

The killing in August led to months of protests and political turmoil in the state of West Bengal, of which Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, is the capital.

India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, its equivalent of the F.B.I., had asked the court to hand down a death penalty for Sanjay Roy, the perpetrator. So had the victim’s family, and the powerful chief minister of the state, Mamata Banerjee.

But the court ruled that Mr. Roy’s crimes did not meet the “rarest of the rare” standard used to justify executing those convicted of capital offenses.

Rekha Sharma, a former chief of the National Commission for Women and a member of Parliament, told an Indian news agency that “the victim’s family and all of us are really sad” that Mr. Roy avoided the death penalty. A member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, she blamed the sentence on shortcomings of the Kolkata Police, who answer to Ms. Banerjee.

Before the sentencing, Mr. Roy, who had served as a volunteer with the Kolkata Police, said he was not guilty. “I haven’t done this. I have been framed,” he told the court on Monday. Months ago, he had said that the written confessions he gave to police were obtained by force.

Details about the crime were murky for several days after the body of the 31-year-old victim was found in a seminar hall at a university hospital in Kolkata. They were also horrific, in a way that recalled a notorious case of rape and murder in New Delhi in December 2012 that also led to mass protests and, eventually, to four hangings.

In the Kolkata case, the junior doctor had gone to sleep on a mattress she had placed on the floor in the early hours of Aug. 9, after a grueling hospital shift. After her body was discovered, the authorities said she had been raped and strangled. Police arrested Mr. Roy after he was identified in CCTV footage entering the building before the attack and wearing headphones that were found at the crime scene.

The public reaction was extraordinary, and escalated over the next few months. Thousands of doctors across the city went on strike to demand safer working conditions. They were joined by many thousands of Indians, incensed at what they regarded as callous treatment of the victim’s family and efforts at a cover-up.

“People are convinced that this was connected with wholesale corruption in the medical college,” said Jawhar Sircar, a former civil servant who joined Ms. Banerjee’s political party but resigned in September over what he said was graft under her rule, and the role that it seemed to play in the Kolkata hospital rape and murder case.

A spokesperson for Ms. Banerjee, one of Mr. Modi’s most vocal rivals, greeted the sentencing by posting on social media that the politician and the Kolkata police had been vindicated by the verdict. But many protesters, Mr. Sircar added, had taken to the streets to rally against what they perceived as corruption under her long stint as chief minister of West Bengal.

And now, after the sentencing, the widespread feeling, Mr. Sircar said, was that “by selecting this guy, and punishing him, only partial justice has been done.”
Indian state contests life sentence of murder, rape convict, seeks death, source says (Reuters)
Reuters [1/21/2025 5:24 AM, Subrata Nag Choudhary, 5.2M, Neutral]
India’s West Bengal state launched an appeal on Tuesday to overturn a life sentence in favour of the death penalty for a police volunteer convicted of the rape and murder of a junior doctor, a senior lawyer aware of the development said.

The brutal killing sparked national outrage over the lack of safety for women and protests around the country by medics to demand justice and better security at public hospitals.

The state government run by the regional Trinamool Congress party filed the appeal at the Calcutta High Court, the lawyer said, declining to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The woman’s body was found in August in a classroom at the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, where she worked.

In convicting Sanjay Roy, Judge Anirban Das turned down a plea by prosecutors for the death penalty, saying he did not consider it a rare crime that might warrant capital punishment. He sentenced Roy on Monday to life in jail on counts of rape and murder.

Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal, of which Kolkata is the capital, said late on Monday that she was "shocked" by the judgement.

"I am convinced that it is indeed a rarest of rare case which demands capital punishment. How could the judgement come to the conclusion that it is not a rarest of rare case?!" Banerjee said in a post on the social media platform X.

Addressing a public rally about 350 km (215 miles) from Kolkata on Tuesday, Banerjee said her government was seeking the highest punishment in the case.

Roy has denied the charges and said he was framed. His lawyer said the defence would appeal against the conviction.

The parents of the junior doctor have said they are not satisfied with the investigation and suspected more people were involved in the crime.
These Rooms Give Young Indian Lovers Rare Privacy. Cue the Complaints. (New York Times)
New York Times [1/19/2025 4:14 PM, Anupreeta Das, 831K, Neutral]
Privacy can be hard to come by in India. Life is a communal swirl of relatives, neighbors and friends. Cities are crowded, and prying eyes are everywhere.

Enter Oyo, a popular hotel-booking platform. The company, backed by big names in venture capital, built a hip reputation as a gateway to “love hotels” for unmarried couples. Inside its budget rooms, young lovers who might otherwise be left to steal furtive kisses in the nooks and crannies of public parks or shopping malls could exert their passions behind closed doors.

Now, Oyo is stepping back from its image as a refuge for hookups. This month, it revised its policy guidelines to give some partner hotels the discretion to deny rooms to young couples unless they provide proof of marriage.

So far, the change applies only to Meerut, a midsize city northeast of New Delhi. The company said the new policy was a response to complaints by civil society groups and was formulated “in line with local social sensibilities.”

Oyo’s move spurred memes and a backlash on social media, especially among 20-somethings. To many, it drove home the tension between traditional values and modern ideals that defines life for millions of young Indians.

Premarital sex is still largely taboo in this deeply conservative country, where marriages are traditionally arranged by families. It is widely viewed as a malign import from the less-inhibited West, and as an affront to Indian culture that is either to be policed or left unacknowledged.

The stigma around sex before marriage is about “family honor,” said Chirodip Majumdar, an associate professor at Rabindra Mahavidyalaya, a college in the eastern state of West Bengal. Nonetheless, more young people are doing it anyway, studies show.

Attitudes about premarital sex vary along class lines, Mr. Majumdar said, with higher-income people viewing it more favorably. “They have more scope of social interactions, more knowledge about birth control mechanisms, more exposure to Western culture,” he said.

Many young Indians, too, have embraced liberal attitudes toward dating and sex that transcend caste, class and religion, which still often dictate arranged marriages.

Dating apps like Tinder are popular, as are hookups. A 2022 study published in the journal Sexuality & Culture found that 55 percent of young adults in four cities in India “engaged in hooking up, indicating that the norm regarding sexual behavior might be shifting.”

Neha, a 34-year-old counselor based in Bengaluru, said she and her husband rented Oyo rooms twice a week when they were dating. Neha, who asked that her last name not be used, recalled the judgmental glances that hotel owners, including those that did not use the Oyo platform, often directed her way.

At some hotels, the proprietors questioned their marital status before turning them away.

But Oyo became such a core part of their romance that when the couple got married in 2017, their animated video wedding invitation contained a reference to the hotel platform.

“Everyone knew we were using Oyo,” Neha said, adding, “So we put that in our wedding invite.”

The lack of private spaces in India to engage in intimacy created a market for companies like Oyo.

It is not uncommon to see young lovers exchange stealthy kisses in nearly empty movie theaters or under the archways of abandoned monuments in the blazing heat of a Delhi summer. Bathroom stalls and fitting rooms are all fair game. Cybercafes can be a make-out zone.

In the acclaimed 2024 movie “All We Imagine as Light,” which explores the intersecting lives of three women in Mumbai, one of the characters finds a deserted patch of forest to have sex with her boyfriend.

Manforce, which bills itself as India’s best-selling condom brand, last year featured a series of humorous ads with couples getting it on in private corners of public spaces — a car, a park, a cinema.

Oyo was founded in 2013 and is backed by investment firms, including SoftBank. It expanded to the United States in 2019, and last year it bought the Motel 6 chain.

In India, it offers rooms for as little as 500 rupees, or less than $6, a night, no questions asked. The platform became popular with small-hotel owners, who by signing up with Oyo are required to abide by its standards and use its branding.

On Google, one of the first search questions for Oyo is “Can I stay in Oyo with my girlfriend?” Although Oyo also serves solo business travelers and other customers, the company leaned into its image, offering room searches under filters like “relationship mode.”

Now, however, it is pursuing more families.

In an ad released last year, a young couple sits at the dinner table with the woman’s family. Their marital status is unclear. After she tells her father that they have booked a weekend trip with Oyo, he looks at them, horrified.

When the couple says it is more fun with family, the father expresses confusion: “What are you talking about?” The next frame shows the entire family checking into a sparkling Oyo hotel. The father then says, “This is what you’re talking about!”
NSB
Bangladesh medics arrested over death during 2024 revolution (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [1/19/2025 4:04 AM, Staff, 63029K, Negative]
Five Bangladeshi health workers have been arrested on murder charges after a social media post accused them of failing to provide aid to a man who died during last year’s revolution, a prosecutor said Sunday.

The case, which has generated widespread attention after the Facebook post resulted in criticism online of the medics, concerns the death of a rickshaw puller, Mohammed Ismail.

Hospital workers say the five are innocent and that they risked their lives repeatedly to help wounded protesters.

More than 800 people died in the student-led demonstrations that culminated in the ouster of Sheikh Hasina’s government on August 5, according to the interim authorities who subsequently took power.

Ismail was shot in the head on July 19, 2024 during a police crackdown in the Rampura suburb of the capital Dhaka, local media reported at the time.

A Facebook post showed his bloodied body on the entrance steps of the Delta Health Care Hospital.

"We saw a post on social media," chief prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam, from Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), told AFP.

The five -- doctor Sadi Bin Shams and four others including nurses -- were arrested late on Friday.

"These individuals allegedly denied Ismail access to treatment, leaving him unattended for four hours," Islam said.

But hospital director Saiful Islam Selim described how the medics had repeatedly defied police orders not to help wounded protesters.

The area around the hospital was "a battleground" during the revolution, he said, and police and members of the then-ruling party, the Awami League, "ordered us not to treat any protesters", he said.

"Despite these orders, we defied them multiple times and helped as much as we could," Selim told AFP.

He said hospital staff had tried to drag Ismail’s body inside the hospital, but retreated after police fired shots.

"We had no choice but to leave the body there," he said, accusing the court of misdirected investigations.

"The ICT failed to identify the police officer who shot Mohammed Ismail," he said.

AFP could not independently confirm who shot Ismail.

"Instead, they arrested a doctor and other hospital staff who had tried to save lives.".

Ismail’s widow, Lucky Begum, said she wanted "justice", but added: "I don’t want innocent people to go to prison".
‘They marry girls off because they are a burden’: The battle to save Bangladesh’s child brides (The Telegraph)
The Telegraph [1/20/2025 5:00 AM, Tom Parry and Simon Townsley, 24814K, Neutral]
Kneeling on the carpet in a schoolroom made of battered metal sheets, the beaming pupils sing with infectious gusto.

Though all are from families struggling to survive in one of Bangladesh’s most vulnerable locations, the children are dressed impeccably, and their behaviour is equally irreproachable.

As I watch these earnest students recite their teacher’s blackboard instructions by rote, they look like the embodiment of adorable innocence.

Outside the gaudily painted classroom, however, the harsh reality is that some of these 10-year-olds will be married off before they reach 16.

Here on the silt island of Bhola, the majority of the 19 girls in the class are at the mercy of a tradition which means they will be given away by their families well before adulthood.

A recent study conducted by the Bangladesh-based NGO BRAC – which provides primary education for many of the nation’s children, including in Bhola – found that over 60 per cent of families there are practising child marriage.

According to its survey of 50,000 households conducted across the country last year, 56 per cent of girls were forced into marriage before completing secondary school.

In the worst-affected district of Pirojpur, close to Bhola, 72.6 per cent of girls were married off by their families before the legal minimum age of 18.

This systemic problem in Bangladeshi society is one of the main reasons why BRAC invests so much in education.

The charity, which is the largest organisation of its kind globally with 90,000 employees, believes that by preventing children from dropping out of school in places like Bhola, it can reduce the prevalence of child marriage.

BRAC spokesperson Nafisa Islam explains that even though the girls are most vulnerable to being married off at secondary school age, there is equal focus on keeping boys in education.

Traditionally, many boys leave before they reach their early teens so they can support their families through work, often fishing or farming. This means that as the boys near 18 their families seek out a younger bride, in keeping with tradition.

"By solving the drop-out rate, we should arrest the prevalent problem of child marriage in Bangladesh," Nafisa states, sitting next to me at the edge of the classroom.

"Until now, the drop-out rate has been high because they can see that education will not add much value to their lives.".

In Bhola, around 14 per cent of pupils drop out before the age of 11, often because extreme cyclones mean families are compelled to send children to work to cover the cost of rebuilding their homes.

Bhola, one of the nation’s river islands – known as chars – is only six feet above sea level at its highest point. Its towns have witnessed an influx of people forced to leave places which are now impossible to cultivate.

For many girls, there is no chance of even starting education. According to BRAC, 1.5 million primary-aged girls are not enrolled in school in Bangladesh.

The families of the primary school girls receive a small stipend as a way of encouraging them to keep their children at school. This donation enables families to withstand additional costs incurred by ongoing learning.

At the school, the cohort of 25 children all live within a ten-minute walk of the small classroom, in keeping with BRAC’s policy of keeping schools are as accessible as possible.

At its peak, in 2009, the BRAC network had 64,000 schools and 1.8 million students.

What is striking about all of the children I talk with is their ambition.

Hasna confidently proclaims her desire to become a teacher, while her friend Samiya is insistent that she will one day leave Bhola to train as a doctor.

Habib declares that unlike his father, who grows rice on a small plot, he will become an officer in the Bangladeshi Army.

Whether reality conforms to their expectations will only become clear in the coming years.

Their teacher Bibi Kulsum, 38, is more grounded in the aspirations she holds for her students. Nonetheless, she has observed considerable progress over the two years she has headed up the programme.

"When I started the drop-out rate was really high here," she says. "It has got better, but most of the girls still get married off too early. During Covid, child marriage was even more prevalent.

"Sometimes we are able to protest to their families, or even report it to the police, and some then come back. Others just disappear, and we never see them at school again.

"Most of this is caused by poverty. They want to get their girls married off because they feel like they are a burden.

"I feel like I have an important role to play here and want to continue to offer these children something different.".

Parents gathered outside the school for our visit are gushing in their praise.

Although perhaps intimidated by the presence of authority figures in the audience, they insist their children will not be married off early.

"I want my daughter to be educated and then to get a job before she is married," proclaims one mum, Nurjahan Begum, 35, whose husband is a farmer. "I wish I had had a chance to get a job when I was young. I want my daughter to be able to achieve what I could not in her life.".

Nurjahan’s positive views justify the policies of Safiqul Islam, director of BRAC’s education program for 34 years.

When he started out in the 1980s, 40 per cent of Bangladesh’s primary-age children were not in school.

As a result, the charity has spent decades renting one-room schools in every village to eliminate travel problems.

School hours are adjusted to fit families’ needs, especially during harvest periods, and local women are trained to be teachers, rather than bringing in people from outside.

Another solution has been to provide floating boat schools which drop anchor in remote communities impossible to access by road and often flooded.

As Bangladesh endured the longest school lockdown in the world during the Covid-19 pandemic, BRAC introduced an accelerated learning programme to bring pupils back up to speed, backed by Danish philanthropic body the Hempel Foundation and UK government funding.

For Hasna and Samiya, the schoolroom’s frail walls, although defenceless against cyclones, are a refuge. What happens when they leave is less certain.
Bangladesh needs to stop relying on its garment sector (Nikkei Asia – opinion)
Nikkei Asia [1/20/2025 3:05 AM, Henny Sender, 1286K, Negative]
With almost 180 million people living on low-lying plains between India and Myanmar, the image of Bangladesh is that of a country plagued by disaster, whether natural or manmade. Floods and rising sea levels threaten to inundate the capital city of Dhaka, which like Amsterdam lies below sea level but does not have the means to build dykes and other protective infrastructure. Periodic fires kill hundreds of factory seamstresses, as happened in the industrial sweatshops of New York a century ago.

Yet, despite its image as a third-world basket case, Bangladesh has become a role model for emerging markets aspiring to move their people out of poverty. Although it is among the countries most affected by climate change, it has also been growing at more than 4% per year for three decades. Moreover, it is expected to graduate from its less developed country status in 2026 and achieve an upper middle income ranking this decade. Even today, its per capita income is higher than that of India. Bangladesh has come a long way.

Its success has been driven by light manufacturing, which in turn depends largely on a garment industry that accounts for over 80% of exports by value. Furthermore, despite its image, production doesn’t center around the lowest-end T-shirts. Think instead of the highest value-added winter wear; down-filled hooded coats and soft fleece vests made for upmarket brands such as Lululemon, North Face and Patagonia.

Yet the question today is whether this economic template built on light manufacturing for export can continue to take the country forward. Sadly, it is difficult to be upbeat about Bangladesh’s prospects. It has become "a post tiger economy," notes a recent report from Emerging Advisors Group, a China-based macro research firm. "Bangladesh basically got stuck as a ‘one trick pony’ with a strong textile sector but no diversification into other areas. [It] hasn’t been able to attract investment in the broader light manufacturing universe and hasn’t been a beneficiary of the China diversification trade."

"The problem is that there is only the garment industry," said Samiran Chakraborty, chief India economist for Citigroup. "Everything depends on that." Ironically, It is precisely because the garment sector is so strong that the country is experiencing so much difficulty moving beyond that template.

Youngone is the country’s single largest private sector employer and largest exporter. The $1 billion it pays the government each year puts it among the largest taxpayers. Most of Youngone’s operations are in an export processing zone the company created across the river from the airport in Chittagong, Bangladesh’s second-largest city. Long low buildings sit among 2-meter-high trees the company planted in what was once sandy soil (with five elephants occasionally seen by the 70,000-plus people who work there.)

But moving away from its over-reliance on the garment industry is only one of Bangladesh’s challenges. A mix of political and economic factors are more pressing.

Before the coup in August that led to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fleeing to India, corruption was a huge issue.

Bangladesh was "an example of elite capture," said one official at the International Finance Corporation arm of the World Bank. "Members of Parliament all had vested interests, and government policies reflected their self-interest. A few families control all the banks." They still do, and the oligarchs have grown accustomed to not merely dictating policy to bureaucrats but writing actual laws.

Since Hasina’s fall, an interim government led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus has been formed in Dhaka that excludes politicians from either Hasina’s Awami League or the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and instead relies on untried academics, bankers and economists, many of whom have lived overseas for years.

But the old guard has not given up on regaining power.

"Given the vested interests and inflation, this government will inevitably fail," said one local journalist who works for an Indian media company in Dhaka. "Every political party opposes this government and tries to bring it down."

"The main problem is the deteriorating law-and-order situation," said the chief economist in Dhaka for a major international bank. "The police are not fully functional, nor is the administration or the judiciary. The interim government can’t replace all the people who had vested interests in the previous regimes. They can’t really execute on the reform agenda."

Last summer, Lutfey Siddiqi was a banker at the London office of UBS. Today he has returned to the country and serves as an adviser to the temporary head of the government, Mohammad Yunus. "The deep state is real," he lamented over coffee. "There are political implants everywhere from the previous regime. The ruling party militias just switch jerseys. The bureaucrats just try to slow things down. Yet we cannot be authoritarian."

Economists have halved their growth forecasts for 2025, the currency has weakened and reserves have dwindled. Inevitably, inflation has grown far more severe. "The cost of rice has doubled," the journalist said. "So people feel that they were better off yesterday than they are today. They survive from day to day. So they can’t wait for a better tomorrow."

Given that uncertainty, there has been virtually no new investment from abroad. In the past, the largest investments came from the oil and gas industry and required the kind of long-term perspective that is difficult to find when there may be no better tomorrows.

Sadly, for Bangladesh today there are no easy answers.
Central Asia
A cruel tradition: How Kazakhstan is fighting ‘bride kidnapping’ (Deutsche Welle)
Deutsche Welle [1/19/2025 9:02 AM, Anatolij Weisskopf, 13448K, Neutral]
In Kazakhstan, the penalties for so-called bride kidnapping are to be toughened up. The local parliament is working on changing laws to try to eradicate what is now considered an outdated custom.

Almost every young woman in Kazakhstan is only too well aware that she too could become a victim of bride kidnapping. If that happens to a young woman, it destroys her plans for her future.

This is what happened to Gulmira K., a nurse from Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. Gulmira, who doesn’t want to use her full name in the media, was kidnapped when she was 19 years old.

"That was now almost 20 years ago," she told DW. "I was studying in Almaty and was going home from university in the evening. A car stopped, three men jumped out and grabbed me, and threw me into the backseat, then threw a blanket over me. Two of them sat next to me and held me down. After two hours, I was in a house in a village where the women immediately lay a white cloth over me, as tradition says they should. It was clear to me that I had been kidnapped so that I could be married. I couldn’t get free and shortly afterwards I met my future husband, somebody I had never seen before. On that same day he took my virginity," Gulmira recounted.

It was a week before Gulmira was able to contact her parents. But the help she had hoped for was not forthcoming.

"My father only said that I was to blame for everything. He said I had disgraced the whole family and he did not want to see me again. So I became the wife of a man whose family could barely make ends meet. My parents, on the other hand, were well off," she said.

30 years of complaints

It was nine years before Gulmira was able to escape the marriage she had been forced into. "At that time, I already had two children," she said. "I met a school friend unexpectedly in a clinic and told her my story. She advised me to simply go back to Almaty with the children, which was what I did. Later, she helped me with the divorce and then with looking for a job. My ex-husband wasn’t too bothered. But if bride kidnapping had been a criminal offence back then — something that is only just being discussed now — my life would have been different. I was never even able to finish my studies," she said.

The punishment of kidnappings with a view to non-consensual marriage has actually been debated in Kazakhstan since the mid-1990s. Human rights activists have been complaining that those involved in bride kidnapping cases are never held accountable for almost 30 years.

Article 125 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan says kidnapping is punishable by a prison sentence of between four and seven years. Article 125 also says that, should the kidnapper let the victim go free, they can escape justice. This loophole has not been given a lot of attention by the authorities and it encourages perpetrators to pretend to let the women they have abducted and forced into marriage "go free." The first glimmer of hope that this legal situation would change came in August, 2023. Kazakhstan’s Human Rights Commissioner Artur Lastayev announced a draft law his office had worked on, which would make bride kidnapping a crime in its own right.

"We have asked the attorney general to draw up a separate list of crimes, ones that can be differentiated from those that article 125 applies to," Lastayev told journalists in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. "The draft [law] is based on the experience of our neighbor countries and recommendations from the United Nations.".

Slow progress

Despite the fact that the attorney general agreed to support the initiative, nothing happened. Six months later, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stepped in.

"In our country there are people who are carrying out bride kidnapping under the guise of what is supposedly a national tradition," Tokayev said. "In no way can this be justified. It contradicts the ideals of a progressive society in which the dignity, rights and freedoms of every human being are absolute values.".

If the president hadn’t said this, it would have been very unlikely that this topic would be on the national agenda again, Murat Abenov, a member of parliament who belongs to the ruling Amanat party, told DW.

"There are likely a lot of people in our law enforcement agencies who tolerate these distortions of tradition," said Abenov, who’s been pushing for tougher penalties for bride kidnapping for years.

In fact, in its present form, bride kidnapping — which is widespread in the south and west of the country and occasionally also happens in the capital Astana and other cities such as Almaty — didn’t historically exist in this country, Abenov explained.

"In the Middle Ages, the kidnapping of women was only permitted during military operations, as trophies," he continued. "The kidnapping of girls from non-warring families was considered a very serious crime, punishable by death.".

Most cases never make it to court

Human Rights Commissioner Lastayev wants to add an extra article — Article 125-1 — to the criminal code. This would say that kidnapping for the purpose of enforced marriage is punishable by a prison sentence of up to three years.

"If the victim is under-age, then the sentence goes up to five years. If the kidnapping leads to severe consequences for the victim, then the sentence goes up to 10 years," Abenov explained. Rape would be punished as a separate crime.

Abenov is convinced that if the law was to be introduced, the number of reports of bride kidnapping would rise substantially.

"In the past three years, there have been 214 official cases but I know there were many more attempts to file cases. Only 10 cases were brought before a judge. All the others — that’s 93% — were dropped for lack of evidence," he said.

The state has also failed to educate people about the law, complains lawyer and human rights activist Khalida Azhigulova. This is especially true for regions where bride kidnapping happens.

"Our young people don’t learn enough about human rights, not at schools or at universities," she told DW. "They don’t know enough about marriage or family law. Since 2011, a marriage may only be concluded after the free and unconditional consent of both partners to it.".

Azhigulova supports Abenov’s working group, which is working on tougher laws for bride kidnapping. But she also has high hopes for Kazakhstan’s young people, who are increasingly rejecting this custom.
Indo-Pacific
Pakistan-Bangladesh ties warm after ex-PM Hasina’s fall (Nikkei Asia)
Nikkei Asia [1/21/2025 2:27 AM, Adnan Aamir, 1.3M, Neutral]
Relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh are experiencing a historic thaw following the ouster of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last August.

Exchanges of officials are increasing and the Pakistani government and business groups hope to raise annual trade with Bangladesh to $3 billion, more than four times the current level, within a year.

Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, won independence in 1971 following a war of liberation. Ties between Dhaka and Islamabad were tense whenever Hasina and her Awami League were in power, while they were better with Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led governments. Relations hit a historic low after Hasina’s third term, which began in 2014. Her removal from power has put them on a better footing.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Mohammad Yunus, leader of Bangladesh’s interim government, met twice last year at global events. On Jan. 14, Gen. S.M. Kamrul Hassan, a high-ranking Bangladeshi military officer, visited Islamabad to meet with Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Asim Munir.

Another high-profile exchange was the visit by a delegation from the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), Pakistan’s top trade body, to Bangladesh last week. This was the first visit by a trade delegation in over a decade, and the group met with Bangladesh’s commerce minister, officials from the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Bangladeshi business people.

During the trip, a memorandum of understanding was signed to form the Pakistan-Bangladesh Joint Business Council. The Pakistani delegation called for a free trade agreement between the countries.

"The minister of commerce of Bangladesh told us that Bangladesh prefers Pakistani businesses for imports," said Saqib Fayyaz Magoon, senior vice president of FPCCI, who was part of the delegation.

"Bangladesh only has a textile and plastics industry, and they have to import the rest of the products for their 200 million [person] market." He added, "This has opened a door for us, which was previously unavailable" because of Hasina’s hostile government.

Magoon revealed that Bangladesh has already placed an order for the import of 50,000 tonnes of rice and 25,000 tonnes of sugar for immediate use, with more to follow. Bangladesh is also considering importing dates from Pakistan.

Bilateral trade between Pakistan and Bangladesh currently stands at just $700 million a year.

"With the removal of nontariff barriers, we expect that Pakistan’s [annual] trade volume with Bangladesh will reach up to $3 billion within one year," Magoon told Nikkei Asia. "We can target many commodities such as rice, sugar, oil, cotton yarn and ladies’ clothes," he added.

"The last significant boost to trade relations occurred in July 2002, when [then]-Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf visited Dhaka," said Moonis Ahmar, professor of International Relations at the University of Karachi. "Recent dialogues between the FPCCI and Bangladeshi stakeholders signal a potential revival of trade ties."

Another major development is the resumption of a direct maritime route connecting the port of Karachi in Pakistan with Chittagong in Bangladesh. The route had been dormant for 52 years, but restarted in November. "This [resumption] is expected to facilitate trade and may eventually include passenger ships, offering a cost-effective travel alternative via Colombo [in Sri Lanka]," Ahmar said.

The two countries are exploring the possibility of resuming direct flights, which have been suspended since 2018.

Dhaka has also made it easier for Pakistani nationals to get visas, as the high commissioner of Bangladesh to Pakistan, equivalent to an ambassador, announced on Jan. 12. "We got our visas within a few hours. This is a major change in the attitude of Bangladesh’s government towards Pakistani businessmen," Magoon of the FPCCI told Nikkei.

Rafiuddin Siddiqui, high commissioner of Pakistan to Bangladesh from 2016 to 2018, said during Hasina’s government, it was nearly impossible for a Pakistani citizen to get a visa.

"We had no access to government officials in Bangladesh back then. The relations between Islamabad and Dhaka were in a deep freeze as long as [Sheikh Hasina] Wajid was in power," he said. "The recent developments are a phenomenal change in Pakistan-Bangladesh relations."

Experts said domestic political factors under Hasina’s government were behind the deterioration in ties with Islamabad.

"Sheikh Hasina Wajid was reluctant to open up with Pakistan, as her political strategy involved criticizing Pakistan and associating opposition forces in Bangladesh with Pakistan to consolidate her external support, primarily from India," Qamar Cheema, executive director of the Sanober Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank, told Nikkei.

"Following the regime change in Bangladesh, there was a natural appetite between Pakistan and Bangladesh to engage in dialogue," he added.

Pakistani trade leaders are urging the government to seize the opportunity created by the new government in Dhaka by making quick policy decisions. "Pakistan’s economic policies should be based on bulk production for targeting the 200 million market of Bangladesh," Magoon suggested. "The government of Pakistan should reciprocate the Bangladesh government’s policy of ease in the issuance of visas," he added.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Afghanistan
@MoFA_Afg
[1/21/2025 12:21 AM, 72.4K followers, 25 retweets, 142 likes]
Following extensive & productive negotiations between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan & the United States of America, an agreement was reached facilitating the release of an Afghan Mujahid, Khan Mohammad, from a U.S. prison in exchange for the release of American nationals.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Afghanistan
@MoFA_Afg
[1/21/2025 12:21 AM, 72.4K followers, 7 likes]
Khan Mohammad, detained nearly two decades ago in Nangarhar & later sentenced to life imprisonment by a U.S. court, had been serving his sentence in California. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan consider this exchange as a good example of resolving issues through dialogue,

Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Afghanistan
@MoFA_Afg
[1/21/2025 12:21 AM, 72.4K followers, 6 likes]
and is particularly grateful to the fraternal State of Qatar for its effective role in this regard. The Islamic Emirate views positively steps taken by the United States that aid normalization & expansion of relations between the two countries.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[1/20/2025 2:15 AM, 247.4K followers, 49 retweets, 187 likes]
Trump wants the Taliban to return U.S. military equipment. https://x.com/i/status/1881238990260736144

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[1/20/2025 12:29 PM, 247.4K followers, 4 likes]
The U.S. spent $18.6 billion arming Afghan forces with 600,000 weapons, 300 aircraft, 80,000 vehicles, and advanced communications gear—all now largely in Taliban hands.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[1/19/2025 2:23 PM, 247.4K followers, 281 retweets, 716 likes]
Hamza Ulfat, a Hazara activist from Afghanistan who supported women’s protests after the Taliban’s return, was jailed and tortured in Taliban custody. He died shortly after his release. Hazaras, mostly Shia, have faced historical discrimination in Afghanistan.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[1/18/2025 12:22 PM, 247.4K followers, 486 retweets, 2.3K likes]
It’s great to see Britain backing the proposal to refer the Taliban’s violations of Afghan women and girls’ rights to the International Court of Justice. Now, let’s hope British officials also stop engaging with the Taliban altogether.

Freshta Razbaan
@RazbaanFreshta
[1/20/2025 4:27 PM, 5.1K followers, 15 retweets, 58 likes]
President Trump, we humbly appeal on behalf of the Afghan allies who bravely stood with the United States for two decades. They risked everything—lives, families, and homes—to support the noble values of freedom and human dignity that America cherishes. They embraced Western ideals, worked tirelessly alongside U.S. forces and institutions, and now, as they face dire threats from extremists and an uncertain future in Afghanistan, they urgently seek lawful refuge on American soil. Among them are religious minorities and staunch opponents of terror who remain extraordinarily vulnerable and look to GREAT AMERICA—this land of opportunity and security—to offer them the safety they’ve earned through their unwavering loyalty and sacrifice. We respectfully and sincerely urge you, President Trump, to ensure that their immigration cases are neither delayed nor forgotten, and that these faithful allies, who have demonstrated their devotion to Western values, are brought to safety with all possible speed and compassion.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[1/19/2025 10:48 AM, 97.5K followers, 347 retweets, 1K likes]
The Taliban’s ban on women working at NGOs is devastating. Women in NGOs were the last bastion of support where none existed, isolating women further. Without women in healthcare, aid, or vaccine campaigns, Afghanistan faces a generational crisis the Taliban cannot mitigate.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[1/19/2025 10:52 AM, 97.5K followers, 5 retweets, 32 likes]
As Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests, once "peace" is achieved (as the Taliban claim), Afghans’ basic needs will evolve into higher expectations. In other post-war nations like Afghanistan, such transitions have led to demands for accountability and governance.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[1/19/2025 10:52 AM, 97.5K followers, 6 retweets, 36 likes]
The Taliban’s disinterest in addressing Afghans’ welfare, exemplified by the erasure of women from public life, leaves the population in a precarious limbo. The question is not if expectations will rise but when - and what the Afghan people will demand when they do.
Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[1/20/2025 12:12 PM, 6.7M followers, 955 retweets, 3.8K likes]
My warmest congratulations to @realDonaldTrump on his assumption of office as the forty-seventh President of the United States of America. I look forward to working with him to strengthen the enduring Pakistan-U.S. partnership. Over the years, our two great countries have worked together closely to pursue peace and prosperity in the region and beyond for our peoples & we shall continue to do so in the future. My best wishes to President Trump for a successful second term in office.

Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[1/18/2025 1:45 AM, 6.7M followers, 418 retweets, 1.3K likes]
Proud to witness Pakistan as the first country to implement the Digital Foreign Direct Investment Initiative, a @dcorg and @wef collaboration for driving cross-border digital investment. From expanding revenues to increasing workforce and global exports, Pakistan is scaling new heights in its stride for digital transformation. We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to cultivating a thriving digital investment ecosystem, paving the way for #DigitalProsperity4All http://weforum.org/publications/digital-fdi-initiative-digital-fdi-enabling-project-in-pakistan/

Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[1/17/2025 5:42 AM, 6.7M followers, 1.7K retweets, 6.3K likes]
Soaring higher and higher! Proud moment for the nation as Pakistan proudly launches its first indigenous Electro-Optical (EO-1) satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. From predicting crop yields to tracking urban growth, #EO1 is a leap forward in our journey towards progress. Spearheaded by SUPARCO , this demonstrates our nation’s growing capabilities in space science and technology.Congratulations to our scientists and engineers for their dedication and a great team effort! @PlanComPakistan @MinistryofST

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[1/21/2025 12:06 AM, 21.1M followers, 3.7K retweets, 5.9K likes]
*Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s conversation with his lawyers and representatives of media at Adiala Jail - January 20, 2025* “The “orderly” [subservient to the Military Establishment] government is gripped by fear and plagued by constant nightmares. Their first nightmare, which has totally unnerved them, is the fear of Imran Khan’s release. The second nightmare is the fear of the truth about Forms 47 [election fraud] being exposed. Waking up frightened by these nightmares, they start chanting about May 9th (2023) False Flag. Out of this fear, they got me convicted by a judge devoid of conscience, who had been declared unfit for judicial service by the Supreme Court in 2004.

The Al-Qadir University project had been running long before the agreement between Malik Riaz and the NCA. Neither our cabinet played any role in the Al-Qadir Trust matter nor transferred this amount to the Supreme Court. The cabinet only approved the confidentiality of the Non-Disclosure Agreement so that such a large amount of foreign exchange could flow into Pakistan. The so-called ‘sealed envelope’ can be opened by the government and investigative agencies. Open it and tell the public what’s written inside so that truth is revealed.

Zulfi Bukhari had requested to appear in this case via video link or through the embassy because if he came to Pakistan, the court would not protect him, and he would either be arrested or get abducted and subjected to torture like our other political workers. His house was unlawfully raided, his property was damaged, his family was harassed, and he was offered deals (if he wanted a stop to this state terrorism). Shahzad Akbar repeatedly offered to testify, but since the fake government had already decided to convict me in this case, they were not allowed to appear via a video link or through the embassy. Even Shahzad Akbar’s brother was abducted [to force him into becoming a witness against Khan].

The Al-Qadir Trust is a welfare institution through which underprivileged students are introduced to the life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Neither my wife nor I have obtained any personal benefit from it. Bushra Bibi was previously jailed for nine-and-a-half months to punish her for supporting me. Dragging housewives into politics is shameful and against our morals and traditional values. Bushra Begum is a woman of strong nerves. She is not my weakness, but my strength.

They can file as many cases against me as they want. I will not opt for a deal like Nawaz Sharif or Zardari. I prefer staying in jail over making a deal with them. I will face the courts and emerge from prison through the power of justice. I prefer staying in jail over striking a deal with them. Neither my cases nor my release have anything to do with negotiations with the government or with anyone else. If the negotiation process is sabotaged, it will be due to the government’s lack of seriousness and failure to establish a judicial commission. Our innocent, unarmed people were martyred and their families look to us to ensure they get justice. Negotiations without establishing a judicial commission are meaningless.

I instruct Salman Akram Raja and Barrister Gohar to write to the Chief Justice and the head of the constitutional bench, Justice Aminuddin Khan, requesting that our human rights cases be heard on a priority basis. They should also write to international human rights organizations about this. Ali Amin Gandapur should write to the apex committee and respond to Shahbaz Sharif’s baseless allegations.

We are not seeking any favors from anyone. We only demand justice according to the law. The state of the judiciary after the 26th Constitutional Amendment is lamentable. What happened in the Supreme Court today is a result of this amendment. Legislation passed by incomplete assemblies contradicts fundamental rights. 1/2

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[1/21/2025 12:06 AM, 21.1M followers, 1K retweets, 1.6K likes]
We condemn the pressure on the judiciary and the disregard of judicial orders. What freedom can anyone expect in a country where even the justice system is shackled?”2/2

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[1/19/2025 6:20 AM, 21.1M followers, 13K retweets, 22K likes]
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Conversation with His Lawyers and Representatives of the Media at Adiala Jail - January 18, 2025

"The political victimization of women and the tarnishing of their dignity is against our societal, moral, and religious values. Bushra Bibi is not a politician. Targeting her just to pressure me is absolutely condemnable. She has had to endure cruelty only because she is my wife. Using women as targets in politics is the height of moral decay.

Let me reiterate that our party workers, including myself, would prefer being in jail over accepting the dictatorship of Yahya Khan Part 2. I will not compromise on the struggle for our genuine freedom, no matter how much pressure is exerted on me. The Hamoodur Rahman Commission report states clearly that Yahya Khan split the country in two to save his own hold on power. Even today, Yahya Khan Part 2 is playing the same game.

Human rights are being blatantly trampled upon in Pakistan under a brutal dictatorship hidden behind the veil of a so-called democratic government. Heinous mental and physical torture has been inflicted on prisoners in military custody. Even now, no visits are being permitted with those still in custody. This is unconstitutional, and a violation of their fundamental human rights. Over 100,000 raids were conducted on homes of PTI supporters in Punjab alone. Thousands of innocent workers were arrested. Even women and children were not spared. PTI stands firm despite all this.

Only those who live under the shadow of fear compromise on principles and ideology. I fear no one but God. Faith gives one the strength to never bow down to anyone. Only those who lack faith bow down (in fear). Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), who was the greatest leader of all time, taught us through his life that no matter how intense the trials, one must remain steadfast for the truth and never bow down to anyone but God.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s struggle is to ensure the ascendancy of democracy, the rule of law, independent judiciary and media, and the protection of basic civil rights. We will succeed because we are on the side of the truth. I will struggle for it until my last breath, and my nation must not back down either!

The verdict in the Al-Qadir Trust case has exposed Pakistan’s judiciary to global ridicule. In a clumsy attempt to distort facts, the sold-out media labeled it a ‘sham trust.’ The Al-Qadir Trust is neither Bilawal House nor Avenfield House — it is an institution aimed at introducing students to the Seerah [life, example, and experiences] of the Prophet.

It is obvious that Malik Riaz was threatened, leading his son to buy a property in London worth nine billion rupees for eighteen billion. The prosecution has not yet been able to prove money-laundering took place. Yet, charges were filed against me and my wife, who did not derive financial benefit of even a single penny. If the charge against me is due to holding public office, on what grounds was Bushra Bibi, a housewife, targeted? Another absurdity is the government’s takeover of Al-Qadir University, which isn’t even government property. Under what law can the government seize trust property?

The so-called ‘sealed envelope’ can be opened by the government and investigation agencies. They should reveal its contents to the public so the truth can come out. But nothing will be made public when the sole purpose of a case is propaganda and a barrage of lies.

We will observe February 8th as a Black Day nationwide. On this day, the mandate of the Pakistani people was blatantly stolen. A fake government was imposed through rigged Form 47 (election) results, disregarding the people’s will. I direct Ali Amin Gandapur to organize caravans from across KP to gather in Peshawar on February 8th for protests. I also instruct the legal community, including the Insaf Lawyers Forum and other (PTI) wings, to observe this day with vigorous protests. 1/2

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[1/19/2025 6:20 AM, 21.1M followers, 3.1K retweets, 4.8K likes]
Legislators, party officials, and people from all walks of life must commemorate this attack on democracy as a Black Day. Our demand for the formation of a judicial commission is legitimate. The government is resisting this because it is directly involved in the incidents of May 9th (2023) and November 26th (2024). There cannot be any stability in the country until the culprits of these incidents are punished." 2/2

Imran Khan
@ImranKhanPTI
[1/17/2025 9:51 AM, 21.1M followers, 17K retweets, 30K likes]
“First and foremost, you must not lose hope. I will never accept this dictatorship, and I am prepared to remain in a prison cell for as long as it takes in the struggle against this tyranny. I will not compromise on my principles or the fight for the true freedom of the nation.

Our commitment is to real freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. We will fight until the last ball to achieve this. I will not strike any deals and will face all the baseless cases against me.

Once again, I urge the nation to read the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report. The history of 1971 is being repeated in Pakistan. Yahya Khan destroyed the country, and today, the dictator is doing the same to protect his dictatorship and personal gains, pushing the country to the brink of destruction.

Following the dark verdict in the Al-Qadir Trust case, the judiciary has further eroded its credibility. Judges who support tyranny and act on directives are rewarded. The judges nominated for the Islamabad High Court have only one qualification: delivering rulings against me.

This case should have been against Nawaz Sharif and his son, who sold their 9-billion-rupee property in the UK to Malik Riaz for 18 billion rupees. The question should be, where did they get the 9 billion rupees? The receipts demanded from them in the Panama case have never been produced. Alongside Qazi Faez Isa, they had billions of rupees in money laundering pardoned in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case.

The Al-Qadir University, like Shaukat Khanum Hospital and Namal University, is a free charitable institution for the public, where students were being educated about the life of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Neither I nor Bushra Bibi gained a single penny from the Al-Qadir University, nor did the government incur any loss.

Even the land of the Al-Qadir Trust has been taken back, which will only harm the underprivileged students who were studying about the life of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The outcome of the Al-Qadir Trust case was known to everyone beforehand. Whether it was the delay in the verdict or the discussions regarding punishment, everything was leaked to the media in advance. Such mockery has never been witnessed in the history of the judiciary. The same person who dictated the verdict to the judge also leaked it to the media.

My wife is a homemaker with no connection to politics. Bushra Bibi was punished solely to cause me pain and exert pressure on me. She has previously been implicated in baseless cases but has always faced them as a test from Allah and remained steadfast in supporting my cause.

If there is no progress in the negotiations regarding the establishment of a judicial commission for the events of May 9 (2023), and November 26 (2024) then continuing the talks would be pointless. Dishonest individuals never allow neutral umpires to intervene. The government is avoiding the demand for a judicial commission because it is dishonest.” - Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Message from Adiala Jail – 17th January 2025

Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office
@amnestysasia
[1/19/2025 2:18 AM, 95.7K followers, 1.6K retweets, 2.9K likes]
PAKISTAN: The heavy-handed crackdown by the police against Baloch protesters in Lyari, Karachi yesterday during the peaceful mobilization campaign by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) violates the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. The women protesters were detained for several hours before being released, while nine men, including Lala Wahab Baloch, the Central Deputy Organizer of BYC, remain detained without any charges filed against them. Pakistani authorities have intensified harassment and intimidation of Baloch activists ahead of a rally planned in Dalbandin, Balochistan on 25 January 2025, including through criminal cases filed against the BYC leadership. @amnesty calls on the authorities to immediately release all those detained during the gathering in Lyari and ensure that the right to protest is upheld by refraining from any arbitrary detentions, use of unlawful force and criminal cases against organizers and participants of peaceful assemblies.
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/20/2025 9:55 PM, 104.8M followers, 2.6K retweets, 21K likes]
Greetings to the people of Manipur on their Statehood Day. We are incredibly proud of the role played by the people of Manipur towards India’s development. My best wishes for the progress of Manipur.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/20/2025 9:53 PM, 104.8M followers, 1.4K retweets, 10K likes]
On Meghalaya’s Statehood Day, I convey my best wishes to the people of the state. Meghalaya is admired for its natural beauty and the industrious nature of the people. Praying for the continuous development of the state in the times to come.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/20/2025 9:52 PM, 104.8M followers, 1.6K retweets, 13K likes]
Best wishes to the people of Tripura on their Statehood Day. The state is making noteworthy contributions to national progress. It is also known for its rich culture and heritage. May Tripura continue to scale new heights of development.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/20/2025 12:08 PM, 104.8M followers, 23K retweets, 212K likes]
Congratulations my dear friend President @realDonaldTrump on your historic inauguration as the 47th President of the United States! I look forward to working closely together once again, to benefit both our countries, and to shape a better future for the world. Best wishes for a successful term ahead!

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/19/2025 6:40 AM, 104.8M followers, 6K retweets, 44K likes]
On this special occasion of the Raising Day of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), we salute the courage, dedication and selfless service of the brave personnel who are a shield in times of adversity. Their unwavering commitment to saving lives, responding to disasters and ensuring safety during emergencies is truly commendable. The NDRF has also set global standards in disaster response and management. @NDRFHQ

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/17/2025 10:30 AM, 104.8M followers, 5.3K retweets, 37K likes]
Inaugurated the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025 earlier today. Was particularly glad to witness the cutting-edge innovations and advancements in the mobility sector.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[1/17/2025 6:48 AM, 104.8M followers, 8.6K retweets, 42K likes]
The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant has a special place in the hearts and minds of the people of Andhra Pradesh. During yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, it was decided to provide equity support of over Rs. 10,000 crore for the plant. This has been done understanding the importance of the steel sector in building an Aatmanirbhar Bharat.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/20/2025 11:05 PM, 3.3M followers, 378 retweets, 4.4K likes]
Delighted to meet @SpeakerJohnson and Majority Leader @LeaderJohnThune at the evening function.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/20/2025 11:04 PM, 3.3M followers, 961 retweets, 8.9K likes]
Attended the Inaugural festivities in Washington this evening. Occasion to meet key members of President Trump’s Administration.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/20/2025 1:59 PM, 3.3M followers, 3.3K retweets, 27K likes]
A great honour to represent India at the inauguration ceremony of @POTUS President Donald J Trump and @VP Vice President JD Vance in Washington DC today.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/20/2025 9:51 AM, 3.3M followers, 4.2K retweets, 40K likes]
Privileged to represent India as External Affairs Minister and Special Envoy of PM at the Swearing-In Ceremony of the 47th President of the United States of America today in Washington DC. Attended the Inauguration Day Prayer Service at St John’s Church this morning.

Dr. S. Jaishankar
@DrSJaishankar
[1/18/2025 4:52 AM, 3.3M followers, 165 retweets, 1.1K likes]
Honored to deliver the 19th Nani A. Palkhivala Memorial Lecture in Mumbai today. The ideas and values espoused by Nani Palkhivala have an even greater meaning as 🇮🇳 makes an increasing difference to global outcomes. And our deep respect for his contributions will be best expressed by raising the level of our ambitions and striving hard for a Viksit Bharat. Do watch: https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1ZkKzRjZVogKv
NSB
Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh
@ChiefAdviserGoB
[1/20/2025 9:38 AM, 75.9K followers, 18 retweets, 387 likes]
The new Charge d’affaires of the US embassy in Bangladesh, Tracey Ann Jacobson, on Monday reiterated the support of her country for the Interim Government of Bangladesh on issues, including development and counter-terrorism. #Bangladesh #USA #ChiefAdviser

Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[1/20/2025 11:40 PM, 100.6K followers, 1 retweet, 7 likes]
Interacted with Mr. William Marshall and his team from Planet Labs, USA. We explored the possibility of partnering to create credible systems for measuring carbon assets - an essential step for advancing carbon trading and supporting global initiatives like the G-Zero Alliance.

Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[1/20/2025 11:40 PM, 100.6K followers, 1 like]
Collaborations like these are vital for leveraging technology and data to address global challenges. As a carbon-negative country, Bhutan remains committed to exploring innovative solutions that contribute to a more sustainable future.

Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[1/20/2025 11:35 PM, 100.6K followers, 4 likes]
Yesterday at the @wef, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Raja Rajamannar, the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of Mastercard and President of the World Federation of Advertisers. Our discussion was both enriching and inspiring.

Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[1/20/2025 11:35 PM, 100.6K followers]
We explored how our values of GNH could guide innovative approaches to healthcare, cybersecurity, and the development of unique, high-end tourism experiences. We also talked about creating mindful marketing practices that align with Bhutan’s ethos of sustainability and happiness.

Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[1/19/2025 6:09 AM, 100.6K followers, 3 retweets, 47 likes]
I bid farewell to yet another cherished friend of Bhutan: Mr. Tomoyuki Yamada, the outgoing Chief Representative of JICA Bhutan. @jica_direct_en

Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[1/19/2025 6:09 AM, 100.6K followers, 3 likes]
I expressed my heartfelt gratitude for JICA’s enduring partnership and Mr. Yamada’s remarkable contributions to enhancing Bhutan-Japan cooperation and advancing Bhutan’s development journey during his two-and-a-half-year tenure.

Tshering Tobgay
@tsheringtobgay
[1/19/2025 6:09 AM, 100.6K followers, 3 likes]
I wish him luck in all his future endeavors, with the assurance that Bhutan will always warmly welcome him back.

K P Sharma Oli
@kpsharmaoli
[1/20/2025 12:02 PM, 863.4K followers, 44 retweets, 491 likes]
Congratulations to H.E. Mr. Donald J. Trump on assuming office as the 47th President of the USA. Best wishes for a successful tenure. Nepal and the US share 75+ years of warm ties, and I look forward to working together to further strengthen our partnership. @realDonaldTrump

Anura Kumara Dissanayake
@anuradisanayake
[1/20/2025 10:32 PM, 144.6K followers, 17 retweets, 166 likes]
Joined the Kaluwamodara Friendly Get-Together of the National People’s Power held yesterday (19). Grateful to everyone who continues to strengthen this journey of Renaissance. Together, we build a better future!

Anura Kumara Dissanayake
@anuradisanayake
[1/19/2025 10:31 PM, 144.6K followers, 19 retweets, 218 likes]
Joined the Pokunuwita Friendly Get-Together of the National People’s Power held yesterday (19). Grateful to everyone who continues to strengthen this journey of Renaissance. Together, we build a better future!

Anura Kumara Dissanayake
@anuradisanayake
[1/17/2025 5:45 AM, 144.6K followers, 30 retweets, 283 likes]
Met with Mr. Wang Xiaohui, Secretary of the Sichuan CPC, today (17). Discussed boosting Sri Lanka - China ties in trade, culture, tourism & more. Invited Sichuan to share its achievements with Sri Lanka as we create a favorable investment climate. Welcome Sichuan’s people to explore Sri Lanka’s warm hospitality!
Central Asia
Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[1/17/2025 9:09 AM, 24K followers, 1 like]
World Report 2025: Kazakhstan @hrw: Authorities in Kazakhstan routinely violate the rights to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, and freedom of association, and misuse overbroad criminal charges in counter-extremism legislation to target government critics and others. https://hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/kazakhstan

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[1/17/2025 9:07 AM, 24K followers]
World Report 2025 @hrw: In 2024, the Kyrgyz government took steps to intimidate and silence journalists, media outlets, and government critics. The Supreme Court mandated closure of the country’s leading investigative media outlet and sentenced two journalists to prison terms and two to probation for their reporting. A Russian style “foreign representatives” law came into force in April, requiring NGOs receiving foreign funding to register under strict government oversight. https://hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/kyrgyzstan

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[1/17/2025 9:06 AM, 24K followers, 2 likes]
World Report 2025 @hrw: In 2024 the Tajik government reinforced its crackdown on dissent, jailing public figures, journalists, and bloggers. It also sought the deportation or extradition from other countries of people linked to a banned opposition party. https://hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/tajikistan

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[1/17/2025 9:05 AM, 24K followers]
World Report 2025 @hrw: Turkmenistan’s government imposes harsh restrictions on free expression and exerts total control over access to information. No space for dissent and prohibits activity by unregistered nongovernmental organizations. Arbitrary foreign travel bans and transnational repression. https://hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/turkmenistan

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[1/20/2025 9:03 AM, 24K followers, 1 retweet, 2 likes]
World Report 2025: Uzbekistan @hrw:Government authorities increasingly stifled human rights activism in 2024, targeting activists, bloggers, and others with unfounded criminal charges, including for “insulting the president online.” https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/uzbekistan

Javlon Vakhabov
@JavlonVakhabov
[1/20/2025 3:18 AM, 6.2K followers, 2 retweets, 1 like]
Grateful to Ambassador Yu Jun of China and his team at the PRC’s Embassy in Tashkent for their generous donation of 100 academic books, covering some of the critical topics aligned with Beijing’s foreign policy objectives towards current regional and global affairs. This donation is also tied to Uzbekistan’s reform agenda and makes a significant contribution to the study and understanding of key issues such as poverty reduction, combating unemployment, increasing government efficiency, promoting exports, and making the country more attractive for foreign direct investments.

These books will serve as valuable resources for researchers and scholars at The International Institute for Central Asia (@IICAinTashkent), facilitating deeper insights into China’s approach to its development goals and global strategy.

In our meeting preceding the donation ceremony at IICA, the Ambassador and I had a thoughtful and engaging exchange about the upcoming Central Asia-China Summit in Kazakhstan and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in China, both of which will further solidify the partnership between our regions and open new opportunities for multifaceted collaboration. I look forward to continued cooperation and furthering our shared goals of regional development and prosperity.

Javlon Vakhabov
@JavlonVakhabov
[1/19/2025 6:57 AM, 6.2K followers, 2 retweets, 2 likes]
This piece is worth reading Central Asia: The Blind Spot Trump Can’t Afford to Ignore As Donald Trump gears up for his second term, one region looms large as a key player in U.S. foreign policy: Central Asia.

Here’s why this area must be at the top of his agenda:
- No sitting U.S. president has ever visited Central Asia. In contrast, President Vladimir Putin has made 73 visits, and Chairman Xi Jinping has visited 13 times since 2012. A personal visit from Trump could be the game changer in building stronger ties.
- Stability in Afghanistan directly impacts Central Asia. Projects like the Trans-Afghan Railway can contribute to peace and create thousands of jobs, benefiting both the region and the U.S.
- Central Asia is home to vital minerals like manganese, chromium, and titanium—key resources for green technologies and energy transitions. With global supply chains under scrutiny, securing access to Central Asia’s mineral wealth will be essential for America’s future energy transition and will be crucial for future economic growth in the region.
- Central Asia is essential for East-West trade, serving as a crucial route between Europe and China. The region is a pivotal player in global trade networks, including the Trans-Caspian Transport Route, and expanding U.S. trade here could boost American interests.
- From the drying Aral Sea to methane emissions in Turkmenistan, environmental disasters in Central Asia require urgent international attention. The U.S. can step in with technical expertise to help mitigate these issues.
-Trump may consider partnering with Central Asian governments through initiatives like the UN Multi-Partner Human Security Trust Fund for the Aral Sea Region, the Global Methane Pledge, and UN Water. These partnerships could provide the necessary funding, technology, and political support to help the region address the environmental disasters it faces. Read more: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-central-asia/

{End of Report}
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