SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO: | SCA & Staff |
DATE: | Thursday, May 22, 2025 6:30 AM ET |
Afghanistan
Classifying Taliban as ‘foreign terrorist organization’ under review: US (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [5/21/2025 1:41 PM, Staff, 47007K]
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the United States is reviewing whether to designate Afghanistan’s rulers, the Taliban, as a "foreign terrorist organization".
Rubio told the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday, "I believe that classification is now, once again, under review.".
The response came a day after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a "comprehensive review" of the United States’s chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, an evacuation operation in which 13 US service members and 150 Afghans were killed at Kabul’s airport in an ISIL (ISIS) bombing.
Hegseth said in a memo on Tuesday that after three months of assessing the withdrawal, a comprehensive review was needed to ensure accountability for this event.
"This remains an important step toward regaining faith and trust with the American people and all those who wear the uniform, and is prudent based on the number of casualties and equipment lost during the execution of this withdrawal operation," Hegseth wrote.
Former President Joe Biden’s administration, which oversaw the pull-out, mostly blamed the resulting chaos on a lack of planning and reductions in troops by the first Donald Trump administration, following its deal with the Taliban to accelerate the withdrawal of US forces.
Trump had signed the deal with the Taliban in Doha in February 2020 aimed at ending its 18-year war in Afghanistan, beginning with the withdrawal of about 4,000 troops "within months".
The then-Trump administration had agreed it would withdraw from the country by May 2021 if the Taliban negotiated a peace agreement with the Afghan government and promised to prevent internationally designated terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and ISIL, from gaining a foothold in the country.
After assuming office in January 2021, Biden said he had to respect the agreement or risk new conflicts with the Taliban, which could have required additional troops in Afghanistan.
On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump frequently criticised Biden and his administration for the withdrawal, saying that the manner in which it was done "was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country’s life." Trump said that the withdrawal should have been done with "dignity, with strength, with power.".
Senior US military officials, including then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the then-top US general, Mark Milley, have already appeared before lawmakers to give their testimonies regarding the withdrawal.
The war in Afghanistan from 2001-2021 was the US’s longest war, surpassing Vietnam.
It remains unclear how Hegseth’s review would differ from the many previous reviews carried out by the US military, Department of State and Trump’s fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives.
US Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, has also carried out an investigation into the ISIL attack on Kabul during the last few days of the withdrawal. Pakistan
School Bus Bombing in Pakistan Kills at Least 6, Including 4 Students (New York Times)
New York Times [5/21/2025 4:14 PM, Zia ur-Rehman, 831K]
At least six people, including four schoolchildren, were killed when a bomb hit a school bus in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan Province on Wednesday morning, officials said, the latest outbreak of violence in a region plagued by separatist insurgency and militancy.
Sarfraz Bugti, Balochistan’s chief minister, said that, as well as the four students, the bus driver and a helper had been killed in the attack and that several others had been wounded.“Forty-six students were on board the bus when it was targeted with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device,” Mr. Bugti said during a news conference in the city of Quetta.
He added that militant groups had been deliberately zeroing in on easier targets, such as children, over the past several months.
The attack took place in the Khuzdar district, about 180 miles south of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, along the main highway connecting Quetta and Karachi, the capital of Sindh Province.
The school bus was transporting students from various areas to a military-run school in a high-security cantonment, according to officials.“The explosion occurred as the school bus was passing through the area,” said Yasir Iqbal Dashti, a senior district official, adding, “The bodies of the deceased and the injured have been shifted to a nearby hospital.” Those who were seriously wounded were later airlifted to Quetta for more advanced medical treatment.
After the explosion, a large contingent of military and police personnel arrived at the site and cordoned off the area.
Witnesses said that the blast had ignited the bus, leaving it destroyed. “The blast was so powerful that we heard it from miles away,” said Mansoor Mengal, a local resident. “The site was strewn with blood, children’s shoes and school bags.”
Balochistan has long been troubled by violence linked to separatist militant groups, including the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army. The group frequently targets security forces, government infrastructure and Chinese citizens involved in projects connected to the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Pakistan’s flagship initiative under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
This week, however, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an outlawed Islamist militant group primarily operating in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, near the border with Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for a separate attack in Khuzdar. That assault targeted a security post, killing four members of an irregular police unit.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the school bus bombing on Wednesday.
The attack drew memories of a 2014 attack in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, in which Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan militants stormed a similar military-run school and killed more than 140 students and staff in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the country’s history.
The Pakistani government and military, in separate statements, condemned Wednesday’s attack and charged that “India’s terrorist network orchestrated the assault through its proxy organizations operating in the region,” though no evidence was provided to support the claim.
The two nuclear-armed neighbors frequently accuse each other of supporting cross-border terrorism and fueling instability. Both countries are recovering from a deadly four-day exchange of drone and missile strikes, ignited by an attack that killed 26 tourists in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for backing the attackers, while Islamabad denied involvement and called for an impartial international investigation. Suicide car bomber attacks school bus in Pakistan, killing at least 5 people (FOX News)
FOX News [5/21/2025 5:58 AM, Landon Mion, 47007K]
A suicide car bomber struck a school bus in Pakistan on Wednesday, killing five people, including at least three children, and wounding 38 others, according to officials.
This is just the latest attack in Balochistan province, which has seen a long-running insurgency, with an array of separatist groups carrying out attacks, including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, which has been designated as a terror group by the U.S. in 2019.
A local deputy commissioner, Yasir Iqbal, said the attack on Wednesday happened on the outskirts of the city of Khuduzar as the bus was taking children to their military-run school in the area.
Troops quickly arrived at the scene and cordoned off the area as ambulances rushed the victims to hospitals.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but ethnic Baloch separatists, who frequently target security forces and civilians in the region, are likely to be blamed.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the attack and expressed deep sorrow following the children’s deaths. He also said the attackers are "beasts" who deserve no leniency and who committed an act of "sheer barbarism by targeting innocent children.".
Officials initially reported that four children were killed but later changed the death toll to say two adults were among the dead. The death toll may rise, as several children were listed in critical condition.
The military claimed the bombing was "yet another cowardly and ghastly attack" allegedly planned by neighboring India and carried out by "its proxies in Balochistan.".
Most of the attacks in the province are claimed by the BLA, which Pakistan alleges has the back of India. However, India has denied the allegations.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his condolences and also attributed the attack to India without providing evidence.
"The attack on a school bus by terrorists backed by India is clear proof of their hostility toward education in Balochistan," Sharif said, saying that the government would bring the perpetrators to justice.
Pakistani officials regularly accuse India of violence in their country. The accusations have intensified amid heightened tensions between the two countries during a cross-border escalation since last month over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Both countries rule part of Kashmir but claim full control.
The escalation prompted fears of a broader war, and the BLA during this time appealed to India for support, although India has not commented on the appeal. Pakistan blames India for suspected suicide attack on school bus (The Guardian)
The Guardian [5/21/2025 6:13 AM, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, 83003K]
Pakistan has blamed India for a suspected suicide attack on a school bus in its south-western province of Balochistan on Wednesday morning that killed three children.
The bus was en route to the army public school in the city of Khuzdar. According to local officials, an attacker drove a vehicle into the bus and then detonated explosives.
Officials said five people – three children, the bus driver and a security guard – were killed and dozens more children were critically injured. Police said the initial investigation indicated that it was a suicide bombing.
The children killed were named as 12-year-old Hifsa Kausar, 16-year-old Esha Saleem and 12-year-old Sania Somroo.
No militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. However, the media wing of Pakistan’s military swiftly issued a statement alleging that its neighbour and rival India had "planned and orchestrated" the attack.
"Indian terror proxies are being employed as a state tool by India to foment terrorism in Pakistan against soft targets such as innocent children and civilians," the military statement said.
India’s foreign ministry denied what it called "baseless allegations regarding Indian involvement in unrest in Pakistan".
The accusation comes at a highly volatile moment in India-Pakistan relations. Earlier this month, the two nuclear-armed countries came the closest they had been to war in decades as they launched drones and missiles into each other’s territory, before a ceasefire was declared on 10 May.
The trigger for the conflict was a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in April that killed 26 people. The Indian government accused Pakistan-backed militant groups of being behind the incident and launched targeted missile strikes as "terrorist infrastructure and camps" over the border. Pakistan responded by firing missiles at Indian military targets.
In the aftermath of the ceasefire, the Indian government said any future terror attacks on its territory would be considered an act of war.
Pakistan has denied any involvement in last month’s militant attack in Indian Kashmir. It has become more vocal in blaming India for a rising wave of militant attacks that have struck Pakistan, particularly in the regions of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of using proxy militant groups to carry out terror attacks in order to destabilise the country, which India has denied.
In Balochistan, home to a decades-long bloody insurgency, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist militant group, has been behind a growing number of incidents including suicide bombings and the recent hijacking of a train. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan, attacks by the Pakistani Taliban, known as TTP, have been intensifying recently.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, echoed the military in blaming India for Wednesday’s attack on the school bus. "Terrorists operating under Indian patronage attacking innocent children on a school bus is clear evidence of their hostility," he said.A Balochistan government spokesperson, Shahid Rind, denounced the attack as the "hideous face of Indian state-sponsored terrorism".
The attack echoed an incident more than a decade earlier when the TTP struck an army public school in the city of Peshawar, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing more than 130 schoolchildren. It was one of the deadliest militant attacks on children in Pakistan’s history. Support for Pakistan army chief General Asim Munir surges after India conflict (Reuters)
Reuters [5/21/2025 5:09 PM, Asif Shahzad, 5.2M]
Pakistan’s army chief General Asim Munir is the most powerful man in the country, but his popular support has surged after the worst conflict in decades with arch-rival India, shattering criticism of interference in politics and harshly cracking down on opponents.
A grateful government has given him a rare promotion to Field Marshal "in recognition of the strategic brilliance and courageous leadership that ensured national security and decisively defeated the enemy".
The military has ruled Pakistan for at least three decades since independence in 1947 and wielded extraordinary influence even with a civilian government in office. But it, and its hardline chief, have rarely received the widespread outpouring of affection seen this month that analysts say has reinforced the military’s dominance in the nuclear-armed nation.
"Long live General Asim Munir!" read placards held aloft in rallies in recent days in towns across Pakistan. His picture was put up on lamp posts and bridges, with some banners saying: "You are our saviour!"
A survey conducted after the conflict by Gallup Pakistan, a local pollster, found that 93% of respondents felt their opinion of the military had improved.
Munir’s most bitter domestic foe, jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, also congratulated the military after this month’s clashes with India, claimed by both nations as a victory.
"It’s my country, it’s my army," Khan said in a post on X last week. "I pay tribute to the Pakistan Air Force and all our military personnel for their professionalism and outstanding performance."
Yousuf Nazar, a political commentator, said of Munir: . "He has emerged as Pakistan’s strongman with his military’s reputation restored as a formidable force."
Six months after he took charge in November 2022, Munir was faced with the most serious challenge to the military’s hegemony when Khan’s supporters attacked and ransacked military installations.
Munir later faced sharp domestic criticism for the jailing of Khan and cracking down on supporters of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, as well as what critics alleged was rigging the general election last year to favour a rival party.
But the conflict with India has turned that around, said Ayesha Siddiqa, author of Military Inc, a book on the Pakistan military.
"It has made the general stronger than any other previous generals. He is a hero now," she said, adding that the contest between the neighbours will be headed by two hardliners, India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Munir, a devout Muslim.
"It’s an Islamist general versus a religious strongman," she said.
The military did not respond to questions sent by Reuters.
FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE
The spark for the latest fighting between the neighbours was an April 22 attack in Indian Kashmir that killed 26 people, most of them tourists. New Delhi blamed the incident on "terrorists" backed by Pakistan, a charge denied by Islamabad.
On May 7, the Indian military carried out air strikes on what it called "terrorist infrastructure" in Pakistan, in response to the attack in Kashmir.
Pakistan claimed to have downed at least 5-6 Indian fighter jets and carried out air strikes on Indian military bases. India has indicated that it suffered some losses and inflicted major damage on key Pakistani air bases and air defence systems.
Munir, who has memorised the Muslim holy book, the Koran, has publicly underlined what he has said are fundamental differences between Islamic Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India.
"Our religion is different. Our customs are different. Our traditions are different," he said in a speech in Islamabad a week before the attack in Indian Kashmir.
The Indian army "with all their wherewithal" cannot "intimidate" Pakistan, he said, peppering his comments with verses from the Koran. "Pakistan needs to be a hard state."
Pakistan’s counter-strike against India was named by him as "Bunyan Marsoos", after a Koranic verse, which means Iron Wall, according to the military. It was launched on May 10 to coincide with dawn prayers, considered an auspicious time for Muslims.
Munir, the son of a schoolteacher, is an infantry officer and a former head of both the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence. He remains army chief until November 2027 and could be appointed for another five-year term at that point.
Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, said that even before the latest conflict, Munir was more hawkish on India than his predecessor as army chief, who had taken a more pragmatic and less ideological approach, seeking to improve relations.
"Conflicts with India remind Pakistanis of the fragility of their country and they rally to their army as the entity that will save the country," said Haqqani.
"The recent show of strength and standing up to India has helped General Munir solidify his position within the country." Pakistan promotes army chief Asim Munir to field marshal: Why it matters (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [5/21/2025 7:02 AM, Abid Hussain, 47007K]
Pakistan’s cabinet on Tuesday promoted Syed Asim Munir, the country’s chief of army staff, to the rank of field marshal, following the country’s recent military conflict with India.
That short but intense confrontation had brought the South Asian neighbours to the edge of their fifth war, as they launched missiles and drones towards each other over four days in early May.
Ultimately, a ceasefire on May 10, announced by United States President Donald Trump, pulled the nuclear-armed neighbours back from the brink after they each targeted the other’s military installations in missile strikes earlier that day.
Both New Delhi and Islamabad claimed wins in the conflict. And Pakistan’s government has drawn a direct link between those clashes and its decision to promote Munir.
So why was Munir promoted, what does the rank of field marshal signify, and what does the promotion portend for the future of Pakistan’s military leadership and its role in the country’s domestic affairs?
Why was Munir made field marshal?
According to a statement from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office, Munir was promoted in recognition of his leadership of the army, with "exemplary courage and determination," and for devising a strategy to counter Indian attacks.
"In recognition of his brilliant military leadership, courage, and bravery, ensuring Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and courageous defence against the enemy, the cabinet approved the prime minister’s proposal to promote General Syed Asim Munir to the rank of field marshal," the statement said.
The cabinet also granted a second extension to Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar Sidhu, currently in his fourth year as head of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), following a previous extension.
Talal Chaudhry, state interior minister, told Al Jazeera that the decision to promote Munir was based on his leadership.
"The Pakistani military was engaged on two flanks, fighting the menace of terrorism on our western borders, and during that, they also had to fend off our adversary on eastern flank, which has one of the world’s largest armies, and yet under Munir’s leadership, we came out on top decisively," Chaudhry said.
How has Munir responded?
In a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, Munir said he was humbled by the honour and dedicated it to the "entire nation, the armed forces of Pakistan, especially the civil and military martyrs and veterans"."This is not an individual honour but an honour for the armed forces of Pakistan and the entire nation," he said.
A field marshal is the highest rank in armies – like Pakistan’s and India’s – that follow the British Army’s traditions.
How rare is the field marshal rank?
Very. In Pakistan, a full general – denoted by four stars – is usually the standard rank for the army chief and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), who convenes the heads of all three services: army, navy and air force.
Although the CJCSC role is open to any of the three branches, only army generals have held the post since 1997, with General Sahir Shamshad the current incumbent in the role.
Since gaining independence in 1947, Pakistan has had 17 army chiefs. Munir is only the second among them – after Ayub Khan – to be promoted to field marshal.
Ayub Khan became army chief in 1951 and seized power in a military coup in 1958. A year later, he promoted himself to field marshal while appointing General Musa Khan as the new army chief.
"A field marshal has his own insignia and their own stick which they carry with them. A field marshal does not have to respond to a salute, but instead they only have to wave the stick to acknowledge it," Inam ul Rahiem, a lawyer and former military officer, told Al Jazeera.
Once conferred, the field marshal rank is held for life.
Does India have the field marshal rank, too?
Yes, and it is as rare in India as it is in Pakistan. Since 1947, the Indian government has awarded the title of field marshal to two generals.
The first was General Sam Manekshaw, who received the rank in 1973 for his leadership during the 1971 war with Pakistan that India won and that led to the creation of Bangladesh.
"Manekshaw led their army in exemplary fashion and the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, after the war, awarded him with the title of field marshal. Although he retired from the position of army chief in 1973, he retained the rank for the rest of his life, and attended official events in his uniform," Rahiem said.
The second was Kodandera M Cariappa, India’s first post-independence army chief. He was awarded the title in 1986, three decades after retiring.
Cariappa, who led Indian forces during the country’s first war with Pakistan in 1947, was previously in the British Indian Army, like Ayub Khan. In fact, Khan served under Cariappa in 1945 when they were both posted in Waziristan, in present-day Pakistan.How powerful is Pakistan’s military?
Pakistan’s army is considered the most powerful institution in the country, wielding deep influence across nearly every sphere of society. It has ruled the country directly for more than three decades since independence in 1947.
The army chief is widely seen as the single most powerful position in Pakistan, often overshadowing the elected civilian government. The military has long faced allegations of manipulating election results to support favoured candidates.
Munir’s predecessor, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, acknowledged the military’s history of political interference in his farewell speech in November 2022 but said that such meddling had ended.
But under Munir, the Pakistani military has been accused by leaders of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party of cracking down on the group’s leaders, including Khan. In Pakistan’s 2024 election, the PTI alleged widespread rigging, even as the party’s candidates – who ran as independents to get around a ban on the party’s participation – won more seats than any other party. Prime Minister Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) teamed up with the Pakistan People’s Party to form a government after fractured results.
Pakistan’s government rejected allegations of rigging, and the military under Munir has consistently rejected accusations of interference in the country’s civilian politics.
At the same time, the military has integrated itself into the country’s economic affairs, with Munir co-chairing the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) with premier Sharif, a high-level body created in 2023 to help investors bypass bureaucratic hurdles.
While Munir has been at the helm of the military, Pakistan’s economy – which was in a deep crisis in 2022 – has shown signs of recovery. Central bank data show foreign reserves hovering just over $10bn now, while inflation fell from more than 38 percent in May 2023 to just 0.3 percent in April 2025.
And while criticism from Khan and his supporters had dented the military’s popularity in recent years, the conflict with India has boosted the army’s stature, with polling showing a surge in its popularity.
What does Munir’s promotion mean for the military?
The field marshal rank is largely ceremonial, say experts, and in itself doesn’t affect Munir’s leadership.
Munir, who has has previously led both military intelligence and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the country’s premier intelligence agency, can continue as army chief until his tenure ends in November 2027. But a legislation passed in October 2024 also allows for a second five-year term.
That second term is now increasingly likely, suggested Maria Rashid, a lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
The promotion, she said, "almost certainly means that Asim Munir’s tenure will be granted an extension".
What does the promotion mean for Pakistan’s politics?
Critics argue that the promotion ultimately boils down to the political calculations of the government and the military.
Political analyst Cyril Almeida suggested that amid the military’s dominance over the political landscape, the promotion was in essence PM Sharif’s way of trying to ensure his own political survival by staying on good terms with Munir.
"It is also about making it clear that he [Sharif] is not, and will never be a threat, so a replacement need not be considered," Almeida told Al Jazeera.
Sharif first assumed office in April 2022, after former Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote, a move Khan blamed on a conspiracy involving the army, the United States, and his political opponents, though both the military and the US denied the claim.
A retired two-star general, speaking anonymously, warned that Munir’s promotion may further consolidate the military’s grip on the country’s affairs.
Washington-based security analyst Sahar Khan agreed. A further strengthening of the military’s influence in Pakistan’s politics would be "damaging to Pakistan’s already damaged democratic credentials," she said.
But Chaudhry, the minister, rejected the criticism that the promotion would further entrench the military’s control of state and politics.
"People often politicise everything and use it for their own purposes. We fought a war, and we won it," he said, referring to the four-day conflict with India. "Those who are questioning military’s competence and suggest the army is busy oppressing our own citizens, this is the response to them.
"The military, under Munir’s command, has shown how capable they are and how good they are at their job.". Pakistan’s Diplomatic Victory Conceals Its Weakness (Wall Street Journal – opinion)
Wall Street Journal [5/21/2025 4:41 PM, Sadanand Dhume, 810K]
Nothing boosts a Pakistani general’s flagging domestic popularity like being able to claim he won a confrontation with his country’s archenemy, India. Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, has been on a victory lap since President Trump announced an abrupt end to a four-day subcontinental conflict May 10. On Tuesday the Pakistani government promoted Mr. Munir to field marshal, a self-promotion for the country’s most powerful man.
Mr. Munir has emerged stronger from his confrontation with India, but the same can’t be said of his country. Though Pakistan may have scored diplomatic points, beneath its breathless claim of victory lie inconvenient facts. By striking terrorist infrastructure and air bases deep in Pakistan’s heartland, and by suspending a 65-year-old bilateral river water-sharing treaty, India has weakened Pakistan’s strategic position.
For the U.S., the simmering conflict presents challenges and opportunities. A successful U.S. strategy in the region would achieve two interconnected goals: curbing the Pakistani army’s support for transnational jihadist groups and ensuring that any subcontinental conflict doesn’t go nuclear. America must also recognize that China’s military and diplomatic support for Pakistan has made the subcontinent a site of U.S.-China competition.
Nearly three years ago, when Mr. Munir became army chief—the most powerful position in a country where generals call the shots—he was widely seen as an outsider with a shaky grip on power. Unlike many of his predecessors, Mr. Munir entered the army through the Officers Training School rather than the more prestigious Pakistan Military Academy.
The son of a schoolteacher who doubled as an imam, Mr. Munir advertises his piety. He uses the honorific hafiz, given to those who have memorized the Quran. Unlike many predecessors, Mr. Munir wasn’t trained in the U.S. or U.K. His foreign exposure was mostly limited to serving in Saudi Arabia when that country was still synonymous with hard-line Islam.
Mr. Munir became chief after a feud between the army and former Prime Minister Imran Khan, a 72-year-old charismatic populist who became prime minister with the army’s help in 2018 but later fell out with Mr. Munir’s predecessor, Qamar Javed Bajwa. Mr. Bajwa reportedly helped oust Mr. Khan in 2022. Mr. Bajwa and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saw Mr. Munir as a safe pick because Mr. Khan and Mr. Munir had clashed during the latter’s brief tenure as head of the country’s military spy agency in 2018-19. Mr. Munir had reportedly angered the prime minister by investigating alleged corruption by his wife.
Despite Mr. Khan’s popularity, the army outmaneuvered him. Since August 2023, Mr. Khan has been imprisoned on a raft of charges, most of them widely seen by independent observers as politically motivated. In an interview last week, Mr. Khan’s sons, who live in England, alleged that their father has been kept in solitary confinement and denied basic rights such as medical care and regular phone calls with family.
The persecution of Mr. Khan made Mr. Munir arguably the most unpopular Pakistani army chief in living memory—that is, until India bombed nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites on May 7 in retaliation for a terrorist attack on Indian tourists in Kashmir. The conflict has allowed Mr. Munir to reinvent himself as a hero.
The version of events publicized in Pakistan goes like this: First, India lost at least five fighter jets in its initial attack on May 7, including three French-made Rafales, the most advanced jet in India’s air force. Second, Mr. Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the cease-fire and his subsequent remarks about the conflict handed Pakistan a clear diplomatic victory.
This account contains some truth. India has admitted to losing fighter jets, though it hasn’t said how many. Reporting by the Washington Post suggests India likely lost at least two jets. And Mr. Trump has indeed set back Indian diplomacy by casting India and Pakistan as peers and offering to mediate their dispute over Kashmir.
But if you look past Indian embarrassment, the balance clearly tilts in New Delhi’s favor. India has shown that it can hit targets across Pakistan at will, raising questions about the effectiveness of Pakistan’s Chinese-made air defenses. Indian air defenses largely neutralized hundreds of Pakistani drones and missiles.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 12 announced a new doctrine according to which India “will not differentiate between the government sponsoring terrorism and the masterminds of terrorism.” India says the current lull in fighting isn’t a permanent cease-fire but a temporary “suspension of military operations.” In the coming months and years, India will almost certainly seek to increase its capacity to pressure Pakistan by building dams on shared rivers.
For now, the Pakistani army’s skilled public-relations machinery may have turned the once-unpopular army chief into a hero at home. But looked at dispassionately, it’s hard to see how Field Marshal Asim Munir has made Pakistan any safer. India
What Trump’s Apple Threat Means for India’s Tariff Negotiations (New York Times)
New York Times [5/22/2025 12:00 AM, Alex Travelli, 831K]
Even after President Trump hit it with a 26 percent tariff, India had reason to be hopeful about trade negotiations with the United States.
China was facing even higher import taxes. So were smaller Asian countries whose exports compete with India, like Vietnam and Bangladesh. That positioned India to use the trade war to advance its goal of luring the business that was expected to flee its giant neighbor. Plus, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, had a cozy relationship with Mr. Trump.
Things are looking tougher for India now, and for its American business partners. Mr. Trump has changed up his tactics with China, backing off his highest tariffs. That wrong-footed India, which now faces tariffs not much lower than China’s.
Then he threw a wrench into India’s relationship with Apple, the single most striking example of an American company that reoriented its production away from Chinese suppliers.
A few years ago, nearly every iPhone was assembled in China. By the end of this year, an estimated 25 percent or more will be made in India. Last week, Mr. Trump revealed that he does not see that as progress: He said Apple’s production should skip India and move to the United States instead.
India is working to secure a reduction in the 26 percent tariff, which Mr. Trump paused until early July to give the countries time to talk. Officials in New Delhi are not entirely sure what to make of Mr. Trump’s remarks about Apple. But they have complicated an already complex negotiation before the tariff reprieve ends.
Indian officials were in Washington this week, trying to hash out a deal. Piyush Goyal, the commerce minister, had already hopped back and forth from New Delhi twice since Mr. Trump was re-elected.
On Tuesday, after wrapping up a meeting with his American counterpart, Howard Lutnick, Mr. Goyal posted on social media that he was “expediting the first tranche of India-U.S. Bilateral Trade Agreement.” With the word “tranche,” he dropped a clue that India sees any agreement playing out as a series.
But there is no certainty about the path for the talks, as the past 10 days have made frustratingly clear in New Delhi.
Before he added Apple to the chaotic dynamic, Mr. Trump conflated India’s trade negotiations with its recent conflict with its nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan. Indian diplomats were frustrated when the American president claimed the credit for brokering a cease-fire and then offered to step into their dangerous dispute over the region of Kashmir.
India’s government was made even more unhappy when Mr. Trump then inserted trade into his account of the peacemaking. “I said, ‘Come on, we’re going to do a lot of trade with you guys,’” he said on May 12. “People have never really used trade the way I used it.” A senior Indian official denied that trade had even been discussed.
Then, on May 15, Mr. Trump demanded that Apple stop its yearslong efforts to reduce its reliance on China and make iPhones in India.“I told Tim Cook: ‘We’re not interested in you building in India. They can take care of themselves; you up your production’” in the United States, he said, referring to Apple’s chief executive.
The demand is a slap in the face for India, a close U.S. partner that for many American companies has been an increasingly viable location to lessen their dependence on China. Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, global businesses that depend on China have been looking for ways to pare the risk of relying too much on one big country. India assured its American friends that it could take up the slack.
No country can match China for its extensive and efficient factories, and Apple’s roots there are deep. So it is a point of pride for many in Indian government and business that Apple has shifted some of its iPhone assembly. The idea that Apple could redirect its manufacturing capacity from China straight to the United States — bypassing India — caused a collective double take.
Apple did not respond to a request to comment.“Everyone wants manufacturing at home,” said Prachir Singh, an analyst in India for Counterpoint Research, which covers technology companies. But that’s much easier said than done.“If you talk about iPhones, there are more than 1,000 components. It took almost a decade for Apple to set up such a supply chain in China,” Mr. Singh said. “And it took more than five years to reach some capacity here.”
Several factors went into making parts of India competitive with China’s manufacturing marvel.
In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, at the heart of Apple’s supply chain in India, the local government has helped companies like Foxconn, the Taiwanese giant that has made iPhones in China for years, by building workers’ dormitories and providing other China-style infrastructure. India’s national government has been subsidizing the manufacture of high-tech goods since 2020.
Labor costs are low across India. Local trade unions in Tamil Nadu estimate that the average monthly salary was equivalent to $233. Wages even for jobs that require engineering degrees are competitive enough with costs in China.
Finally, companies like Foxconn have helped local businesses upgrade the value chain in India, by building more of the iPhone’s components in India. That creates what factory managers call an ecosystem: dense clusters of talent and supply that are starting to give India the kind of industrial edge that China showed more than 20 years ago.
Two people in contact with the Indian trade negotiators, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said they did not believe that India was at risk of losing Apple’s business. They added that it was unthinkable to them that the United States would be ready to compete with India’s advantages in manufacturing.
Instead, they said, it must be a bargaining tactic. India’s Security Forces Kill Dozens in a Bid to Crush Leftist Rebels (New York Times)
New York Times [5/21/2025 4:14 PM, Pragati K.B., 831K]
Security forces killed at least 27 people in central India on Wednesday, in an operation that the police said had targeted Maoist militants, as the authorities intensify a military campaign aimed at defeating the country’s decades-old leftist insurgency.
Prabhat Kumar, a police chief in the state of Chhattisgarh, said that “several senior-level Maoist cadres” had been killed or seriously injured in the operation on Wednesday. Local media reported that a top leader of the rebels, Nambala Keshav Rao, who goes by Basavaraju, was among those killed.
Last week, in another bloody confrontation, the government said it had killed 31 members of the movement in a hilly region between Chhattisgarh and a neighboring state.
Amit Shah, India’s home minister, called that operation a “historic breakthrough.” He has set a deadline of March for wiping out the whole of the insurgency, which has raged fitfully for more than 50 years.
Human rights activists have warned of the possibility that innocent civilians have been killed in the campaign against the rebels. Bela Bhatia, a lawyer who works in regions affected by the insurgency, said that while rapid identification of the bodies by family members was crucial, the government often took days to present corpses.She also said that when the Indian government claimed to have killed insurgents, it was unclear if “the killed Maoists surrendered and were then killed, or if they died in an encounter.”
India’s Maoist movement began as a guerrilla-style insurgency in the 1960s, when offshoots of Communist parties took up arms in the name of creating a classless society. It started in the eastern parts of the country and spread to the central and southern regions. The places where they are still active are collectively called the Red Corridor, a mostly forested area abundant in natural resources.
At its inception, the movement was a struggle for redistribution of land among landless farmers. Later, the cause became more associated with the rights of the 9 percent of Indians who belong to Indigenous minority groups. The fighters’ leaders have said they aim to protect tribal communities’ access to natural resources.
The Indian state regards the Maoists as an enormous threat, and critics say that this has led to military excesses in clamping down on the movement. In 2009, the prime minister at the time, Manmohan Singh, called them the country’s “biggest internal security challenge.” He made that assessment even after Islamist terrorists from Pakistan had been linked just a year before to a devastating attack in Mumbai.
During that period, India’s security forces were escalating a military campaign to defeat the Maoists. The conflict has claimed thousands of lives on both sides in the past five decades.
The current operations, which are happening under the shadow of a frightening military exchange this month with Pakistan, are proving to be deadly even by historical standards. So far this year, more than 200 insurgents have been killed, according to government data. The government says 700 others have given up arms and surrendered.
Along with the sprint to crush the insurgency directly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has undertaken development initiatives, like building wider roads to the remote regions where the movement has thrived. The hope has been that greater outreach to local residents, most of them tribal minorities, might persuade them to oppose the insurgents.“But the people are suspicious,” Ms. Bhatia said. Many who live in those parts of the country depend on the forest for their livelihood. “They wonder if this development is only to aid in mining and exploiting natural resources,” Ms. Bhatia said. India says Maoist rebel chief killed in ‘breakthrough’ blow (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [5/21/2025 11:30 AM, Staff, 47007K]
Indian forces have killed the Maoist rebel chief and dozens of other fighters, the country’s home minister says, calling it a decisive blow in a decades-long conflict.
India has been waging an all-out offensive against the last remaining groups of the Naxalite rebellion, a far-left Maoist-inspired fighting movement that began in 1967.
Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah announced on Wednesday that Nambala Keshav Rao, alias Basavaraju, was among 27 rebels killed by security forces in central India’s Chhattisgarh state.Shah identified Rao as the general-secretary of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist group and the "topmost leader and the backbone" of the Naxal movement.
"This is the first time in three decades of Bharat’s [India’s] battle against Naxalism that a general-secretary-ranked leader has been neutralised by our forces," he said.
"I applaud our brave security forces and agencies for this major breakthrough.".
Shah said that in wider follow-up operations, 54 people had been arrested and a further 84 accused Naxalites had surrendered in the states of Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Maharashtra.
Senior state police official Vivekanand Sinha said a gun battle took place after intelligence reports indicated the presence of "top Maoist leaders" in the area.
A police commando also died during the battle, local police official P Sundarraj said.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said the operations were mainly carried out by the District Reserve Guard special police force.
"I salute their bravery. We have been appealing to Maoists to surrender. There is no need to keep repeating it," Sai was quoted by The Times of India as saying.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was "proud of our forces for this remarkable success", adding that the government was "committed to eliminating the menace of Maoism and ensuring a life of peace and progress".
Doraisamy Raja, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India said "CPI strongly condemns the cold-blooded killing of a senior Maoist leader along with several Adivasis in Chhattisgarh. It is yet another instance of extrajudicial action carried out under the guise of counterinsurgency operations.".
"CPI demands an independent judicial inquiry into this episode and the entire Operation Kagar. The people of Chhattisgarh—and India at large—deserve to know the truth", he added in a post on X.
The Maoist rebel movement was named after the village of Naxalbari in the foothills of the Himalayas, where it began nearly six decades ago.
More than 12,000 rebels, soldiers and civilians have died since a handful of villagers rose up against their feudal lords there in 1967.
At its peak in the mid-2000s, the rebellion controlled nearly a third of the country and had an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 fighters.
According to government data, since last year, Indian soldiers have killed at least 400 rebels.
Last week, Indian security forces said they killed 31 Maoist rebels in what the government described as the "biggest operation against Naxalism" in an area on the border of Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
Recently, 11 people identified as rebels were also killed by Indian troops in the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
In February, security forces killed 11 fighters and killed a further 30 in March.
Last month, the Maoists said they were ready for dialogue if the government withdrew security forces and halted the ongoing offensive.
"In the interests of the people, our party is always ready for peace talks," the top body of the Maoists said in a statement. Indian professor who was jailed for comments on women military officer is released on bail (Reuters)
Reuters [5/21/2025 7:17 AM, Tanvi Mehta, 51390K]
A professor who was jailed after making comments perceived as critical of women officers in the Indian army was ordered released on bail by the country’s top court on Wednesday, his lawyer said.
The Supreme Court also placed restrictions on Ali Khan Mahmudabad’s ability to comment on the case and on his social media posts, pending further investigation, lawyer Mohammad Nizamuddin Pasha told Reuters.
Mahmudabad, head of the political science department at Ashoka University near Delhi, was arrested on Sunday after his remarks about two women army officers. The two, one Hindu and one Muslim, gave press briefings during the intense fighting earlier this month between India and Pakistan.
Mahmudabad has been accused of disrupting communal (religious) harmony and of using words or gestures intended to insult a woman’s modesty, website Live Law reported.
The Commission for Women in the northern state of Haryana, where the university is located, complained that Mahmudabad’s remarks undermined women officers and were an "attempt to vilify national military actions", according to local media.
"The optics of two women soldiers presenting their findings are important, but optics must translate to reality on the ground, otherwise it’s just hypocrisy," Mahmudabad said in a social media post on May 8.
"The grassroots reality that common Muslims face (in India) is different from what the government tried to show but at the same time the press conference shows that an India, united in its diversity, is not completely dead as an idea," added the professor, who is Muslim.
Muslims and rights groups have accused some members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and affiliates of promoting anti-Islamic hate speech and vigilantism, and demolishing Muslim-owned properties. Prime Minister Narendra Modi denies religious discrimination exists in India.The fighting between the South Asian neighbours erupted after India attacked what it called terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan following an April 22 attack by Islamist militants in Indian Kashmir that killed 26 people.
Pakistan said civilians sites were targeted and the Indian attack was followed by days of intense fighting, until a ceasefire was announced between the arch rivals on May 10.
Prior to his arrest, Mahmudabad said that his legal team responded to a summons by the commission, which "failed to highlight how my post is contrary to the rights of or laws of women".
"We are committed to making the women feel safe and validated in all their endeavours be it academic or on the borders of this great nation," Renu Bhatia, chairperson of the Haryana State Commission for Women said on X last week.
Ashoka University said in a statement it was heartened with the news of Mahmudabad’s bail, ANI news agency reported.
Reuters has a minority stake in ANI.
Local media had reported the university had earlier distanced itself from the professor’s comments, saying they were made in his personal capacity, but that a group of faculty members and students stood by the professor. British professor barred from India over ‘anti-national work’ vows to fight back: ‘I cannot be silenced’ (The Independent)
The Independent [5/21/2025 7:13 AM, Shweta Sharma, 48471K]
A British writer and professor of Indian origin has said she would fight back after the Narendra Modi-led government revoked her long-term visa on allegations of indulging in "anti-India activities".
Nitasha Kaul, a professor at the University of Westminster in London, said her Overseas Citizen of India card was cancelled by the Indian government, barring her from visiting her elderly mother, who lives in India. The OCI card allows foreigners of Indian ancestry to visit, work and live in the country indefinitely.
An official notice to her said she has been "found indulging in anti-India activities, motivated by malice and complete disregard for facts or history" without referring to any particular such incident.
"Through your numerous inimical writings, speeches and journalistic activities at various international forums and on social media platforms, you regularly target India and its institutions on the matters of India’s sovereignty," the notice said.
Ms Kaul claimed in an interview with The Independent that it is part of a wider crackdown on "anything, anyone who doesn’t agree fully with the government".
"It’s reflective of increasing arbitrariness, which betokens authoritarian rule and part of a broad-ranging multidimensional vindictiveness towards people and academics who question because they want to make examples of us, signal to others that this will happen to you if you speak against us," she said.
"Keep your head down and avoid saying anything critical of the government – that’s the broader message at play here. It clearly sends a chilling effect. Other academics and scholars will now think a hundred times before speaking out, because the government has made it clear that even asking the most basic questions can come at a steep personal cost.".
Ms Kaul, a Kashmiri Hindu academic based in London who writes on feminism, Hindu nationalism, Kashmir, and democratic backsliding in countries.
The 48-year-old was born in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, to Kashmiri Hindu parents and raised in Delhi before she moved to London for her further studies. She has a joint PhD in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Hull.
She has been a vocal critic of authoritarianism and has raised concerns about what she perceives as a democratic backsliding of India. She has authored several books, includingFuture Tense in 2020, fiction that sheds light on the complexities of lives in conflict-ridden Kashmir. In 2019, she testified before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs regarding human rights in Jammu and Kashmir after the revocation of the semi-autonomous status of the federal territory.
In the aftermath of India’s military action on Pakistan on 7 May, Ms Kaul wrote an opinion piece in The Conversation about the complexity of the Kashmir region and anti-Muslim sentiments ratcheted up by the Indian media. She emphasised the need for a nuanced understanding of Kashmir’s situation and addressing the underlying issues contributing to the ongoing conflict.
Ms Kaul also featured in an interview on Al Jazeera, where she discussed the implications of the attack and the broader geopolitical tensions. However, this interview was later removed from YouTube India, leading to discussions about censorship and the accessibility of critical viewpoints on sensitive topics.
In her 2023 article, titled "Increasing Authoritarianism in India under Narendra Modi", Ms Kaul wrote about India’s "democratic backsliding" since 2014 when Mr Modi took power. She underscored that while India maintains the facade of procedural democracy, the substance of democratic governance such as minority rights, institutional accountability, and civil liberties – has eroded under the BJP government.
It is not the first time Ms Kaul has faced the wrath of the Indian government. In 2024, she was blocked entry at southern India’s Bengaluru airport and deported back to the UK. Ms Kaul said she arrived at Bengaluru to participate as a speaker in the two-day Constitution and National Unity Convention at the invitation of the state government.
But after landing in Bengaluru, she was denied permission to enter through immigration, despite having a valid visa. Ms Kaul said on Monday that even at that time the Indian government did not give any reason but called her "anti-national" and she later submitted a 20,000-word response comprehensively refuting these assertions even were not borne out by empirical evidence."I didn’t then hear back for almost a year and on Sunday, I received this letter saying OCI has been cancelled.".
She said, this time, she has no option but to challenge the decision of the Indian government in court.
"It is heartbreaking for me that I can’t travel there and I can’t see my mom as she lives in India and she is elderly," Mr Kaul said.
"I cannot be silenced. I will not stop doing what I do in the face of this intimidation and punishment.".
She said the "use of intimidation, violence, and silencing shows that they are resorting ever more to repression because you are confident of your power".
"It it really betokens a kind of insecurity, pettiness, and vindictiveness to do this kind of thing," she said.
The pushback against her by the Indian government is part of a process of actions on academics, journalists and private companies critical of the Indian government and its recent military actions in Pakistan.
In Delhi, police arrested Ali Khan Mahmudabad over his anti-war social media post.The arrest of Mr Mahmudabad, a professor of political science at the Ashoka University, sparked condemnation from activists and academics, who called it an attack on free speech.
Ms Kaul pointed to his case to say that it was not something that was happening to the people in the diaspora but it is part of what the government is doing to academics, journalists, comedians and researchers who are criticising them.
"There’s a clear crackdown. Objective indicators of academic, media, and democratic freedoms show a steady backsliding. This isn’t just opinion – it’s measurable. If this continues, our ability to analyse, question, and hold power accountable will keep shrinking," Ms Kaul adds.
Amnesty International condemned the latest actions of the Indian government against Ms Kaul and Mr Mahmudabad.
It said it was another example of the Indian government "crushing dissent in the country".
"The authorities must stop punishing Nitasha Kaul just because she is critical of the government. This campaign of harassment and intimidation against dissenting voices must end now," it said.
Reporters Without Borders ranked India 151st for press freedoms among 180 countries in 2024, a slight improvement from 159th place in 2023. The watchdog considers the situation for journalists in India "very serious", citing increasing challenges to press independence and safety.
The Independent has reached out to the Ministry of External Affairs for comment. Heavy rain disrupts life in several Indian cities (BBC)
BBC [5/22/2025 4:06 AM, Nikita Yadav, 65.5M]
Four people have reportedly died, with more than a dozen injured in the capital Delhi and nearby areas according to local media, after a severe hailstorm hit the city on Wednesday.
The powerful storm uprooted trees, triggered power outages and led to massive traffic snarls due to waterlogging on the streets.
Similar scenes were reported from India’s financial capital Mumbai where pre-monsoon showers led to flooding in parts of the city.
India’s weather agency has warned that "heavy to very heavy rainfall" is likely over India’s western coast during next 6-7 days with rains and thunderstorms expected in almost a dozen states over the coming days, particularly in the southern part of the country.
On Wednesday, nearly 50 flights at Delhi airport - one of the busiest in the country - were delayed and almost a dozen flights were diverted due to heavy showers, the Hindustan Times newspaper said quoting an airport official.
Passengers onboard a flight operated by India’s largest carrier Indigo to Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir, had a particularly harrowing journey after the aircraft got stuck in the hailstorm.
A video being circulated online shows many passengers screaming for help as the plane trembled violently due to strong turbulence.
In a statement, the airline said the flight landed safely in Srinagar, but a picture of the aircraft’s nose appearing to be damaged has been circulating online. The airline has not commented on the photo.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Metro issued an advisory on X, warning commuters of potential delays due to trees and other debris falling on the tracks.
In Mumbai, viral videos from the city’s Andheri area, an affluent neighbourhood, showed plastic bags and other waste floating on the streets after the rains clogged up the sewers.
Many social media users criticised authorities for poor waste management and the city’s failing drainage system.
Earlier this week, incessant rains brought Bengaluru, also known as India’s Silicon Valley, to a halt. At least four people were killed in rain-related incidents.
Videos from the city showed commuters wading through knee-deep water, with several cars stranded on waterlogged streets. In some parts of the city, water had also entered the homes of people.
India receives 80% of its annual rainfall during the monsoon season, which usually starts from June and continues until September. The monsoon is crucial for the livelihoods of many Indians, especially the country’s farmers who rely on seasonal showers in the absence of irrigation in many parts of the country.
But experts say climate change has made erratic weather, including unseasonal rains, flash floods and droughts linked to extreme heat a more regular phenomenon, upending the lives of millions. Modi’s Escalation Trap (The Atlantic – opinion)
The Atlantic [5/21/2025 11:26 AM, Vaibhav Vats, 11958K]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has forged a new counterterrorism doctrine during his decade in power: Any terrorist attack emanating from Pakistan will face a scorching Indian-military response. The policy carries inherent risk, both internationally and domestically.
That it can easily commit India to a spiral of escalation was demonstrated during the exchange of hostilities with Pakistan two weeks ago. On the domestic side, the counterterrorism policy is of a piece with Modi’s effort to project himself as a strongman, which carries its own escalatory risks because it depends on both stoking ultranationalism and keeping it under control.
For four days starting earlier this month, exchanges of fire between India and Pakistan gathered intensity and scope, with the theater of engagement extending deeper into both countries than it had in five decades. At home, Modi had encouraged a climate of heightened emotion among his followers. Pro-government networks and broadsheets portrayed Pakistan as an archenemy that Indian forces would soon vanquish. Media outlets reported, for example, that the port of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and financial capital, had been destroyed—one of many breathless stories that did not turn out to be true.
Then, on the evening of May 10, President Donald Trump announced a cease-fire between the two countries on Truth Social. The American intervention came as a surprise—one that did some damage to the Indian prime minister, who has projected himself not only as a fierce advocate for India’s strategic interests but also as a global statesman deliberating on weighty geopolitical questions, such as the war in Ukraine.
Many of the Indian prime minister’s followers felt that allowing the Trump administration to broker a deal was a humiliation and a capitulation to a foreign power. For that reason, New Delhi did not acknowledge the American intervention in its public statements on the cease-fire, even as the Pakistani side hailed Trump’s role in ending the fighting. Still, right-wing social-media accounts turned on the Modi government and its officials with expletive-laden tirades, many of which assailed the personal life of their intended targets. They attacked India’s foreign secretary as a traitor and doxxed his daughter. (The secretary promptly switched his X account to private, to shield himself and his family from a barrage of invective.).
That any cease-fire was necessary was a surprise and a letdown for Modi’s base, which had expected a swift victory based on a combination of misinformation and what was likely an overestimation of India’s military strength and operational superiority. Such illusions should have been punctured during the conflict, when Pakistan downed at least two Indian jets and unleashed drones and missiles that matched Indian capabilities. In the first week of May, India launched nine air strikes into Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Past skirmishes with Pakistan had allowed Modi to construct a triumphalist narrative of strength that played to his domestic audience. A 2019 air strike into Pakistan helped propel him to reelection for a second term with an enhanced majority. But this latest exchange had a far less satisfying denouement: an uncertain military outcome and a diplomatic embarrassment, in the eyes of Modi’s nationalist base.
Trump made a bad situation worse with another Truth Social post less than a day after the cease-fire announcement, in which he offered to mediate the Kashmir dispute. Mediation is a delicate subject in India because of the country’s bruising colonial experience; it is often equated with an assault on Indian sovereignty. The 1972 Simla peace agreement, signed between India and Pakistan after a war the previous year, stipulated that all disputes between the two countries be addressed bilaterally—language long understood as a bar to third-party mediation. American diplomacy played an important role in tamping down previous conflicts over the territory in 1999 and 2019, but President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, respectively, were careful not to trumpet their interventions in those cases.
Trump’s pronouncements immediately led to a volley of criticism from India’s opposition parties and independent voices, which began comparing Modi unfavorably with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi: She delivered a decisive victory in the 1971 war with Pakistan despite frosty relations with President Richard Nixon. A newspaper owner in Modi’s home state of Gujarat was arrested for making the comparison.
In remarks delivered at the White House two days after the cease-fire announcement, the U.S. president further gloated about stopping a potentially nuclear conflict that could have killed millions of people.
That evening, Modi addressed India in a prime-time speech for the first time since the conflict began. Absent was the measured restraint that might have lowered the temperature after such an unnerving conflict. Instead, Modi told the public that India’s military offensive had brought Pakistan to its knees to beg for a cease-fire. He reaffirmed India’s position on retaliatory military action as a response to terror attacks, declared that he had called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff, and warned that he had not abandoned the military operation but merely suspended it. Modi followed these prime-time remarks with another belligerent speech the next day, belittling Pakistan’s military capabilities when he visited an Indian air base.
The bellicosity of these two speeches, at a time when the cease-fire was still tenuous, seemed to reflect Modi’s need to appear muscular in the face of public criticism and after being undermined by Trump’s swagger. (Trump would recount his role in ending the conflict several more times during his Middle East trip, with each new utterance compounding the domestic problems for Modi.).
But if the prime minister’s aggressive demeanor played well to his domestic base, it also alienated a number of India’s South Asian neighbors. Many of these governments worry about the Modi regime’s propensity for bullying, and not one has spoken in favor of India’s military actions. Last week Modi’s government, normally intolerant of its political opposition, conscripted it into a campaign for damage control: It put together delegations of representatives from all of the country’s political parties, with the intention of sending them to foreign capitals to make India’s case.The crisis and its aftermath have demonstrated how India’s national security has become almost entirely captive to burnishing the personality cult of its leader. The result is a country that comes across to others as at once boastful about its growing power and prickly about criticism of its human-rights record.
A few hours before the cease-fire came into force, the Indian government fine-tuned its new counterterrorism doctrine, classing incidents of cross-border terrorist violence as "acts of war." Any such attack, the policy makes clear, will incur an Indian-military response.
The timing of the announcement suggests that Modi seeks to overshadow the end of the fighting with a display of strength and a deterrent warning. But the doctrine may be just as apt to make conflict between India and Pakistan more likely and recurrent, rather than less, as it raises the stakes of any skirmish—particularly after this last four-day conflict, which passed previous thresholds of violence between the nuclear-armed rivals.
In the past, India prided itself on being a responsible power that respected human rights and international law—an island of stability in a volatile region. Modi’s embrace of Hindu nationalism and his tilt toward authoritarianism have since stained the country’s reputation for pluralism and democracy. Now they are leading the Indian prime minister to lean into a military adventurism that could make him a danger to the entire region. NSB
Bangladesh Army Chief Wants Elections ‘By December’ (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [5/22/2025 4:41 AM, Staff, 931K]
Bangladesh’s powerful army chief has said the first elections since the country’s former leader was ousted in a mass uprising should be held by December, local media reported and military sources confirmed on Thursday.General Waker-Uz-Zaman was reported to have told officers on Wednesday that elections should be held by December this year -- if not earlier, according to Bangladeshi newspapers.The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since the student-led revolt that ousted then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August, with parties protesting on the streets making rafts of demands."Bangladesh is passing through a chaotic phase," Waker-Uz-Zaman said, according to the newspapers."The situation is worsening by the day. The structure of the civil administration and law enforcement agencies has collapsed and failed to reconstitute."No date has been set for elections but interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest.But the key Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seen as the front-runners in the elections, have repeatedly demanded an election date.The BNP on Wednesday held protests in the capital Dhaka, significant in that they for the first time demonstrated against the caretaker government.In response to a question from an officer, the army chief reportedly said: "Elections should be held by December, if not earlier."He also is reported to have told officers to "carry out your duties with honesty and impartiality during the election".It was Waker-Uz-Zaman who announced in August last year that Hasina had been overthrown, with the military taking brief control.Days later, Waker-Uz-Zaman handed over power to Yunus, 84, who has said he will lead the caretaker government until the next elections.Lieutenant Colonel Sami-Ud-Dowla Chowdhury, the military spokesperson, confirmed that Waker-Uz-Zaman had addressed officers on Wednesday but said the "meeting was confidential".But three sources with direct knowledge of the meeting told AFP that the army chief emphasised the urgency of holding elections and said they should be held by December.Known for his calm demeanour, Waker-Uz-Zaman appeared frustrated and dissatisfied during the session, they said. Key Bangladesh Party Protests Against Government (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [5/21/2025 9:19 AM, Staff, 931K]
Bangladesh’s key political party held large-scale protests against the interim government for the first time on Wednesday, as political rows spill onto the streets including demands for an election date.
Thousands of supporters of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rallied in Dhaka, shutting down central streets, demanding their candidate be installed as the capital’s mayor.
The protests are significant in that they pitted the BNP, seen as the frontrunners in highly anticipated elections, against the caretaker government.
The interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus took over following a mass uprising in August 2024 that toppled then prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
No date has been set for elections but Yunus has promised polls will be held by June 2026 at the latest.
The BNP have accused the interim government of blocking a ruling by the Election Commission that named their candidate as the winner of 2020 elections, which were seen as rigged by Hasina’s now-banned Awami League party.
But the BNP’s would-be mayor Ishraque Hossain has not taken up his post, with city authorities run instead by a government-appointed administrator.
BNP supporters have padlocked the gates of the mayoral office for the past week suspending civic services, demanding Hossain take up the post -- pointing out that this has already happened in the country’s second city Chittagong.
"The government is not understanding the language of the people," said protester Rawshan Ara, 43, adding that she and fellow BNP loyalists would escalate protests if Hossain does not become mayor.
Senior BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed said protests had, so far, been led by local activists -- but warned that the wider party would back the demonstrations if the government did not take action.
"We are supporting this movement," Ahmed said. "If the government does not respond, we will have to join the movement actively as a party."
Also on Wednesday, the National Citizen Party (NCP) -- made up of many of the students who spearheaded the uprising against Hasina -- protested outside the Election Commission, alleging it had been taken over by the BNP.
"The Election Commission no longer exists as a constitutional body", key NCP leader Nasir Uddin Patwary said.
"It has become a party office of the BNP and is now acting as the party’s spokesperson." Bangladesh: Review Laws and Protect Human Rights Standards (Human Rights Watch)
Human Rights Watch [5/21/2025 9:00 PM, Staff, 1441K]
Recent legislative initiatives by Bangladesh’s interim government risk undermining fundamental freedoms, Human Rights Watch said today. Instead of pursuing its pledge to reform the criminal justice system and bring accountability for serious abuses, the government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, is attempting to suppress the rights of supporters of the deposed leader, Sheikh Hasina, and the Awami League party.
On May 12, the interim government ordered a "temporary" ban on the Awami League, using newly introduced powers under a draconian amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Act. The ban includes, among other actions, meetings, publications, and online speech supporting the party. Meanwhile, draft legislation to address enforced disappearances, which were widespread under the previous government, does not meet international standards and scarcely addresses accountability for past crimes.
"Sheikh Hasina’s government abused legal powers to silence political opponents, but using similar methods against the supporters of her Awami League party would also violate those same fundamental freedoms," said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The draft legislation on enforced disappearances, on the other hand, does little to advance justice or provide answers for the hundreds of victims and families affected by disappearances under Hasina’s rule.".
After three weeks of protests in which around 1,400 people were killed, Sheikh Hasina’s government was toppled on August 5, 2024. The interim government led by Yunus pledged to restore democratic principles and respect for human rights before holding a free and fair general election. The new government has taken several positive steps, but these recent measures are disappointing.
The ban on the Awami League will apply until party leaders have faced trial for abuses committed during their 15-year rule, a process that could last years, thus effectively proscribing the party. The interim government has prohibited "all activities including any kind of publication, media, online and social media, any kind of campaign, procession, meeting, gathering, conference, etc. by Bangladesh Awami League," curtailing supporters’ freedom of speech and association. The Awami League, which has been active since before independence, has a wide base of supporters.
After the suspension was announced, the Election Commission stripped the Awami League of its registration.
These moves came in the wake of the interim government’s ordinance amending the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, which gives the Tribunal broad powers to prosecute and dismantle political organizations. The new provision defines "organization" expansively to include any political party or affiliated group, or individuals who are deemed to propagate or support their activities. Because these powers are drafted so broadly, they could contravene international standards of due process and freedom of association. Additionally, the Tribunal is empowered to punish "any group of individuals which, in the opinion of the Tribunal, propagates, supports, endorses, facilitates, or engages in the activities of such a [banned] party or entity.".
Those accused of committing crimes under Hasina’s government should be appropriately prosecuted, but imposing a ban on any speech or activity deemed supportive of a political party is an excessive restriction on fundamental freedoms that mirrors the previous government’s abusive clampdown on political opponents, Human Rights Watch said. Already a wide range of people including actors, lawyers, singers, and political activists have been arrested on politically motivated murder charges, with prosecutors justifying the arrests by accusing them of backing the "rule of fascist Hasina.".
Meanwhile, there is growing concern over delays in addressing serious abuses that occurred under the Awami League government.
On August 27, 2024, the interim government established a commission of inquiry to investigate enforced disappearances committed under Hasina’s rule. In its preliminary report , the commission announced that it recorded 1,676 complaints, and that the whereabouts of some 200 victims remain unknown. It described the "systematic design" of enforced disappearances, mostly targeting political opponents, and uncovered grim evidence of torture and inhumane conditions at secret detention sites operated by Bangladeshi security agencies.
The commission has sought an extension until December 2025 to submit all its findings. However, proposed legislation on enforced disappearances does not mention any role for the commission’s findings, and excludes enforced disappearances committed in a "widespread" or "systematic" manner, leaving them to the jurisdiction of Bangladesh’s under resourced and controversial International Crimes Tribunal.
While the proposed disappearances law would establish a new National Commission on the Prevention and Remedy of Enforced Disappearances, there are no provisions to ensure its independence. Criminal cases of those suspected of enforced disappearances would be prosecuted by a new Tribunal for Prevention and Remedies of Enforced Disappearance. However, neither body would have jurisdiction over "widespread or systematic" enforced disappearances that constitute crimes against humanity, which constitutes most cases committed under the previous government.
Other aspects of the law are problematic. While the legislation would criminalize anyone who aids, abets, instructs, orders, or conspires in a disappearance, it sets a stricter threshold for the application of command or superior responsibility compared to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute criminalizes a military commander who knew or should have known about crimes being committed by subordinates but failed to act to prevent the crimes or hand over those responsible for prosecution. However, the draft law excludes command responsibility based on constructive knowledge and introduces an additional requirement that the superior must have "exercised authority in an act connected with the disappearance". It also fails to distinguish between military and civilian commanders, which have different requirements for command responsibility under the Statute, referring only to a "superior officer", a term left undefined in the text. In cases where the victim is killed, the death penalty would apply, although that is inherently abusive and incompatible with human rights and human dignity.
The lack of concrete steps to address the issue of enforced disappearances has left victims’ families in anguish. "I still hope [my son] will come back," the mother of a man who disappeared in state custody in 2013 told Human Rights Watch. "But if he can’t come back, I want the perpetrators brought to justice so no one can think of taking away another mother’s son." Instead, some families have reported intimidation, including Sanjida Islam, coordinator of a victims’ organization Mayer Daak, whose family home was raided by police on May 8.
To build a foundation for the respect of human rights in Bangladesh, the interim government should reverse its actions to protect rights of freedom of expression of Awami League members and supporters, and focus instead on prosecuting members of the former government accused of crimes based on credible evidence. It should refrain from politically motivated pretrial detentions, and ensure that they remain the exception, only when necessary in an individual case, and not the rule.
The priority should be to deliver justice for human rights violations, particularly unlawful killings and enforced disappearances. The government should use evidence gathered by the commission of inquiry to investigate enforced disappearances to prosecute alleged perpetrators, remove suspects in the security forces from active duty, and reveal the fate of the missing.
"There is widespread anger against the Awami League for the many abuses committed during Hasina’s rule, but stripping supporters of opposition parties of their rights isn’t a way forward," said Ganguly. "Instead, the interim government should ensure progress on revealing what happened to the disappeared and holding perpetrators accountable through fair trials.". Bhutanese Nepalis fled ethnic cleansing for the US. Trump is returning them to the refugee camps (The Guardian)
The Guardian [5/21/2025 8:00 AM, Stephen Starr, 83003K]
Aasis Subedi, a Bhutanese Nepali refugee, finds himself back in the same Nepal refugee camp he spent part of his youth, once again stateless.
Last month, Subedi and two dozen community members from across the US were deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers to Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan country where they had never previously set foot. At least four, including Subedi, were immediately rejected by Bhutanese authorities and then expelled to India, where they fled to a refugee camp in Nepal.
"I have nothing right now. They brought us in [to Bhutan] without any documents," he says from one of the three Beldangi refugee camps in the south-east of Nepal, where he is using his father’s cellphone.
Subedi had been serving jail time for a third-degree felony offense committed in Columbus, Ohio, before he was put on a plane and deported via New Jersey.
Subedi is one of the more than 100,000 Bhutanese Nepalis who fled ethnic cleansing and were made stateless by the Bhutanese government who stripped them of their citizenship rights in the 1980s. Since 2008, more than 90,000 have been resettled in the US.
But the Trump administration has upended life for the community.
"Bhutan is still not safe for our community members to return [to]. It is a matter of putting our lives at risk … Now, people are going through the cycle of being stateless again," says Robin Gurung of Asian Refugees United.
Several of the deported people are believed to be missing in India.
Ice told Global Press Journal that Subedi was deported under a "targeted enforcement operation". Green card holders – Subedi is a legal permanent resident – can be deported having been found guilty of a serious crime but only after having the opportunity to plead their case in court and once the US government has shown "clear and convincing evidence" that the person can be deported. US laws forbid the deportation of individuals to countries where their safety may be at risk.
"Most of the folks who have been deported have already served their time. For me, that is the matter of concern," says Gurung. "They served their time, they were in their communities, providing for their families, their children, and now they are gone.".
Thousands of Bhutanese Nepalis have settled in parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania that faced major economic struggles and population loss due to the 2008 Great Recession. About 8,000 Bhutanese Nepali people now live in Reynoldsburg, a city outside Columbus, making up about one-fifth of the population.
Along the suburb’s main thoroughfare, East Main Street, Bhutanese Americans have opened up more than 30 businesses ranging from hair salons to restaurants.
"A lot of the community works at local Amazon and FedEx facilities. Those kinds of jobs were very attractive for folks, and the schools in Reynoldsburg are good," says Bhuwan Pyakurel who came to Reynoldsburg in 2016 and has since become America’s first-ever Nepali-Bhutanese elected official.
"Many of those businesses were closed before we came here [and] we came and revived them. Cricket is a big thing for the Bhutanese community when it wasn’t known here in the past. Now the city is in the process of building a new cricket field.".
While towns and cities across the Sun belt have grown significantly in recent years, northern states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and beyond have struggled to retain and attract residents.
As a result, immigrants have played an important role in helping local economies grow, creating a tax base for city authorities and adding vibrancy to a region working to shed its Rust belt past. Nextdoor in Pennsylvania, about 40,000 Bhutanese Nepalis live in the cities of Harrisburg and Lancaster. Harrisburg has lost nearly half of its population since 1950, though in recent years that decline has been halted.
But now a crippling fear has gripped immigrant communities across the country.
Pyakurel, who was elected to Reynoldsburg’s city council in 2019 having lived in a refugee camp in Nepal for 18 years, says he now fields five to 10 phone calls a day from worried local Bhutanese Nepali residents, many asking for guidance.
"People are wondering if they should apply for their citizenship or wait for three years, if they should renew certain documentation," he says. Last month, the Palestinian green card holder and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was detained at a naturalization interview and deportation proceedings against him were enacted. On 30 April, Mahdawi was released.
"Nowadays, I carry my passport with me all the time," says Pyakurel. "Even though I’m a [city council] representative here, I don’t look like a citizen to many Ice officers.".
Subedi came to the US through a government refugee relocation program in July 2016 and had been living and working as a machine operator in Pennsylvania before his arrest in Columbus last July.
Now 7,700 miles from home, he has little to do but sit all day in the refugee camp, where he lives in a bamboo-made hut – the very same camp he spent the first two years of his life and where his father still lives. The arrival of him and three others deported from the US caused a stir at the camp, which drew the attention of the Nepali police, who detained him for several weeks as his legal status was investigated.
This month, his daughter turns three years old. He says his family has no money to assist him in the refugee camp in part because his wife stopped working when their child was born.
He says he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to come back to the US.
"I want to come back. I have family, my kids," Subedi says.
"This is the second time we have become a refugee.". Nepal’s new Everest rule is a game-changer (Nikkei Asia – opinion)
Nikkei Asia [5/22/2025 4:05 AM, Brabim Karki, 1.1M]
Nepal has announced plans to restrict access to the world’s tallest peak to climbers with prior high-altitude experience, according to the draft of a new law. For aspiring Mount Everest climbers, Nepal’s new rule is a bold gatekeeper, demanding proof of high-altitude grit before you can even dream of the summit. This isn’t just a bureaucratic hurdle; it’s a lifeline for a mountain drowning in overcrowding, trash, and tragedy.
Nepal has a new rule for Everest climbers. The Integrated Tourism Bill was officially registered by Nepal’s upper house on April 18. The bill requires all Everest climbers to have summited at least one of the Himalayan nation’s 7,000-meter peaks before applying for a permit to climb Everest. The change is aimed at protecting the safety of climbers and the mountain itself. With the government holding a solid majority in the lower house of parliament, the bill is likely to quickly become law.
The new law is intended to reduce overcrowding and improve safety. It will keep inexperienced climbers off Everest’s crowded slopes and supports local guides who know the terrain well. The mountain has become too chaotic, and this rule helps fix that. It’s a strict step, but a needed one. Everest shouldn’t just be a bucket-list checkbox, it deserves respect.
Reaching the summit of Mount Everest has long stood as the pinnacle of human achievement. Income from permit fees and other spending by foreign climbers is a key source of revenue for the Himalayan nation, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest. But the mountain’s allure has a dark side. In recent years, viral images of climbers queuing in the "death zone" and slopes littered with oxygen canisters, tents, and human waste have sparked outrage. Last year, 12 climbers died, and five went missing out of 478 permit holders. This year, eight more perished. Environmentalists, local communities, and mountaineering experts are sounding alarms, accusing Nepal of handing out permits too freely to inexperienced climbers. The new rule, part of the Integrated Tourism Bill registered on April 18, responds to these concerns, aiming to save lives, preserve the mountain and protect Nepali jobs.
Before they can apply, climbers must present official documentation showing that they have successfully climbed a 7,000-meter peak in Nepal, such as Manaslu or Annapurna. Reducing the growing number of inexperienced climbers who misunderstand the ferocity of Everest is the aim of this requirement. In 2024, bottlenecks caused by unskilled adventurers obstructed narrow passages, resulting in delays and deaths in the oxygen-scarce death zone. Nepal new rule requires that climbers have the ability and endurance to traverse Everest’s perilous terrain by requiring high-altitude expertise. The goal is to reduce accidents and relieve the strain on rescue personnel.
The rule also addresses Everest’s environmental crisis. The summit is littered with trash from previous excursions, including oxygen cylinders, human excrement, and even the bodies of climbers who died on the mountain, which do not decompose in the bitter cold.Inexperienced climbers, often unprepared for the physical and logistical demands, contribute disproportionately to this mess. Fewer climbers will mean less trash, and those who make the cut are likely better equipped to follow "leave no trace" principles. The result? A cleaner Everest, less burdened by the scars of overtourism.
There is also a push for protecting the jobs of Nepali mountaineering experts. High-altitude guides, support personnel, and the sirdar (head Sherpa) must all be nationals of Nepal. The law guarantees that economic benefits remain in the country, while utilizing local knowledge to improve safety by giving priority to Nepali leadership.
International excursion operators are among critics who claim the restrictions are overly onerous. To prevent upsetting seasoned climbers, they have encouraged Nepal to accept 7,000-meter ascents from outside the country, such as India’s Nanda Devi or Pakistan’s K2. Although the concerns are valid, Nepal’s emphasis on local peaks makes sense because the Himalayas provide special challenges, and knowledge of the country’s topography, climate and logistics is crucial. However, a compromise that acknowledges a few international summits could make the law more palatable without its purpose.
To enforce compliance, Nepal is cracking down hard. Violators face steep penalties: a 10-year climbing ban, a fine equivalent to the permit cost, or both. These measures send a clear message: Everest isn’t a playground. The rule’s rigor may deter some, but it’s a small price to pay for a safer, cleaner mountain. Data backs this up: Last year’s fatality rate among permit holders underscores the need for stricter vetting. By weeding out underprepared climbers, Nepal could slash these numbers and ease the strain on its overtaxed rescue and cleanup operations.
Nepal’s new Everest rule isn’t just a regulation, it’s a revolution. It takes a stand for the Sherpas who risk everything, for the mountain choking under human ambition, and for the climbers who deserve a fighting chance. Sure, some will grumble about the 7,000-meter prerequisite, but those who’ve tasted the thin air of a Himalayan giant know it’s a fair ask. Although Everest isn’t going anywhere, its grandeur and the lives it claims could disappear if daring actions like these aren’t taken. Put on your boots, climb that 7,000-meter mountain, and demonstrate your readiness. The world’s roof is waiting, safer and cleaner than ever. Sri Lanka Unexpectedly Cuts Key Rate to Bolster Recovery (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg [5/21/2025 11:02 PM, Anusha Ondaatjie, 1707K]
Sri Lanka’s central bank unexpectedly cut its benchmark rate for the first time in six months, renewing its monetary policy easing cycle to bolster economic recovery.The Central Bank of Sri Lanka cut the overnight policy rate by 25 basis points to 7.75% on Thursday. None of the economists in a Bloomberg survey had predicted the move.“The Board is of the view that this measured easing of monetary policy stance will support steering inflation toward the target of 5%, amidst global uncertainties and current subdued inflationary pressures,” the monetary authority said in a statement. After surpassing growth expectations in 2024, Sri Lanka’s economic expansion runs the risk of moderating this year due to trade related disruptions. US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies threaten to upend the recovery and hurt textiles and rubber exports that account for a large share of the country’s overseas shipments. While leading economic indicators reflect sustained progress in domestic economic activity, risks have “escalated” compared to the last policy review warranting careful assessment of incoming data, the central bank said.The latest projections showed signs of a more gradual pickup in inflation in the near term than previously anticipated, the central bank said. Inflation is expected to turn positive in early third quarter of 2025 and gradually align with the target thereafter, it added.Authorities have made great progress in connecting with bilateral trade partners including the US to resolve trade policy uncertainty, officials from the International Monetary Fund said last month. The lender’s executive board is expected to meet in June to approve disbursement of $344 million in loans to the island nation. Sri Lanka cenbank cuts rate by 25 bps in surprise move to foster growth (Reuters)
Reuters [5/21/2025 11:36 PM, Uditha Jayasinghe, 121822K]
Sri Lanka’s central bank cut the policy rate by 25 basis points in a surprise move on Thursday, aiming to foster stronger economic growth after a lingering financial crisis and buffer any fallout from potential U.S. tariffs.The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) changed the overnight policy rate to 7.75%, it said in a statement, in contrast with a Reuters poll of 12 analysts and economists who had unanimously expected the bank to maintain its policy stance."The board is of the view that this measured easing of monetary policy stance will support steering inflation towards the target of 5%, amidst global uncertainties and current subdued inflationary pressures," the bank said.Supported by a $2.9-billion programme from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sri Lanka has steadily recovered from a financial crisis caused by a severe shortfall of foreign exchange reserves three years ago.The island nation turned around its economy to post growth of 5% in 2024, and the World Bank predicts it will grow 3.5% this year.Inflation, which stood at minus 2% in April on the year, is expected to turn positive in the early part of the third quarter, the central bank added.Inflation is only expected to reach the bank’s target of 5% in 2026, analysts said."While not being the main driving force, the cumulative concern of domestic inflation and a potential global recession may have prompted officials to make this marginal downward adjustment," said Raynal Wickremeratne, co-head of research at Softlogic Stockbrokers.Before the United States suspended them for three months, its tariffs of 44% on Sri Lanka threatened to affect about $3 billion of the country’s exports and possibly undermine its economic recovery.Officials of both sides are in talks to strengthen trade relations."If the language in the statement is interpreted to mean further cuts in the year with inflation staying lower than expected, then rates can shift down a bit more," said Thilina Panduwawala, head of research at Colombo’s Frontier Research."That can help sustain the robust growth momentum we have been seeing and offset some impacts from global volatility." Central Asia
Tajikistan faces uphill climb to wire the country (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [5/21/2025 4:14 PM, Staff, 57.6K]
Tajik officials earlier this year raised eyebrows with an expressed intent to transform the Central Asian into a hub for AI innovation. If that is ever going to happen, they first must figure out how to wire the country with high-speed internet.
According to the latest Speedtest Global Index, Tajikistan is the lowest ranked nation in Eurasia for fixed broadband connection speed, coming it at 117th out of 155 countries worldwide. Dushanbe did not even make the rankings for mobile connection speed.
Khurshed Faizullozoda, the head of the Presidential Agency for Innovation and Digital Technologies, blamed mountains for Tajikistan’s connectivity woes. “Approximately 93 percent of the territory of Tajikistan is occupied by mountains, which complicates access to the Internet,” he was quoted as saying by the government publication Jumhuriyat.
He added that plans are being developed to add server capacity and install fiber-optic lines to improve Internet performance across the country. He went on to make a vague reference to the “private sector” playing an “important role” in the process.“A 5G network will be fully implemented in the country soon,” Faizullozoda promised, without delving into specifics, the Asia-Plus news agency reported.
Faizullozoda’s argument that Tajikistan’s mountainous topography impedes government digitalization efforts runs into trouble in comparison to the neighboring state of Kyrgyzstan, which is also predominantly mountainous. Kyrgyzstan was 82nd in the Speedtest ranking for fixed broadband speed (with speed more than double that in Tajikistan), and 76th for mobile connectivity.
According to the index, Uzbekistan had the fastest fixed broadband Internet connectivity in Central Asia, ranking 76th globally. Azerbaijan (86th) was deemed to have the best Internet performance in the Caucasus. Georgia, which has traditionally ranked highly in surveys measuring economic freedom, sat at 114th, just ahead of Tajikistan, in the Speedtest index of broadband connection speed. Turkmen labor migrants turning elsewhere as Turkey is less welcoming (EurasiaNet)
EurasiaNet [5/21/2025 4:14 PM, Alexander Thompson, 57.6K]
Turkmen labor migrants are increasingly heading to Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kazakhstan as an alternative to Turkey.
Turkmen have long left their natural gas rich, but economically underdeveloped country seeking better opportunities, with Turkey being their preferred destination. But Turkmen and Turkish officials have collaborated in recent years to discourage migration to Turkey. As a result, growing numbers of would-be guest workers are heading in other directions.
Turkmen now make up about two-thirds of economic migrants in Uzbekistan, RFE/RL reported in January, and in Belarus, the migrant flow from Turkmenistan jumped eight-fold to become Minsk’s leading source of foreign laborers in 2024, reported Chronicles of Turkmenistan, an opposition-affiliated media outlet.
Anecdotally, migrants are increasingly packing their bags for Kazakhstan as well, Chronicles reported earlier in May. “Turkmen authorities, despite the vast potential of the country, can’t provide for people at least to the level of neighboring governments,” Chronicles quoted one Turkmen migrant as saying.
Slightly more than 200,000 Turkmen citizens live in Turkey, according to the Turkish migration service. Thousands more are there illegally.
Turkmenistan has gone to great lengths to stop the outflow, however. In 2022, at Ashgabat’s request, Turkey canceled its visa-free regime for Turkmen, and the following year Ankara tightened rules covering Turkmen migrants. Lately, Turkmen authorities have stopped renewing or replacing passports of their citizens in Turkey, Human Rights Watch documented.
Since 2018, when there was a spike in enforcement, Turkey has detained more than 70,000 illegal Turkmen migrants, according to the Ministry of Interior.
Turkey has also deported several Turkmen opposition figures at the behest of Ashgabat – most recently arresting two critical bloggers, Turkmen.News reported. Turkmenistan has, in some cases, refused to allow Turkmen women to rejoin their husbands in Turkey after they visited family back home, RFE/RL reported earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Turkey and Turkmenistan have been strengthening economic relations. In March, Turkey inked a natural gas deal with Turkmenistan that will eventually see 2 billion cubic meters of gas flow to Turkey each year.
The increasingly tough conditions for Turkmen nationals in Turkey have heightened Uzbekistan’s and Belarus’ attractiveness as labor-migration destinations.
Between January and October of 2024, Turkmen made up two-thirds of those traveling to Uzbekistan for commerce and trade, with about 89,000 Turkmen visiting over that period, according to RFE/RL.
Uzbekistan is no longer seen as a poor country, and many of the migrants are women who work in the service industry in Tashkent, the outlet reported.
In 2024, 16,300 Turkmen entered Belarus, in large part thanks to migration reforms the country undertook in 2023 that made it easier for foreign workers to obtain legal status, according to Chronicles.
Russia also remains a prominent destination for Turkmen migrants, but it is difficult to discern a trend. Tens of thousands of Turkmen travel to Russia each year and the number of labor migrants in Russia was relatively small but growing after Turkey canceled its visa-free regime in 2022, according to Migration Observatory, a monitoring initiative operated by the Prague Process. But there have been reports of Turkmen returning home due to discrimination and an official crackdown on foreign laborers over the last year. Indo-Pacific
Pakistan will not get water over which India has rights, India PM Modi says (Reuters)
Reuters [5/22/2025 4:12 AM, Sakshi Dayal, 5.2M]
Pakistan will not get water from rivers over which India has rights, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday, a month after a deadly attack in Indian Kashmir led New Delhi to suspend a key river water-sharing treaty between the neighbours.
The suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, negotiated by the World Bank in 1960, was among a slew of measures announced by India against Pakistan last month after the April 22 attack that killed 26 men, mostly Hindu tourists.
New Delhi had said the attack was backed by Pakistan – an accusation Islamabad denied – and the nuclear-armed neighbours were involved in their worst military fighting in nearly three decades before agreeing to a ceasefire on May 10.
"Pakistan will have to pay a heavy price for every terrorist attack ... Pakistan’s army will pay it, Pakistan’s economy will pay it," Modi said at a public event in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, which borders Pakistan.
The Indus treaty provides water for 80% of Pakistan’s farms from three rivers that flow from India but Pakistan’s finance minister said this month that its suspension was not going to have "any immediate impact".
The ceasefire between the countries has largely held, with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar saying that there is no exchange of fire currently and "there has been some repositioning of forces accordingly".
"The (military) operation continues because there is a clear message...that if there are acts of the kind we saw on April 22, there will be a response, we will hit the terrorists," Jaishankar told Dutch news outlet NOS.
"If the terrorists are in Pakistan, we will hit them where they are," he added.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan to comments by Modi and Jaishankar.
India and Pakistan have shared a troubled relationship since they were carved out of British India in 1947, and have fought three wars, two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part.
New Delhi also blames Pakistan for supporting Islamist separatists battling security forces in its part of Kashmir, but Islamabad denies the accusation.
The arch rivals have taken several measures against each other since the April attack in Kashmir, including suspension of trade, closure of land borders, and suspension of most visas. Beijing says Afghanistan and Pakistan aim to upgrade diplomatic ties (Reuters)
Reuters [5/21/2025 6:42 AM, Xiuhao Chen, Ethan Wang, and Liz Lee, 5.2M]
Pakistan and Afghanistan plan to upgrade their diplomatic ties, China said on Wednesday after hosting an informal meeting between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban administration following several outbreaks of violence.
The neighbours agreed in principle to send ambassadors to each other’s country as soon as possible, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said after his talks with Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.
The two countries "clearly expressed" willingness to upgrade the level of their diplomatic relations, Wang said according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.
"China welcomes this and is willing to continue providing assistance for the improvement of Afghanistan-Pakistan relations," he said.
In December, the Afghan Taliban said bombardment by Pakistani military aircraft in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province had killed at least 46 people, most of whom were children and women.
Pakistan has not confirmed the strikes but has said that it is carrying out "anti-terrorist operations" against Islamist militants it blames for attacks in Pakistan and who it says have safe havens in Afghanistan, a charge that Kabul denies.
In a statement on Wednesday, Pakistan’s foreign office said it "welcomed positive momentum in bilateral ties, including enhanced diplomatic engagement, trade, and transit facilitation."
Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister "emphasized the importance of political and economic relations with both countries and expressed hope for further progress in these areas in the future."
Tensions appeared to ease after a rare meeting between Muttaqi and Dar in Kabul last month where the Taliban’s acting foreign minister expressed concern over the deportation of tens of thousands of Afghans from Pakistan.
Wednesday’s meeting in Beijing signalled a further thaw, with all agreeing to a trilateral foreign ministers’ dialogue in Kabul as soon as possible.Pakistan and Afghanistan have embassies in each other’s capitals but they are led by charge d’affaires, not ambassadors. China was the first country to accept an ambassador from the Taliban-run administration in Kabul though it does not formally recognise its government. Several other states, including the UAE, followed.
During the talks, China and Pakistan voiced support for the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan, and are willing to expand trade exchanges with Afghanistan, said Wang.
The meeting also agreed on security cooperation, combating terrorist forces and safeguarding regional peace and stability, he said.
Wang and Muttaqi also met separately on Wednesday to discuss their bilateral relations. India and Pakistan launch rival diplomatic efforts to spin Kashmir conflict (Financial Times)
Financial Times [5/22/2025 12:58 AM, John Reed and Humza Jilani, 16.3M]
India and Pakistan are dispatching competing delegations around the world in an effort to bolster sympathies and press their view of this month’s conflict, the worst fighting in decades between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
New Delhi this week began sending teams of officials to Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, Africa and east Asia to argue that Pakistan is a sponsor of cross-border terrorism and a danger to global stability.
The latest fighting was sparked by an attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir in April that killed 26 people, and which India believes Pakistan was behind, allegations Islamabad has denied.
Pakistan, meanwhile, will focus on Washington, Paris, Brussels and London, and will seek to paint India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a warmonger who risks nuclear catastrophe and New Delhi as a regional bully that has cut off a crucial water treaty and carries out extrajudicial killings abroad.
Officials involved in Pakistan’s delegation said the diplomatic roadshow also offered a chance to try to drive a wedge between India and western nations, which are courting New Delhi as a rising superpower and economic hedge against China.
The rival diplomatic offensives reflect India and Pakistan’s efforts to advance their side in their long-running feud, and their fears of international allegiances shifting towards their rival. They have also focused on the US, after President Donald Trump interceded this month to announce a ceasefire, and who both sides see as receptive to their cause.“India would say the conversation needs to be the about Pakistani military and intelligence services’s endemic involvement in terrorism, which threatens the world, not just India,” said Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer at King’s College in London.“Pakistan would say, once again India blames us for legitimate internal problems in Kashmir . . . and until we solve that problem we will never break this cycle,” he added.India’s delegation, led by former diplomat Shashi Tharoor, will include opposition politicians and members of the country’s Muslim minority in an effort to present a united front in the wake of the attack in Kashmir, which sent shockwaves through the country and galvanised broad support for retaliation.“The salience of terrorism in the west has been reduced over the years because it’s not seen as the threat that it was after September 11,” said Syed Akbaruddin, a former Indian envoy to the UN, who is involved in the diplomatic outreach. “But in countries like ours, it’s a recurrent feature and you can’t ignore it.”
New Delhi launched missile and drone attacks, which it said targeted terrorist infrastructure. They penetrated deep into Pakistani territory, hitting military installations and killing dozens of civilians, according to Pakistani officials.
Pakistan, meanwhile, has cast itself in the conflict as a victim of aggression for a crime it did not commit, and has called for a neutral investigation. Former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will lead the country’s delegation, which will be more modest and is set to begin in early June.“Our objective is to explain how belligerent and roguish India has been,” said Hina Rabbani Khar, another former Pakistan foreign minister who is also part of the delegation.“Most western partners are sympathetic to India’s terrorism concerns,” said Christopher Clary, a professor of political science at the University at Albany in New York state. But their primary concern, he added, is that “Pakistan is not bluffing and a major war could turn nuclear”.
In India, anger at Pakistan whipped up by nationalist media has soared. Grievances are mounting against an international community many see as too willing to trust Islamabad, including the US, with which New Delhi is building closer defence and economic ties.
India plans to tell foreign politicians that it will maintain the suspension of a critical water treaty until Islamabad drops its support for terrorism, according to officials.
Officials were also incensed by Trump claiming credit for the ceasefire and dismayed by his offer to mediate talks over Kashmir, which they say equated the world’s largest democracy with what it perceives as a rogue military regime.“It does take two to tango,” Trump said on Friday.
Pakistan denies supporting terrorism, and says it provides only moral and diplomatic support for the cause of self determination in Muslim-majority Kashmir, which the countries have fought over since 1947.
It has also accused India of supporting transnational assassinations, including on its soil. Canada has linked India to the slaying of a Sikh activist in 2023 and the US foiled a similar plot in New York last year.
New Delhi has denied involvement in both incidents, as well as Pakistani accusations of supporting militant groups in its restive border provinces.
Pakistani officials said they would also push back against India’s efforts to isolate them economically at the Financial Action Task Force, which removed Islamabad from its watch list for money laundering and terrorism financing in 2022, as well as the IMF and Asian Development Bank.
Rajnath Singh, India’s defence minister, warned last week that $2.4bn in IMF funds that were signed off in the midst of the fighting would “certainly be utilised to fund terror infrastructure”.
Pakistani officials were encouraged by Trump’s intercession, and hope to make headway with a US leader who styles himself as a peacemaker. They also see Trump’s fear that the conflict came close to nuclear war as a potential point of leverage.“The Trump administration doesn’t seem to be beholden to Washington’s usual hawkishness about Pakistan,” said Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think-tank.
For Islamabad, she added, the Trump White House could be “a breath of fresh air [and] an opportunity to try to reset relations”. Kashmir tourism bears the brunt after tourist massacre and India-Pakistan military strikes (AP)
AP [5/22/2025 1:17 AM, Aijaz Hussain, 456K]
There are hardly any tourists in the scenic Himalayan region of Kashmir. Most of the hotels and ornate pinewood houseboats are empty. Resorts in the snowclad mountains have fallen silent. Hundreds of cabs are parked and idle.
It’s the fallout of last month’s gun massacre that left 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir followed by tit-for-tat military strikes by India and Pakistan, bringing the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of their third war over the region.“There might be some tourist arrivals, but it counts almost negligible. It is almost a zero footfall right now,” said Yaseen Tuman, who operates multiple houseboats in the region’s main city of Srinagar. “There is a haunting silence now.”
Tens of thousands of panicked tourists left Kashmir within days after the rare killings of tourists on April 22 at a picture-perfect meadow in southern resort town of Pahalgam. Following the attack, authorities temporarily closed dozens of tourist resorts in the region, adding to fear and causing occupancy rates to plummet.
Graphic images, repeatedly circulated through TV channels and social media, deepened panic and anger. India blamed Pakistan for supporting the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied.
Those who had stayed put fled soon after tensions between India and Pakistan spiked. As the two countries fired missiles and drones at each other, the region witnessed mass cancellations of tourist bookings. New Delhi and Islamabad reached a U.S.-mediated ceasefire on May 10 but hardly any new bookings have come in, tour operators said.Sheikh Bashir Ahmed, vice president of the Kashmir Hotel and Restaurant Association, said at least 12,000 rooms in the region’s hundreds of hotels and guesthouses were previously booked until June. Almost all bookings have been cancelled, and tens of thousands of people associated with hotels are without jobs, he said.“It’s a huge loss.” Ahmed said.
The decline has had a ripple effect on the local economy. Handicrafts, food stalls and taxi operators have lost most of their business.
Idyllic destinations, like the resort towns of Gulmarg and Pahalgam, once a magnet for travelers, are eerily silent. Lines of colorful hand-carved boats, known as shikaras, lie deserted, mostly anchored still on Srinagar’s normally bustling Dal Lake. Tens of thousands of daily wage workers have hardly any work.“There used to be long lines of tourists waiting for boat rides. There are none now,” said boatman Fayaz Ahmed.
Taxi driver Mohammed Irfan would take tourists for long drives to hill stations and show them grand Mughal-era gardens. “Even a half day of break was a luxury, and we would pray for it. Now, my taxi lies standstill for almost two weeks,” he said.
In recent years, the tourism sector grew substantially, making up about 7% of the region’s economy, according to official figures. Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s top elected official, said before the attack on tourists that the government was aiming to increase tourism’s share of the economy to at least 15% in the next four to five years.
Indian-controlled Kashmir was a top destination for visitors until the armed rebellion against Indian rule began in 1989. Warfare laid waste to the stunningly beautiful region, which is partly controlled by Pakistan and claimed by both countries in its entirety.
As the conflict ground on, the tourism sector slowly revived but occasional military skirmishes between India and Pakistan kept visitors at bay.
But India vigorously pushed tourism after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government scrapped the disputed region’s semi-autonomy in 2019. Tensions have simmered, but the region has also drawn millions of visitors amid a strange calm enforced by an intensified security crackdown.
According to official data, close to 3 million tourists visited the region in 2024, a rise from 2.71 million visitors in 2023 and 2.67 million in 2022. The massive influx prompted many locals to invest in the sector, setting up family-run guesthouses, luxury hotels, and transport companies in a region with few alternatives.
Tourists remained largely unfazed even as Modi’s administration has governed Kashmir with an iron fist in recent years, claiming militancy in the region was in check and a tourism influx was a sign of normalcy returning.
The massacre shattered those claims. Experts say that the Modi government’s optimism was largely misplaced and that the rising tourism in the region of which it boasted was a fragile barometer of normalcy. Last year, Abdullah, the region’s chief minister, cautioned against such optimism.
Tuman, who is also a sixth-generation tour operator, said he was not too optimistic about an immediate revival as bookings for the summer were almost all canceled.“If all goes well, it will take at least six months for tourism to revive,” he said.
Ahmed, the hotels association official, said India and Pakistan need to resolve the dispute for the region’s prosperity. “Tourism needs peace. If (Kashmir) problem is not solved … maybe after two months, it will be again same thing.” Twitter
Afghanistan
Shawn VanDiver@shawnjvandiver
[5/21/2025 7:14 AM, 33.5K followers, 20 retweets, 69 likes]
Yesterday, I learned that the spouse of the guy who orchestrated the Doha deal penned an oped as a Taliban sympathizer, taking issue with our characterization of Afghanistan as an unsafe place. She’s wrong. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/afghan-refugees-should-not-fear-repatriation
Shawn VanDiver@shawnjvandiver
[5/21/2025 7:15 AM, 33.5K followers, 4 retweets, 19 likes]
Awfully strange that she doesn’t just come out and say the reasons for her visits or that she was the wife of the ONE guy who is a throughline on our failed national policy on Afghanistan. People aren’t stupid, Cheryl.
Shawn VanDiver@shawnjvandiver
[5/21/2025 7:27 AM, 33.5K followers, 1 retweet, 13 likes]
And shouldn’t the @NRO have disclosed that the author is the spouse of @realZalmayMK? I certainly think so.
Sara Wahedi@SaraWahedi
[5/21/2025 5:19 PM, 96.1K followers, 39 retweets, 209 likes]
Every time I prepare slides on Afghanistan, it’s become unbearable to search “Afghan girls education.” Most of these girls haven’t seen a classroom in nearly 3 years. Told to pursue any dream - then abandoned. But we won’t give up. We’re working quietly, in the shadows.
Jahanzeb Wesa@Jahanzeb_Wesa
[5/21/2025 11:32 PM, 5.8K followers, 14 retweets, 36 likes] Afghan women & activists demand the release of journalists jailed by the Taliban, chanting: “Journalism is not a crime. Journalists are the voice of the people.” Taliban fears truth & silences those who expose its crimes. Free all Afghan journalists now. Silence kills truth.
Jahanzeb Wesa@Jahanzeb_Wesa
[5/21/2025 3:31 PM, 5.8K followers, 34 retweets, 71 likes]
—1442 days since the Taliban banned girls from school.
—881 days since women were barred from university.
—This is not just oppression, it’s erasure of Afghan women from society and brighter future of Afghan women and girls.
#LetAfghanGirlsLearn #FreeAfghanWomen
Jahanzeb Wesa@Jahanzeb_Wesa
[5/21/2025 12:29 PM, 5.8K followers, 11 retweets, 25 likes]
Very heartbreaking & I was shocked by Cheryl Benard’s claims that Afghanistan is “safe” and private schools for girls are open. These kinds of statements ignore everything Afghan women are going through. It’s painful to see the truth being so easily dismissed. #FreeAfghanWomenBeth W. Bailey@BWBailey85
[5/21/2025 5:25 PM, 8.5K followers, 4 retweets, 8 likes]
Cheryl Benard needs to speak to all the Taliban’s American detainees, including the still unseen Mahmood Habibi, about their reception in the country. She needs to demand to see the conditions of Afghan women facing rape and death in the de facto government’s jails. She needs to ask about the real suicide and maternal mortality rates, and look into the ongoing reprisal campaign. She needs to examine the security the Taliban provide for al Qaeda, according to the UN Monitoring Team.
Lina Rozbih@LinaRozbih
[5/21/2025 12:48 PM, 429K followers, 11 retweets, 47 likes]
Cheryl Benard, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, appears to be acting as a spokesperson for the Taliban. She recently stated, “I would also encourage Noem to take Van Diver up on his suggestion. I confidently guarantee her a warm welcome, frank conversations, and interesting insights: just as I experienced last month in Kabul.” Frankly, I find it incomprehensible that, despite her and her husband’s decades-long involvement in Afghan affairs, she remains extremely naive and superficial in analyzing the Taliban and Afghanistan’s complex dynamics. Ms. Benard, the Taliban government is desperate for recognition by the United States. Naturally, they will roll out the red carpet for you in Kabul. They may even treat Ms. Noem with courtesy, as they aim to appease the U.S. in hopes of securing the continuation of the $40 million they receive weekly and achieving formal recognition. Of course, they won’t imprison, torture, or harm you as they do to Afghan women and opposition figures. Engaging with brutal, authoritarian regimes like the Taliban from a position of power and authority shields you from their true reality. They treat you well because they need you. I hope the U.S. government refrains from seeking advice from Ms. Benard or her husband on handling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The core ideology of any terrorist network, including the Taliban government, is fundamentally anti-American and anti-infidel. Khalilzad failed the U.S. by signing the Doha Agreement with the Taliban. In the nearly four years since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, credible reports from major international organizations have highlighted the resurgence of terror networks like Al-Qaeda in the country. Let’s hope that President Trump and his cabinet do not place their trust in Khalilzad again and avoid repeating past mistakes that could jeopardize American interests. #Afghanistan #Taliban https://pajhwok.com/2025/05/21/khalilzads-wife-wants-sanctions-on-iea-eased/ Pakistan
Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan@ForeignOfficePk
[5/21/2025 4:10 AM, 496.6K followers, 85 retweets, 340 likes]
Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar @MIshaqDar50, concluded a successful three day visit to China from 19–21 May 2025. Together, the two sides reaffirmed their iron-clad friendship and advanced their shared vision for international and regional peace and development.
Ishaq Dar@MIshaqDar50
[5/21/2025 12:26 PM, 825.4K followers, 576 retweets, 2.1K likes]
Pakistan and China established diplomatic relations on 21 May 1951. Today we celebrate 74th anniversary of this iron-clad brotherhood. Jeevay Pakistan resonates anew, performed masterfully by Chinese Orchestra, is an apt expression of celebrating this milestone. This harmony of cultures embodies our timeless friendship, unwavering solidarity, and shared dreams.
Ishaq Dar@MIshaqDar50
[5/21/2025 11:23 PM, 825.4K followers, 133 retweets, 652 likes]
Brief talk with APP correspondent, before leaving China, on completion of bilateral meetings with China & Afghanistan and trilateral meeting of China, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Beijing on 20-21 May; detail of the deliverables of the visit will be shared with the media tomorrow at 1pm in Islamabad, InshaAllah. https://app.com.pk/global/pak-china-strategic-cooperative-partnership-ironclad-friendship-to-grow-further-dpm-dar/
Michael Kugelman@MichaelKugelman
[5/21/2025 3:44 PM, 225.8K followers, 160 retweets, 951 likes]
Trump has once again taken credit for the ceasefire and claimed trade played a role in it. He also may have directed an indirect compliment to Field Marshall Munir w/his references to Pakistan’s “excellent people” & “great leaders.” Trump isn’t letting up on this front just yet.
Hamid Mir@HamidMirPAK
[5/21/2025 8:19 PM, 8.7M followers, 234 retweets, 860 likes]
President @realDonaldTrump praised Pakistan again. Let Indian Prime Minister @narendramodi deny him or respond him by name. Trump administration is aware that Pakistan was in a position to shot down more Indian planes but excercised restraint and never escalated the war. Some facts will come out soon.
Hamid Mir@HamidMirPAK
[5/21/2025 12:00 PM, 8.7M followers, 71 retweets, 267 likes]
74 years of Pak-China friendship completed on 21st May. Kashmiri leaders Mir Waiz Maulvi M. Farooq and Abdul Ghani Lone also became victims of target killing in Indian occupied Kashmir on 21st May.A school bus was attacked today on 21st May in Balochistan. Who is behind all this?
Zalmay Khalilzad@realZalmayMK
[5/21/2025 1:03 PM, 264.9K followers, 849 retweets, 4.4K likes]
I condemn the attack on a school bus in Khuzdar, in Pakistani Baluchistan, in which students were killed and injured. #Pakistan. India
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[5/22/2025 2:36 AM, 108.7M followers, 2.2K retweets, 8.7K likes]
From Bikaner, launching projects aimed at augmenting rail infrastructure, connectivity, water and energy sectors.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[5/21/2025 7:17 AM, 108.7M followers, 10K retweets, 60K likes]
Proud of our forces for this remarkable success. Our Government is committed to eliminating the menace of Maoism and ensuring a life of peace and progress for our people.
Narendra Modi@narendramodi
[5/21/2025 6:10 PM, 108.7M followers, 5.6K retweets, 26K likes] Tomorrow, 22nd May is a landmark day for India’s railway infrastructure. The Amrit Stations will boost comfort, connectivity and celebrate our glorious culture!
Brahma Chellaney@Chellaney
[5/22/2025 2:15 AM, 293K followers, 65 retweets, 251 likes]
Trump’s self-congratulatory remarks about using trade threats to coerce India during a military crisis not only belittle New Delhi’s security concerns but also risk costing U.S. defense firms billions in future sales by chilling bilateral weapons trade. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/05/21/japan/trump-indias-foreign-policy/
Brahma Chellaney@Chellaney
[5/21/2025 9:46 AM, 293K followers, 651 retweets, 2.4K likes]
My latest op-ed: Trump may have done India a favor by opening its eyes to strategic realities, including America’s unreliability. India’s foreign policy should be defined by interests, not illusions. New Delhi must now pivot to strategic self-reliance. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/05/21/japan/trump-indias-foreign-policy/ NSB
Abdulla Shahid@abdulla_shahid
[5/21/2025 1:47 PM, 119.5K followers, 43 retweets, 65 likes]
The entire staff of the #Maldives Broadcasting Commission has walked out in protest after the suspension of the Secretary-General. This unprecedented move underscores a deepening crisis: President Muizzu’s government’s growing hostility toward independent institutions and critical voices. The government’s move reeks of political interference and sends a chilling message to media professionals across the country. Press freedom continues to erode under this administration. This is not an isolated incident. It is part of a broader pattern of suppression and control. A government that fears accountability silences the media. And right now, the Maldives is showing the world just how fragile freedom can be.
Harsha de Silva@HarshadeSilvaMP
[5/22/2025 1:44 AM, 360.3K followers, 13 retweets, 65 likes]
#NEXT’s exit signals #SriLanka economic downturn under a Govt peddling lies. No reforms, no investment, soaring prices, and ZERO vision. Incompetent leadership with no foreign policy savvy is driving businesses and hope away. #lka
Sajith Premadasa@sajithpremadasa
[5/22/2025 2:54 AM, 234.1K followers, 6 retweets, 33 likes]
Silenced in Parliament today, so I’ll ask here: power bills proposed hike at 18.3% after a promised 33% cut now water tariff hikes are rumoured next. When will they land, and how hard will they hit already strained households? Central Asia
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[5/22/2025 12:37 AM, 2.8K followers, 2 likes]
Met with Chairman @RepRickCrawford to discuss the full spectrum of our bilateral relations, emphasizing visionary, long-term, and comprehensive cooperation for a stronger partnership ahead.
Yerzhan Ashikbayev@KZAmbUS
[5/21/2025 6:21 PM, 2.8K followers, 1 retweet, 5 likes]
#Kazakhstan continues to expand global education ties becoming Central Asia’s hub. @NYFA has opened its first branch in Almaty, bringing world-class film training to the region and supporting local creative industries.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[5/21/2025 7:56 AM, 216.8K followers, 3 retweets, 11 likes]President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev attended the informal @Turkic_States summit in #Budapest, chaired by Hungarian @PM_ViktorOrban. Leaders from #Azerbaijan, #Kazakhstan, #Kyrgyzstan, #Türkiye and the OTS Secretary General also participated. The summit concluded with the adoption of the Budapest Declaration and several other agreements.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service@president_uz
[5/21/2025 7:05 AM, 216.8K followers, 9 retweets, 56 likes]
Address by the President of the Republic of #Uzbekistan Shavkat #Mirziyoyev at the informal summit of the @Turkic_States https://president.uz/en/lists/view/8141 {End of Report} To subscribe to the SCA Morning Press Clips, please email SCA-PressOfficers@state.gov. Please do not reply directly to this email.