At least two people were killed and 19 more were wounded in separate explosions in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Saturday, according to a health official and local media.
The attacks, which targeted Taliban vehicles, are the first deadly blasts since the new government was established in Afghanistan.
A health official at a hospital in the city confirmed the death toll to AFP.
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Hungary’s newly united opposition politicians started going to the polls Saturday in the country’s first-ever primary elections that they hope are the key to ousting right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
After years of bickering and a string of landslide losses, the once-factious opposition has come together with one common goal — to push the long-serving leader from power in elections next year.
Their six-party alliance, set up last year, is made up of a diverse cast of political parties: leftist, liberal and formerly far-right.
They accuse 58-year-old Orban — who regularly clashes with Brussels over migration and rule-of-law issues — of endemic corruption and creeping authoritarianism since he came to power in 2010.
Now they hope the new primary system will be their path to defeating his Fidesz party, Hungary’s largest.
“The opposition can only compete with Fidesz if they are in a single bloc too, we’ve learned that the hard way,” Antal Csardi, a candidate for the green LMP party, told AFP.
The winner-takes-all system brought in under Orban in 2012 handed Fidesz powerful parliamentary “supermajorities” in 2014 and 2018, despite winning less than half of the vote.
By contrast, the primaries will let opposition voters select single candidates to take on both Orban himself as well as Fidesz rivals in each of Hungary’s 106 electoral districts.
‘Innovation’
Over 250 candidates are standing in the primaries nationwide that run from September 18 to 26, with voting taking place online and in-person.
If required, a run-off for the prime ministerial candidacy will be held between Oct. 4-10.
Csardi says the primary elections are “an innovation that was forced on us” by the election system, and the only hope of seeing an anti-Fidesz candidate win.
“There are ideological differences between all the opposition parties, so primaries are the best way of deciding who becomes the common candidate,” he said in a televised debate with Ferenc Gelencser of the centrist Momentum Movement this week.
The system is popular among opposition voters too.
Gyorgy Abelovszky, a studio audience member at the debate, said they “a great idea” that “should have been introduced for previous elections.”
“I don’t support either of these opposition parties debating tonight but I will vote for whichever of them wins the candidacy here,” the 67-year-old told AFP.
That sentiment could spell the end for more than a decade of Orban rule at the general election set to be held next April.
Polls so far indicate an unpredictable parliamentary election for the first time since he came to power.
“Despite the ideological cleavages between the opposition parties, for most of their voters, next year’s election is simply about whether Viktor Orban goes or not, nothing else,” Daniel Mikecz, an analyst with the Republikon think tank, told AFP.
Cracks in the alliance?
Despite their differences, the five prime ministerial candidates at Sunday’s primetime debate — the first of three — were mostly on the same anti-Orban page.
But some have cracks in the alliance have appeared. In June, former far-right party Jobbik broke ranks by voting for a controversial anti-LGBTQ law proposed by Fidesz.
Still, the parties hope to build on their success at municipal elections in 2019 when they first applied the strategy of uniting against Fidesz.
That delivered the alliance surprise wins in Budapest and several regional cities in what was seen as the first blow to in Orban’s self-styled “illiberal” system.
Gergely Karacsony, a liberal who won the Budapest mayoralty then thanks to cross-party support, said this week that he “expects to win” the race to take on Orban.
“I can best integrate and hold together this diverse opposition.”
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This week’s nuclear submarine deal between the United States and Australia threatens to become divisive in Australia, where some critics already are saying it risks Australian security rather than enhances it in the face of China’s militarization of the South China Sea.
Under the deal, the U.S. will help Australia build at least eight nuclear-powered submarines during the next 20 years to replace its current fleet of six diesel-powered subs.
This is the first time since 1958 that the United States has shared its nuclear submarine technology, having only ever previously shared it with the United Kingdom. The deal is the highlight of a surprise trilateral security partnership, called AUKUS, announced among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States by the three countries’ leaders Thursday.
Dubbed a “forever partnership” by Australia’s conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the pact comes amid high tensions between Australia and China, and on the heels of Washington’s exit from what has been dubbed its “forever war” in Afghanistan.
The irony has been impossible to ignore for critics of Canberra’s increasingly hawkish posture toward China.
One of those critics is former Labor Party prime minister Paul Keating, a strident critic of confrontation with China who has long advocated Australian engagement with Asia ahead of its traditional Anglo-Saxon Western allies and who scorns Canberra’s reliance on the United States for support.
“Australia has had great difficulty in running a bunch of locally built conventional submarines. Imagine the difficulty in moving to sophisticated nuclear submarines, their maintenance and operational complexity. And all this at a time when U.S. reliability and resolution around its strategic commitments and military engagements are under question,” he wrote in an op-ed in The Sydney Morning Herald after the deal was announced.
Some security analysts advocate less, not more, reliance on U.S. military support, and caution against interpreting the U.S. pivot away from its Afghan campaign as part of a long-awaited pivot toward the Indo-Pacific, first promised by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2011.
“What Australia, and other U.S. friends and allies in Asia, need to consider is whether it is possible that the U.S. will make a similar judgment about their presence in this region over the long term as well,” Sam Roggeveen, who heads the international security program at the Lowy Institute, told VOA in an interview.
“This deal signals that Australia is gambling that, over the decades-long lifespan of these submarines, the United States will remain committed to its defense and to maintaining a regional presence in the face of the largest economic and strategic challenge in American history,” Roggeveen wrote separately in the think tank’s Interpreter magazine Friday.
Calling the deal “momentous,” he warned that its scale “will create expectations from Washington.”
“Australia cannot have this capability while assuming that it does not come with heightened expectations that Australia will take America’s side in any dispute with China,” he wrote.
China has imposed several trade sanctions on Australia in recent years, furious at Canberra’s moves to curb foreign direct investment, its rejection of telecommunications giant Huawei, its charges of domestic political interference by Chinese agents, and its support for an inquiry into COVID-19’s origins in Wuhan.
Strategy experts caution that increased defense dependency on the United States could cost Australia more than the price of eight long-distance stealth submarines.
“It cuts both ways,” East Asia expert Richard McGregor, a senior associate at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview.
“As a U.S. ally, if the U.S. is confronting China, we’re on one side of that. The South China Sea is where that’s going to be played out. We’ll be caught out, and we’ll always be on the wrong side, according to China,” McGregor, also a senior associate the Lowy Institute, told VOA.
“If under [U.S. President Joe] Biden, as is pretty clear, America now values alliances, that means they also expect us to do more. So if the U.S. is focused on China, they might want more troops here. They might want to put missiles on our soil. More might be demanded of us. That comes at the cost of relations with China.”
“We’ve crossed the Rubicon now. The U.S.-China deep confrontation is a permanent condition of regional global politics. That’s not going to be unwound for many years,” he added.
On the other side of the ledger, the nuclear sub deal may temper anxieties in Australia over weaknesses in the ANZUS treaty, a 1951 security pact among the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The wording of Article IV — “Each Party … declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes” — is considered weak in terms of a security commitment as it does not guarantee military support in response to an attack.
Former leader Tony Abbott, prime minister from 2013 to 2015, extolled the decision to acquire nuclear-powered submarines as sending a necessary signal “that we are a serious country and a force to be reckoned with.”
“Given that China is well into what’s probably the biggest military build-up in history, time is not on our side,” he wrote in The Australian newspaper.
The deal, he wrote, “will give Australia vastly more strength to resist aggression and vastly more sovereign capacity to stare down even a superpower if needs be.”
Michael Shoebridge, director of defense, strategy and national security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, has said he believes the deal makes Australia safer.
The nuclear-powered submarines will give Australia “a powerful deterrent and strike weapon, adding offensive military power that any potential adversary must factor in to any decision to engage in conflict,” he told VOA.
“The primary advantage [of the deal] is as an increase in ally and partner capability to deter [President] Xi[ Jinping]’s China from using force against others in the region, and continuing on the path he is taking China of the growing use of intimidation and coercion to dictate the choices that other nations make,” Shoebridge said.
“Being able to raise the costs to [Xi] of conflict is a way of preserving peace in the Indo-Pacific. Australia has always sought to be an active contributor to regional security, working closely with partners and allies who share interests, and the AUKUS alliance empowers us to do so more effectively. It will accelerate other partnerships and groupings like the Quad and the Aus-Japan-U.S. trilateral and reassure other regional nations that do not want to have their choices dictated by Beijing.”
The nuclear submarines won’t be ready until the end of next decade, with some projections putting their delivery as late as 2040. China already has six of its own nuclear-powered subs, according to a U.S. Defense Department report last year.
In the meantime, under the trilateral pact Australia will also acquire a suite of long-range missiles including U.S. Tomahawk missiles, and unmanned underwater vehicles.
“It is impossible to read this as anything other than a response to China’s rise, and a significant escalation of American commitment to that challenge,” Roggeveen said.
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Former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who fought for independence from France, reconciled his conflict-ravaged nation and was then ousted amid pro-democracy protests in 2019 after two decades in power, has died at age 84.
A statement from the office of current President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, did not provide the cause of death or information about funeral arrangements.
Bouteflika had suffered a stroke in 2013 that badly weakened him. Concerns about his state of health, kept secret from the Algerian public, helped feed public frustration with his 20-year, corruption-tarnished rule. Mass public protests by the Hirak movement led to his departure.
An astute political chameleon, Bouteflika had been known as a wily survivor ever since he fought for independence from colonial ruler France in the 1950s and 1960s.
He stood up to Henry Kissinger as Algeria’s long-serving foreign minister, successfully negotiated with the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal to free oil ministers taken hostage in a 1975 attack on OPEC headquarters, and helped reconcile Algerian citizens with each other after a decade of civil war between radical Muslim militants and Algeria’s security forces.
“I’m a non-conformist politician. I’m a revolutionary,” Bouteflika told The Associated Press on the eve of his first presidential victory in 1999, after a campaign tarnished by fraud charges that drove his six rivals to pull out of the vote.
Upon taking office, Bouteflika promised “to definitively turn the somber pages of our history to work for a new era.”
Born March 2, 1937, to Algerian parents in the border town of Oujda, Morocco, Bouteflika was among Algeria’s most enduring politicians.
In 1956, Bouteflika entered the National Liberation Army, formed to fight Algeria’s bloody independence war. He commanded the southern Mali front and slipped into France clandestinely.
After the war’s end, Bouteflika became foreign minister at just 25, at a time when Algeria was a model of doctrinaire socialism tethered to the Soviet Union. Its capital, Algiers, was nicknamed “Moscow on the Med.”
He kept that post for 16 years, helping to raise Algeria’s influence and define the country as a leader of the Third World and the Non-Aligned Movements. He was active in the United Nations and presided over the U.N. General Assembly in 1974.
In 1978, he slipped from sight for nearly two decades, spending more than six years in exile to escape corruption charges that were later dropped.
Algeria’s army held the reins of power throughout that time. The National Liberation Army had been transformed into a single party that ruled until 1989, when a multiparty system was introduced.
But as the Islamic Salvation Front party, or FIS, rapidly gained support, the army canceled Algeria’s first multi-party legislative elections in 1992 to thwart a likely victory by the Muslim fundamentalists. An insurgency erupted that left an estimated 200,000 dead over the ensuing years.
Bouteflika took office in 1999, Algeria’s first civilian leader in more than three decades. He managed to bring stability to a country nearly brought to its knees by the violence, unveiling a bold program in 2005 to reconcile the fractured nation by persuading Muslim radicals to lay down their arms.
Bouteflika and the armed forces neutralized Algeria’s insurgency, but then watched it metastasize into a Saharan-wide movement linked to smuggling and kidnapping — and to al-Qaida.
Bouteflika stood with the United States in the fight against terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, particularly on intelligence-sharing and military cooperation. It marked a turnaround from the militantly anti-American, Soviet-armed Algeria of years past when figures like Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver took refuge there.
Bouteflika’s powerful political machine had the constitution changed to cancel the presidency’s two-term limit. He was then reelected in 2009 and 2013, amid charges of fraud and a lack of powerful challengers.
His firebrand past dissolved as age and illness took its toll on the once-charismatic figure. Corruption scandals over infrastructure and hydrocarbon projects dogged him for years and tarnished many of his closest associates. His brother, two former prime ministers and other top officials are now in prison over corruption.
Bouteflika balked at the region-wide calls for change embodied by the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions that overthrew three dictators to his east. Bouteflika tamped down unrest through salary and subsidy increases, a vigilant security force and a lack of unity in the country’s opposition. He also failed to restore civic trust or create an economy that could offer the jobs needed for Algeria’s growing youth population despite the nation’s vast oil and gas wealth.
Bouteflika was increasingly absent from view during his third and fourth presidential terms after suffering a stroke. The extent to which Bouteflika was controlled by the army remained unclear. He once told the AP that he turned down the job of president in 1994 because he was unable to accept conditions set by the military.
Algeria’s Hirak protests erupted after he announced plans to run for a fifth term in 2019, and it was the then-army chief who sealed Bouteflika’s fate by siding with the demonstrators. Bouteflika had no choice but to step down.
Despite new elections and some gestures toward the protesters, Algeria’s leadership remains opaque and has recently cracked down on dissent, notably among Berber populations.
The secrecy surrounding Algeria’s leaders is such that it’s unclear whether Bouteflika ever married or had any survivors.
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A drone strike carried out during the waning hours of the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan did not kill a terrorist bent on attacking the international airport in Kabul, and instead killed as many as 10 civilians, including an aid worker and seven children.
The admission Friday from the commander of U.S. troops in the region followed a military investigation sparked by claims from people on the ground, as well as media reports, that the target struck August 29 by a Hellfire missile was never a threat.
“This strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport,” General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters at the Pentagon via a video link. “Our investigation now concludes the strike was a tragic mistake.”
“We now assess that it is unlikely that the vehicle or those that died were associated with ISIS-K,” McKenzie added, using an acronym for the Islamic State terror group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, also known as IS-Khorasan.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also apologized for the errant strike.
“On behalf of the men and women of the Department of Defense, I offer my deepest condolences to surviving family members of those who were killed,” Austin said in a statement. “We apologize, and we will endeavor to learn from this horrible mistake.”
The apology was a dramatic turnaround for the U.S. military, which had been defending the airstrike for weeks.
Just days after, the senior-most U.S. military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, defended the strike as “righteous.”
“We know from a variety of other means that at least one of those people that were killed was an ISIS facilitator,” Milley told Pentagon reporters September 1. “The procedures were correctly followed.”
Even then, accounts from the ground were telling a different story – that instead of killing an IS-Khorasan facilitator, the U.S. drone strike had actually blown up Ezmarai Ahmadi, an aid worker with the California-based Nutrition and Education International who had applied for resettlement in the U.S.
Family members said the other fatalities included Ahmadi’s daughter, as well as nephews and nieces.
Additional investigations by The New York Times and The Washington Post cast further doubt on the U.S. assertion that the strike had eliminated an IS-Khorasan terrorist.
The Times investigation determined that the car, a white Toyota Corolla, which U.S. officials thought was filled with explosives, was actually carrying canisters of water. And the suspicious stops Ahmadi had made as the U.S. watched him from the sky were stops to pick up colleagues and to make water deliveries.
“We didn’t take the strike because we thought we were wrong. We took the strike because we thought we had a good target,” CENTCOM’s McKenzie said Friday, pointing to what he said were “over 60 very, very high-caliber reports of imminent threat to our forces in and around Kabul,” many centered on the use of a white Toyota Corolla.
“Clearly our intelligence was wrong on this particular white Toyota Corolla,” he said.
U.S. military officials said they still believe there was an IS-Khorasan plot to attack the airport with that type of car from one of the locations where Ahmadi’s Toyota was spotted. But they now believe that attack may have been disrupted by a U.S airstrike days earlier that targeted the terror group’s operatives in Nangarhar province.
McKenzie said the U.S. is now looking into making so-called ex gratia payments to the surviving family members, though he admitted delivering the reparations could be difficult without a U.S. presence on the ground.
The CENTCOM commander declined to say whether any disciplinary action would be taken against those involved in carrying out the strike, saying that the ultimate responsibility lay with him.
Human rights organizations are demanding more.
“The U.S. must now commit to a full, transparent and impartial investigation into this incident,” said Brian Castner, a senior crisis adviser with Amnesty International.
“Anyone suspected of criminal responsibility should be prosecuted in a fair trial,” Castner said in a formal statement. “Survivors and families of the victims should be kept informed of the progress of the investigation and be given full reparation.”
The American Civil Liberties Union said the drone strike in Kabul should be “a wake-up call.”
“In this strike, we see the echoes of so many other civilian lives lost and gravely harmed, whether in wars like in Afghanistan, or outside of them, like in Somalia,” Hina Shamsi of the ACLU said in a statement.
Some U.S. lawmakers are also calling for more to be done.
“The Department of Defense has taken the first step towards transparency and accountability,” said Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in a written statement. He called the deadly drone strike “a devastating failure.”
“We need to know what went wrong in the hours and minutes leading up to the strike to prevent similar tragedies in the future,” he added.
“The Armed Services Committee will hear from administration officials in the weeks ahead on the chaotic and deadly Afghanistan withdrawal,” Senator James Inhofe, the ranking member of the committee, said in a written statement.
“The August 29 strike shows how difficult and complex counterterrorism operations can be, and unfortunately it highlights that an ‘over-the-horizon’ strategy will only increase the complexity and difficulty,” he said.
There are also questions about the future of any U.S. counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan against groups like IS-Khorasan or al-Qaida, which for now would be conducted “over the horizon” – from U.S. bases hours away in the Middle East.
But McKenzie said the rules of engagement for such airstrikes would be different.
“We will have a lot more opportunity probably than we had under this extreme time pressure to take a look at the target … to soak the target with multiple platforms to have an opportunity to develop extended pattern of life,” he said. “None of these things were available to us given the urgent and pressing nature of the imminent threat to our forces.”
The U.S. commander also said that despite their repeated assurances and commitments, the Taliban had done little to help the evacuation aside from establishing an outer security perimeter around Kabul airport that “also allowed them to screen people that might otherwise have gotten to the airfield.”
As far as any other help against IS-Khorasan, “I don’t know that they’re doing anything at all for us right now,” McKenzie said.
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France has recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Australia after Australia ended a deal to buy French submarines in favor of one to pursue nuclear-powered vessels using U.S. technology.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a written statement Friday that the move “is justified by the exceptional seriousness” of the matter.
He said the decision by President Emmanuel Macron followed “unacceptable behavior between allies and partners.”
This is the first time France has recalled its ambassador to the United States, according to the French Foreign Ministry. The two countries established diplomatic relations in 1778.
A White House official said that the U.S. regretted the French decision and would be engaged in the coming days to resolve its differences with France.
At the State Department, spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement, “France is a vital partner and our oldest ally, and we place the highest value on our relationship.”
U.S. President Joe Biden announced Wednesday the deal between the United States, Australia and Britain to provide U.S. nuclear submarine technology to Australia.
Macron has not commented on the issue.
France had been planning to sell conventional submarines to Australia in a multibillion-dollar deal.
The country has also been pushing for several years to create a European strategy to boost economic and defense ties in the Indo-Pacific region.
In an interview Thursday with France Info radio, Le Drian described the deal between the United States and Australia as a “stab in the back.”
“We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed,” he said, adding that Biden had acted like his predecessor, Donald Trump.
“This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr. Trump used to do,” he said.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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Afghan women have launched a social media campaign sharing their photos in traditional Afghan dresses to protest what they call the Taliban’s new dress code. Farkhunda Paimani reports.
Producer: Bezhan Hamdard.
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The U.N. Security Council extended its political mission in Afghanistan for six months in a unanimous vote Friday.
In essence, the resolution, which was drafted by Norway and Estonia, gives members time to assess how the Taliban will rule.
Over the coming months, the resolution will ensure that the U.N. mission can carry on its work in Afghanistan monitoring human rights, protecting children and civilians against abuses, and supporting “the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in all levels of decision-making.”
The resolution “sends a unified message that we stand behind the U.N.’s efforts in Afghanistan going forward,” Norway and Estonia said in a statement to the Security Council.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the U.N.’s work in Afghanistan important, adding that the U.N. should continue “to serve Afghans and advance their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
When the Taliban swept into power after a chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country last month, they promised to form a more inclusive government, but when they announced an interim government, women and minorities were not included.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday celebrated the 40th anniversary of France’s Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) — “high-speed train” — system, by unveiling a more efficient and environmentally friendly next-generation train.
During a ceremony at the Gare de Lyon rail station in Paris, Macron hailed the history of the original TGV, inaugurated at the same station by then-French President François Mitterrand.
That first French bullet train first joined Paris to Lyon and then eventually connected the rest of the country, with high-speed tracks now extending to Strasbourg and Bordeaux and trains that travel at speeds of 350 kph. In 2007, a TGV reached a record 574.8 kph, a mark that still stands.
On Friday, Macron dropped the curtain — actually, a large French flag — on the next generation of high-speed train, the TGV M, which the French president described as a “formidable symbol” … which is going to recapture spaces and win back the hearts of the French.”
Macron announced a $7.7 billion plan to redevelop and revitalize the TGV network and the state-run rail company SNCF, including new lines serving cities such as Nice and Toulouse, as well as lines serving smaller communities. He said the plan also includes improving rail freight service.
The new, streamlined version of the TGV will carry more passengers — up to 740 passengers from 600 — and move between cities at a top speed of 320 kph while consuming 20% less electricity.
Increasing train use is also part of France’s plan to reduce emissions in the country.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and AFP.
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A New Zealand cricket team announced it was abandoning its tour of Pakistan, citing security concerns Friday, the day it was supposed to have its first match.
“Following an escalation in the New Zealand Government threat levels for Pakistan, and advice from NZC security advisers on the ground, it has been decided the BLACKCAPS will not continue with the tour,” a press statement from the New Zealand cricket team said.
Pakistani officials reacted strongly, calling the decision “unilateral” and a conspiracy against Pakistan’s image.
“None of our various intelligence agencies had received any indication of a security threat,” said Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed.
He added that Pakistan had offered to hold the matches without spectators, but the offer was rejected.
Pakistani Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Haider Zaidi said he was “appalled” at the decision.
“Sadly, global politics has won over the great game of cricket! There were no security threats! @jacindaardern,” he said, tagging the New Zealand prime minister in his tweet.
Prime Minister Imran Khan personally called Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to guarantee the team’s safety, but she stood by her team’s decision, according to Ahmed and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
The PCB said it had arranged “fool proof security” for the visiting team and New Zealand security officials had been satisfied with their arrangements.
“[C]ricket lovers in Pakistan and around the world will be disappointed by this last-minute withdrawal,” the board said.
The chief executive of the Black Caps, David White, said he could not ignore the advice he was receiving.
“I understand this will be a blow for the PCB, who have been wonderful hosts, but player safety is paramount, and we believe this is the only responsible option,” he said.
The two sides were to play three one-day matches in Rawalpindi, known as the twin city of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, followed by a series of five limited over matches or T-20s in Pakistan’s second-largest city, Lahore.
The chief executive of the PCB, Wasim Khan, told VOA the New Zealand team would head home Saturday on a chartered plane.
An English cricket team was scheduled to visit Pakistan in October, but Interior Minister Ahmed said that tour also was now in doubt.
“Ministry of Interior has informed me that the English team is also thinking along the same lines. On our part, we are ready to welcome them. There is no security threat in our country to either New Zealand or England,” he said.
International cricket teams stopped visiting Pakistan after an attack on a Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009 in Lahore that wounded seven members of the team.
Pakistan went through several years of violence starting approximately in 2007 as extremist groups blaming Pakistan for siding with the United States in its war on terror started attacking both its security forces and civilians.
Pakistani officials claim up to 80,000 of their citizens died in these attacks, and the country suffered up to $150 billion worth of damage to its economy.
In 2016, Pakistani cricket authorities formed the Pakistan Super League, six cricket teams representing six cities. The teams included international players in an effort to revive international cricket in Pakistan. The first two seasons of the league were played outside Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates.
The first international team to return to Pakistan was Zimbabwe in 2015.
your ad hereRussia’s President Vladimir Putin provoked chuckles earlier this month from school kids in the Russian city of Vladivostok when a 10-year-old asked him to subscribe to his YouTube channel. “Sign up please. I’d be very glad,” the kid said.
Russia’s 68-year-old leader seemed baffled.
“What do I have to sign?” Putin asked. “Sign what? I didn’t understand — what should I sign?” the president queried. The exchange was seen by many Russian commentators as an iconic moment in a widening division between Putin and his country’s youngsters.
The Vladivostok school kids are not of voting age, but as Russians started to go to the polls Friday to vote in parliamentary elections, the turnout and voting patterns of the country’s internet-savvy 18-to-24-year-olds will be scrutinized by the Kremlin as well as Putin’s foes.
Over the past year opinion polling has suggested that young Russians are increasingly unhappy with their president. Around half of young Russians expressed dissatisfaction with Putin in a poll by the independent Russian polling organization Levada Center earlier this year. Only 20% said they supported him, a sharp drop from 36% previously. Nearly half said the country was moving in the wrong direction under his leadership, with just 44% saying the direction of travel was okay.
“Young people are becoming more politically active,” analyst Natia Seskuria said in a recent commentary for London-based think tank Chatham House. “After 21 years of Putin’s rule, regime fatigue is settling in — particularly in the younger generations who have known no other leader.”
“Growing dissatisfaction made many join demonstrations that led to more than 10,000 arrests and dozens of criminal cases against the protesters,” Seskuria said, referring to protests mounted in the wake of the imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny earlier this year on charges he says are trumped up. “Young Russians have used social media to mobilize support for rallies and to criticize Putin. Navalny, too, has used the power of social media to connect with younger voters.”
How many of Russia’s young people vote for Putin’s ruling United Russia Party will give some idea of the challenge the Kremlin may face in the coming months. It also will indicate whether Russia’s leader will face a mounting backlash from a young generation that is frustrated with economic stagnation, the lack of job prospects and a propaganda-heavy media machine that does not connect with it in the way Navalny has managed to with You-Tube videos and social media posts.
Polling data suggests that just 26% of Russians are ready to vote for Putin’s United Russia Party, which is seeking to maintain its Duma majority of 334 seats. That is its lowest opinion poll rating since 2008.
But few doubt United Russia will retain its Duma majority. Kremlin critics say this election — voting takes place over three days — is the least free since Putin came to power 21 years ago. Genuinely independent candidates are barred from running, cash-handouts have been offered to voters, and there is evidence of voter intimidation, all taking place amid an unprecedented crackdown on dissent.
Critics also expect plenty of ballot-rigging in the election for the 450-seat State Duma. Long lines formed at some polling stations Friday, according to local reports. Navalny supporters suggested state workers were being mobilized to vote by the Kremlin and local authorities.
“Every time [under Putin], elections have looked a little less like elections. Now this process is complete,” exiled Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky told Echo of Moscow radio station this week. “The next time our people will vote for real will be after they earn that right on the barricades,” he added.
But little is being left to chance by the Kremlin, say Navalny supporters.
And they accused U.S. tech giants Google and Apple Friday of bowing to Kremlin pressure by deleting a youth-oriented Smart Voting app that offers a step-by-step guide on how to vote tactically against pro-Putin candidates.
“This is an act of political censorship, and it can’t be justified,” said Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s press spokesperson.
“They caved into the Kremlin’s blackmail,” added Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s former campaign manager.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegation of political censorship, telling reporters in Moscow the app was removed in observation of the “letter and spirit” of Russian law.
From prison, via a message on Instagram, Navalny urged voters to undermine the Kremlin by voting for the best placed candidate not affiliated with United Russia, which means in many places voting for candidates offered by the Communist Party. In the message Navalny said: “Are you not interested in trying?”
The removal of Navalny’s tactical voting app by Apple and Google from their app stores also drew criticism from international rights organizations.
“Russian government officials are putting tech companies in a tightening vise, threatening criminal actions against individual employees inside the country to pressure their employers into yielding to calls for censorship,” said Matt Bailey, director of the digital freedom program of PEN America.
“The decision on the part of Apple and Google to remove an app from the iOS and Android App Stores being used to organize protest against the government is the result of blackmail, pure and simple,” he added in a statement.
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Thousands of Afghans, after undergoing traumatic experiences leaving their home country, are relieved to be safe in the United States. But many find the U.S. immigration system confusing and hard to decipher on their own. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes a look at how evacuees are coping with starting the next chapter of their lives in a foreign country.
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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny’s Smart Voting app disappeared from Apple and Google stores Friday as Russians began voting in a three-day parliamentary election marked by a historic crackdown on the opposition.
“Removing the Navalny app from stores is a shameful act of political censorship,” top Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov said on Twitter.
The app promoted an initiative that outlines for Navalny supporters which candidate they should back to unseat Kremlin-aligned politicians.
Russia had accused Google and Apple of election interference, demanding this week that they remove the app from their stores.
Exiled Navalny ally Leonid Volkov said the companies had “caved in to the Kremlin’s blackmail.”
“We have the whole of the Russian state against us and even big tech companies,” Navalny’s team said on Telegram.
In a message from prison, Navalny had urged supporters to download the app, which aims to help Russians to vote out candidates from President Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party in the upcoming polls.
On the eve of the vote his team urged Russian voters to back Communist Party candidates.
Navalny – who was detained in January – has this year seen his organizations declared “extremist” and banned, while all his top aides have fled.
Russia’s media regulator has since barred dozens of websites linked to Navalny including his main website navalny.com.
your ad hereLeaders at a meeting of the China- and Russia-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization emphasized Friday the need for engaging with Taliban-led Afghanistan to prevent a looming humanitarian crisis and an economic collapse in the war-torn country.
The SCO summit in Tajikistan came a month after the Islamist Taliban swept back to power in Kabul as the United States-led Western troops withdrew, ending nearly two decades of involvement in the Afghan war.
China’s President Xi Jinping, speaking via video link to the security bloc, renewed his call for the Taliban to eradicate terrorism, while promising to provide more assistance to the neighboring country and calling on others to do so.
Chinese media quoted Xi as urging the participants “to promote the peaceful transition in Afghanistan, guide it to build an inclusive political structure, adopt prudent and moderate domestic and foreign policies, resolutely fight all forms of terrorism, live in amity with its neighbors.”
China and other neighbors of Afghanistan have been pressing the United States and its allies to supply the war-torn nation with economic and humanitarian aid rather than abandoning it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also addressed the SCO summit via video link, stressing the need for working with the Taliban and for world powers to consider unfreezing Afghanistan’s assets kept in foreign banks.
The U.S. and other Western countries have pledged immediate humanitarian aid of more than $1.2 billion, but they are waiting to see whether the Taliban will uphold human rights, especially those of women, and stem terrorism before diplomatically engaging with the group.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have said Afghanistan will not have access to the lender’s resources, halting developmental projects in the country.
The Taliban announced an all-male 33-member caretaker cabinet last week, which drew strong criticism at home and internationally for not being an inclusive political setup as has been promised by the Islamist movement.
“For their part, the Taliban must fulfill the pledges made above all for inclusive political structure where all ethnic groups are represented,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose country shares a long border with Afghanistan, told Friday’s summit.
“This is vital for Afghanistan’s stability. Also, it is important to ensure respect for the rights of all Afghans and ensure that Afghanistan is never again a safe haven for terrorists,” emphasized Khan, who personally attended the SCO meeting.
The Pakistani leader said it was “a matter of relief” for neighboring countries, in particular that the power transition in Kabul happened without significant bloodshed, without civil war and without a mass exodus of refugees.
The Russian president echoed Khan’s words while addressing the event.
“Indeed, the change of power took place almost bloodlessly, and this is undoubtedly a positive moment. The Taliban currently controls almost the entire territory of Afghanistan, and the new Afghan authorities should be encouraged to deliver on their own promises to make peace, normalize public life, and ensure security for all,” Russian media quoted Putin as saying.
The SCO comprises China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan is an observer state, but it was not invited to Friday’s meeting because member nations have not recognized the Taliban government.
“The interim government named by the Taliban falls very short of the mark that was set by the international community for inclusivity, a government that was broadly representative of the Afghan people, not just the Taliban and its constituency, and to include women. It includes many key members who have very challenging track records,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a U.S. Congressional hearing Monday.
Several members in the Taliban cabinet are blacklisted by the United States and the United Nations.
But the Taliban interim foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, rejected the criticism as politically motivated, claiming they have installed a “fully inclusive government” and promising to uphold human rights of all Afghans and prevent the use of Afghanistan for terrorist attacks against other countries.
On the margins of the SCO meeting, foreign ministers of China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan met for further discussions on the situation in Afghanistan.
“They stressed the importance of engaging those states, which should bear primary responsibility for post-conflict social-economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and should provide Afghanistan with urgently needed economic, livelihood and humanitarian assistance,” said a post-meeting joint statement.
your ad hereA new executive order signed by U.S. President Joe Biden allows the U.S. Treasury Department to sanction all sides involved in the war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, including the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments.
“The new executive order I signed today establishes a new sanctions regime that will allow us to target those responsible for, or complicit in, prolonging the conflict in Ethiopia, obstructing humanitarian access, or preventing a ceasefire,” Biden said in a statement Friday.
“These sanctions are not directed at the people of Ethiopia or Eritrea, but rather the individuals and entities perpetrating the violence and driving a humanitarian disaster.”
The order allows the agency to impose sanctions if steps are not taken soon to end 10 months of fighting.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Amhara regional government can also be sanctioned.
Previous U.S. attempts to pressure the warring factions, including visa restrictions against Ethiopian and Eritrean officials, have not been successful.
“The United States is determined to push for a peaceful resolution of this conflict, and we will provide full support to those leading mediation efforts, including the African Union High Representative for the Horn of Africa Olusegun Obasanjo,” said Biden. “We fully agree with United Nations and African Union leaders: there is no military solution to this crisis.”
The war is threatening the stability of Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country.
The conflict has triggered the world’s largest hunger crisis, leaving millions of people in need of humanitarian aid.
On Thursday, U.S. officials said only 10 percent of humanitarian supplies for the embattled Tigray region have been allowed to enter the area over the past month.
The U.S. and the United Nations say the trucks transporting essential aid such as food and water to the area have been blocked by Ethiopian troops.
Some information in this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.
your ad hereSomalia’s government has condemned what it calls the unlawful detention of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo’s national security adviser.
Somali government spokesman Abdirashid Hashi in a tweet Friday said Fahad Yasin was detained at Djibouti airport.
Yasin was flying from Turkey to Mogadishu with a stop in Djibouti.
Government spokesman Hashi tweeted such acts will not help to strengthen ties between Somalia and Djibouti.
Djibouti’s Minister of Economy and Finance Ilyas Dawaleh tweeted a response to the communication director’s accusation.
Dawaleh asked him to “refrain from any inappropriate and baseless statements.”
Djibouti’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Yusuf added, “There are fake news released in social media trying to create confusion and drag Djibouti into Somalia internal challenges and crisis. We will continue to stand by our brothers and sisters in Somalia but never interfere in their internal affairs.”
Yasin, who is the former head of Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency, is at the center of a power struggle between Somalia’s president and prime minister.
Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble suspended Yasin over the disappearance of a female cybersecurity spy, who the agency says was killed by al-Shabab militants.
Her family believes Somalia’s spy agency was responsible for her disappearance.
Yasin was due to attend a national security meeting on Saturday to discuss the controversial case.
The case has Farmajo and Roble in a stand-off that threatens the country’s elections and security gains.
Farmajo on Thursday issued a suspension of Roble’s executive powers, which the prime minister promptly rejected.
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