Russian news agencies are reporting that former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has died at 91.
The Tass, RIA Novosti and Interfax agencies cited the Central Clinical Hospital.
Gorbachev’s office said earlier that he was undergoing treatment at the hospital.
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While China’s strategic partnership with Russia “without limits” has been widely reported since the start of the war in Ukraine, much less known is the strategic partnership Ukraine and China forged in 2011. Now, that partnership is being questioned by a key lawmaker in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this month sounded a soft tone on China, casting Beijing’s role in the conflict as “neutral” and inviting Chinese government and business to play an active role in his country’s rebuilding.
Back in June 2011, then-Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Ukraine after stopping in Moscow. China and Ukraine agreed to boost cooperation in energy, technology, agriculture and trade. The two sides also upgraded their ties to a “strategic partnership.”
China is now Ukraine’s number one trading partner. While Ukraine figures less prominently in China’s overall trading, Beijing has been acquiring items of importance from Ukraine, including military equipment and critical minerals, such as those produced only in Mariupol and Odesa.
But a key lawmaker in Kyiv says the bilateral relationship should not be based only on those factors, given China’s officially declared “strategic partnership with Russia with no limit,” while Moscow has engaged in an all-out war on Ukraine.
Beijing “has failed this partnership,” Oleksandr Merezhko told VOA in a written interview from Kyiv.
“In my personal view, Ukraine should seriously reconsider [its] strategic partnership with [the People’s Republic of China],” he said. “In fact, it’s totally absurd to have a strategic partnership with a country which: 1) has strategic partnership without limits with Russia (aggressor state committing genocide against Ukrainian nation); 2) amplifies Russian propaganda; 3) helps Russia to circumvent Western sanctions; 4) holds joint military drills with Russia,” Merezhko wrote.
“I don’t think that strategic partner of the aggressor state can be simultaneously our strategic partner. It makes no sense,” he added.
Zelenskyy sounded a more conciliatory note toward Beijing during a recent online town hall with college students from Australia and during an on-camera interview with the South China Morning Post, published in Hong Kong but owned since 2016 by the mainland-based Alibaba Group.
China, Zelenskyy said, on both occasions, has shown “neutrality” in his country’s conflict with Russia. Zelenskyy underscored that “I really wanted the relationship with China be reinforced and developed every year” in a video clip put out by the South China Morning Post on August 3. He also highlighted China’s role in Ukraine’s reconstruction.
“I would like China to participate in the rebuilding of all Ukraine,” he said, noting Ukraine’s rebuilding is going to be a huge undertaking. “I would like China and the Chinese business to join in the rebuilding process, and the [Chinese] state to join this,” Zelenskyy said in the video clip.
The largest international conference on Ukraine’s rebuilding to date has been the Lugano Conference held in July in Switzerland. China was not seen in the official “family photo” taken at the conference, which featured top officials from more than 20 democratic nations that have provided large amounts of aid to Ukraine.
Asked to comment on Zelenskyy’s recently published remarks, Merezhko said: “In democratic society, members of parliament might have a different point of view on some issues of parliamentary diplomacy than executive power.”
“I also believe that in economic matters, Ukraine should more rely upon Western business rather than Chinese business,” he added.
According to recent reports, China’s purchases of Russian oil and gas products have almost doubled from a year ago; Chinese spending on Russian energy in July alone reached $7.2 billion, while China’s economy is showing significant signs of slowing.
Commenting on social media, Merezhko wrote that “Russia’s allies bear moral and political responsibility for its crimes against peace and global security” and “the West should introduce secondary sanctions against those Russia’s allies.”
Trade and economics weren’t the only factors Merezhko had in mind when he called into question his country’s decade-old “strategic partnership” with Beijing. Following recently published investigative reports that Chinese authorities have been putting dissidents in psychiatric hospitals and subjecting them to torture, Merezhko said such practices bring to mind “the same cruel totalitarian practices which were used by the Soviet repressive regime.”
“I don’t think such a country can be a strategic partner of any democratic country, including Ukraine,” he concluded.
Recently, Merezhko and more than a dozen fellow parliamentarians from three Ukrainian political parties formed a Taiwan friendship group. “Democracies should support each other to survive and win,” he wrote on Twitter.
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Angola’s opposition party has filed a complaint against the election victory of the ruling MPLA party in which President Joao Lourenco won a second term and the party got a reduced majority in the legislature.
The main opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, known as UNITA, said Tuesday that it has submitted an objection to the results.
“UNITA reiterates that it will not recognize the results announced by the National Electoral Commission until the complaints already in its possession are resolved,” the party said in a statement.
If UNITA’s written complaint is rejected, the party can take the objection to the Constitutional Court, which must rule on the complaint within 72 hours, according to Angola’s electoral regulations.
The Peoples Movement for the Liberation of Angola, known by its Portuguese acronym MPLA, won with 51% of the votes cast, extending its 47-year rule of the country, according to the electoral commission’s results.
As the party’s leader, Lourenco, 68, welcomed the official results which have given him a second five-year presidential term.
UNITA got its best-ever result, coming in second with about 44% of the votes, according to the electoral commission.
However, UNITA on Tuesday claimed that according to its calculations it should have won the election with 64% of the vote.
Although UNITA’s leader, Adalberto Costa Junior has rejected the official results, he has urged calm. There have been no reports of major demonstrations in the capital, Luanda, or other cities.
Voter turnout was low on voting day last week with just 45.7% of registered voters casting their ballots.
In the national legislature, the MPLA lost the two-thirds majority that it needs to pass major bills, although it won a majority with 124 of the National Assembly’s 220 seats. UNITA has nearly doubled its presence in the legislature to 90 seats. The remaining seats were won by smaller parties.
UNITA had campaigned for the support of Angola’s young, urban population and it won in Luanda, Angola’s most populous province, and in Cabinda and Zaire, the country’s main oil-producing provinces.
Angola is Africa’s second-largest producer of oil and has rich diamond deposits, but the majority of the southern African country’s 34 million people remain in poverty, according to the U.N, and unemployment is currently above 30%.
Both the MPLA and UNITA are former rebel movements that fought Portuguese colonial rule. The MPLA won power with backing from the Soviet Union and established Marxist rule when Angola became independent in 1975.
UNITA fought a bitter civil war against the MPLA, with support from the U.S. and apartheid-ruled South Africa.
In a negotiated truce, the MPLA agreed to multiparty elections held in 1992. UNITA furiously rejected the MPLA’s win and the country was plunged back into civil war that only ended in 2002.
Since then, UNITA has transformed itself from a rebel group into a political party, particularly under the new leadership of Costa Junior, who didn’t fight in the civil war. Costa Junior has succeeded in gaining support from other opposition politicians and intellectuals.
UNITA legally challenged its loss in the 2017 election but the courts ruled in favor of the MPLA.
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The first shipment of Ukrainian grain to Africa since Russia’s invasion arrived in Djibouti on Tuesday. The grain will be distributed in Ethiopia to help the drought-stricken nation cope with worsening hunger that threatens to become a famine.
Mike Dunford, East Africa regional director for the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP), spoke to reporters at the port.
“The food on the [U.N.-chartered ship] Brave Commander will feed 1.5 million people, for one month in Ethiopia,” he said. “So, this makes a very big impact, for those people who currently have nothing and now WFP will be able to provide them with their basic needs.”
A Russian blockade of Ukraine’s seaports forced Ukraine to halt nearly all deliveries of grain, which sparked worries of a worldwide food crisis. Russia invaded the country in February.
A settlement between Kyiv and Moscow that was mediated by the U.N. and Turkey in July, known as The Black Sea Initiative, saw a resumption in exports of wheat, other foodstuffs, and fertilizers from three Black Sea ports at the beginning of August.
The WFP said 150,000 tons of additional wheat grain from Ukraine will be sent in the coming weeks thanks to funding provided by the United States.
In landlocked Ethiopia, where the grain is now headed, more than 5 million people have been displaced because of conflict. A total of 17 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance as the Horn of Africa endures another year of drought.
Dunford said the Black Sea Initiative is a step toward easing the situation.
“We’ve already seen a reduction of 15% in wheat prices globally, since the Black Sea Initiative commenced,” he said. “What we want to see is more food flowing. We need, from WFP’s perspective, millions of tons in this region. In Ethiopia alone, three quarters of everything that we used to distribute originated from Ukraine and Russia.”
There are concerns the resumption of exports from Ukraine may not be enough to make a dent in the crisis.
Adullahi Halakhe, with the Washington-based advocacy group Refugees International, said the amount of grain arriving to Ethiopia is not enough.
“When you consider over 20 million people are in need of humanitarian aid, food inflation stands at 40%, I think this is very important,” he said.
Humanitarian organizations say parts of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region may be in a state of famine, because of the conflict there and a de facto humanitarian blockade imposed by Ethiopia’s federal government.
Although limited aid was entering the region, renewed fighting between the government and Tigrayan forces that began last week led to the U.N. announcing Monday that it has suspended aid convoys into the region.
your ad hereU.N. agencies are urging a robust response to the $160 million appeal launched Tuesday by the government of Pakistan and the United Nations for emergency aid for millions of people hit by devastating monsoon floods in the south Asian country.
Torrential rains have been pounding Pakistan since June. The government estimates some 33 million people have been affected and that more than 1,000 have died, among them hundreds of children.
Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, said nearly one million homes have been damaged, and more than 700,000 livestock lost in what is seen as the worst flooding in decades.
“Some 500,000 people displaced by the floods are sheltering in relief camps, with many more living with host families,” he said. “Access to assistance is difficult due to the flooding and landslides, with around 150 bridges washed away and nearly 3,500 kilometers of roads damaged.”
In the meantime, the World Meteorological Organization forecasts the heavy rains are set to continue. WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis said the worst rainfall in decades follows the worst drought in decades, and the worst heatwave in decades.
“Even before the latest flooding incident, Pakistan and northwest India had been witnessing above average monsoon rainfall.…This is the footprint of climate change,” she said. “The weather is becoming more extreme.”
The World Health Organization warns of disease outbreaks, such as cholera and diarrhea because of the flooding and lack of safe drinking water. WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said at least 888 health facilities have been damaged, including 180 that have been destroyed. He said this will make it difficult for anyone affected to receive treatment.
“All the noncommunicable diseases will severely lack support,” he said. “People cannot reach health facilities for simple things like diabetes. Women in pregnancy or giving birth have immense problems having safe access to health facilities or even having safe hygiene situations.”
The joint Pakistan-U.N. $160 million response plan aims to reach 5.2 million of the worst affected and most vulnerable people over the next six months. It will provide food, water, shelter, and other essential relief. U.N. agencies will work to prevent large outbreaks of disease and provide protection and care for people with disabilities and other special needs.
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The Vatican sought on Tuesday to clarify the pope’s position on Ukraine, after the pontiff’s comment on the death of a Russian ultranationalist’s daughter ruffled feathers in Kyiv.
“The Holy Father’s words on this dramatic issue are to be read as a voice raised in defense of human life and the values associated with it, and not as political positions,” the Vatican said in a statement.
It stressed that the war in Ukraine had been “initiated by the Russian Federation” and that Pope Francis had been “clear and unequivocal in condemning it as morally unjust, unacceptable, barbaric, senseless, repugnant and sacrilegious.”
Speaking on Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24, the pope had said of the conflict: “So many innocents… are paying for madness.”
He cited as one example Daria Dugina — the daughter of a Russian ultranationalist ally of President Vladimir Putin’s — who was killed when a bomb exploded under her car.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, Andriy Yurash, responded that the pope should not have put “aggressor and victim” in the same category and the Vatican’s envoy to Kyiv was summoned to the foreign ministry to explain.
Pope Francis, who has repeatedly condemned the conflict, has, on several occasions, been criticized in some quarters for not painting the war in black and white terms, and for leaving the door open to discussions with Moscow.
“Someone may say to me at this point: but you are pro Putin! No, I am not,” the pope stressed in an interview published in June by Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica.
“I am simply against reducing complexity to… good guys and bad guys, without reasoning about roots and interests, which are very complex.”
In July, the head of the Roman Catholic Church repeated his wish to visit Ukraine.
The 85-year-old pontiff is due to attend a congress of religious leaders in Kazakhstan in mid-September.
Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church and a fervent supporter of both Putin and his war in Ukraine, had been due to attend the congress but has now said he will not be going.
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Russian prosecutors at the trial of a former journalist asked the court Tuesday to hand him a 24-year prison sentence on treason charges.
Ivan Safronov who worked as a journalist for a decade before becoming an adviser to the head of the Russian space corporation Roscosmos, has been in custody since his July 2020 arrest in Moscow. He has rejected the charges of passing military secrets to Czech intelligence and insisted on his innocence.
Safronov’s case reflects the challenges faced by Russian journalists, which have grown even tougher amid Moscow’s military action in Ukraine.
Safronov, who covered military and security issues for the leading Russian business daily Kommersant before joining Roscosmos, stated that he had collected all the information from open sources in the course of his work and did nothing illegal. He has argued that the investigators have failed to spell out the treason charges and explain what secrets he had allegedly revealed.
Many Russian journalists and human rights activists have pushed for Safronov’s release, and some have alleged that the authorities may have wanted to take revenge for his reporting that exposed Russian military incidents and shady arms deals.
Roscosmos has said that Safronov didn’t have access to state secrets, and claimed that the charges didn’t relate to Safronov’s work for the corporation, which he joined in May 2020.
Rights activists, journalists, scientists and corporate officials who have faced treason accusations in Russia in recent years have found it difficult to defend themselves because of secrecy surrounding their cases and a lack of public access to information.
Safronov’s father also worked for Kommersant covering military issues after retiring from the armed forces. In 2007, he died after falling from a window of his apartment building in Moscow.
Investigators concluded that he killed himself, but some Russian media outlets questioned the official version, pointing to his intent to publish a sensitive report about secret arms deliveries to Iran and Syria.
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The United Nations appealed Tuesday for $160 million to support Pakistan’s response to more than two months of destructive nationwide flash flooding triggered by climate-driven erratic monsoon rains.
Pakistani officials say the calamity has “badly” impacted more than 33 million people and killed more than 1,100 people since the seasonal rainfall began in June.
The U.N., together with the Pakistani government, launched the flash funding appeal simultaneously in Islamabad and Geneva.
“Pakistan is awash in suffering,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the event in his pre-recorded video message.
“The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding,” he warned. “Millions are homeless, schools and health facilities have been destroyed, livelihoods are shattered, critical infrastructure wiped out, and people’s hopes and dreams have been washed away.”
Guterres said the U.N.’s flash appeal will help provide 5.2 million people with food, water sanitation, emergency education, protection and health support in the South Asian nation.
He noted that Pakistani authorities were responding to “the climate catastrophe” by releasing funds, including immediate cash relief, to flood victims. But the scale of needs was rising like the flood waters, requiring collective and prioritized attention, the U.N. chief said.
“Let us work together to respond quickly and collaboratively to this colossal crisis.”
Climate Change
Guterres said that South Asia is one of the world’s global “climate crisis hotspots” and people living in these hotspots are 15 times likely to die from climate impacts.
“Let’s stop sleepwalking towards the destruction of our planet by climate change. Today, it’s Pakistan. Tomorrow, it could be your country,” he warned.
The U.N. chief criticized the lack of action in tackling the climate emergency even as the world continues to experience more and more extreme weather events.
Guterres said “it is outrageous that climate action is being put on the back burner as global emissions of greenhouse gases are still rising, putting all of us – everywhere – in growing danger.”
Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told Tuesday’s televised launching ceremony Pakistan has been battling one of the most severe, totally anomalous cycles of torrential monsoon weather since June, noting rainfall during this period has been equivalent to 3 times the 30-year national average.
“In some cases, the water is just everywhere, in an unbroken horizon of inundation,” Zardari said.
The National Disaster Management Authority, or NDMA, leading the country’s response in coordinating assessments and directing humanitarian relief to affected people, has listed 72 out of the country’s 160 districts as calamity-hit. More than 33 million residents there have been affected, tens of thousands of others displaced, with massive losses inflicted on key cash crops.
The death toll from the floods is likely to increase as some flood-hit towns and villages in the hardest-hit Baluchistan, Sindh provinces as well as in the mountainous north remain cut off due to landslides and flooding, hampering rescue and relief efforts.
The rest of the two provinces, northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and central Punjab had also suffered significant losses.
The NDMA noted that more than a million homes, 162 bridges, and nearly 3,500 kilometers of roads across the South Asian nation have been damaged or destroyed. The flooding has also killed more than 800,000 farm animals and damaged vital farmlands and crops, it added.
The flash floods in Pakistan are comparable to those of 2010 when more than 2,000 people were killed.
Pakistani officials informed Tuesday’s event that the economic impact of the flooding could reach at least $10 billion, and it may take the country years to rehabilitate the victims.
Some countries, including China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, have already sent cargo planes that are carrying tents, food, medicines and other relief supplies, and rescue teams. More relief aid is on the way, according to Pakistani officials.
The International Rescue Committee anticipates a sharp increase in food insecurity and a severe impact on the national economy. “Our needs assessment showed that we are already seeing a major increase in cases of diarrhea, skin infections, malaria and other illnesses,” the group said in a statement.
Pakistan is home to more than 7,000 glaciers, but experts warn rising global temperatures are causing them to melt fast, creating thousands of glacial lakes. The South Asian nation says it is responsible for only less than 1% of greenhouse gas emissions but listed among the top ten countries suffering from the climate change effects.
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Malawi’s police service has welcomed two officers with albinism into its ranks, the first people with the rare genetic pigment disorder in Malawi’s state security organization. Rights groups say the hirings should help efforts to crack down on attacks against albinos and restore confidence in police after some officers were connected to such attacks.
Police constables Hamid Vasco and Brenda Mhlanga graduated Friday after six-months of training and were welcomed into the police service Monday along with other new recruits.
Vasco, who is 25 years old, said he decided to join the police to help stop attacks on people with albinism in Malawi.
Statistics show that since 2014, more than 170 albinos have been attacked or killed in Malawi because of false beliefs that concoctions mixed with their body parts bring luck and wealth.
“So, this gave me the [opportunity] to apply to be a police officer so that I can work hand in hand with my fellow officers on issues of investigating the cases and crimes concerning the killing and abduction of persons with albinism,” said Vasco.
Rights groups say the hiring of albino officers will help rebuild public confidence in the police, after some officers were connected to such attacks.
In June, the High Court in Blantyre sentenced police officer Chikondi Chileka and four others to 30 years imprisonment with hard labor, after finding them guilty of transacting in human tissue. The body parts came from MacDonald Masambuka, a man with albinism murdered in 2018.
Vasco and Mhlanga are also the first people with the rare genetic pigment disorder working in Malawi’s state security organization.
Young Mahamba is the president of the Association of Persons with Albinism in Malawi or APAM.
He said there was a change in policy after his association and other campaigners lobbied for police to hire albinos.
“APAM as an organization, and all other stakeholders, we have been advocating for people to understand albinism and to know that albinism is not a limit. So, we have seen positive development. For example, we have seen a person with albinism [for the first time] being a member of parliament. This shows that the attitude is changing, and we will gear up,” said Mhlanga.
However, a representative for Malawi Police Service, Peter Kalaya, said there was no change in policy. He said the problem was that people with albinism were not applying for police jobs.
“There is no specific change of policy because we have the requirements which each and every person who wants to join the police service must be satisfied. And these two managed to meet those conditions and they even managed to succeed in both physical and classroom training,” said Kalaya.
He said police do not expect any special contribution from Vasco and Mhlanga toward combating attacks on albinos.
“Their coming will of course add something because having them in the service might be a message to those people who perpetrate these acts. For example, sending a message to perpetrators that ‘Okay, these people they can also be police officers, they can also carry guns.’ But in terms of efforts at investigating, prosecuting or following up on cases to do with attacks and killings of people with albinism, we were capable, and we are still capable,” he said.
Kalaya encourages other people with albinism to apply for jobs in the police service, saying the service does not discriminate against anyone in terms of skin pigment disorders.
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Ukraine’s presidential office reported heavy fighting Tuesday in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, an area occupied by Russian forces where Ukraine says it has launched a counteroffensive to try to retake territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed in his nightly address Monday that Ukrainian forces would take back their territory. He said Ukraine would chase Russia’s forces “to the border.”
“If they want to survive — it’s time for the Russian military to run away. Go home,” he said.
Britain’s defense ministry said Tuesday that as of early Monday, “several brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces increased the weight of artillery fires in front line sectors across southern Ukraine.”
It added that since the start of August, Russia has worked to reinforce its presence on the western bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson area.
“Most of the units around Kherson are likely undermanned and are reliant upon fragile supply lines by ferry and pontoon bridges across the Dnipro,” the British defense ministry said.
Russia’s defense ministry said Monday that Russian forces had stopped Ukrainian attacks in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions and inflicted “heavy losses” on Ukrainian forces.
A senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday that the United States would know more about Ukraine’s offensive near Kherson “in the next 24-36 hours.” The official said Ukrainian force numbers are gaining parity with Russian forces in the south.
“Are they on the offensive? I think they are,” the official said.
Russia failed to capture the capital, Kyiv, in northern Ukraine in its initial attack that began in late February, but later took control of wide swathes of land in the south along the Black Sea coast.
Fighting for months has centered on eastern Ukraine in the Donbas region, where Russia-supported separatists and Kyiv’s forces have fought since 2014, the same year Moscow seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in a move not recognized by the international community.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine has been at somewhat of a standstill for weeks, with Russia and Ukraine gaining or losing territory incrementally.
But Western allies, led by the United States, have continued to ship armaments to the Kyiv government, possibly giving Ukraine new confidence to attack farther in the southern reaches of the country.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. VOA’s Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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The familiar ingredients of a warming world were in place: searing temperatures, hotter air holding more moisture, extreme weather getting wilder, melting glaciers, people living in harm’s way, and poverty. They combined in vulnerable Pakistan to create unrelenting rain and deadly flooding.
The flooding has all the hallmarks of a catastrophe juiced by climate change, but it is too early to formally assign blame to global warming, several scientists tell The Associated Press. It occurred in a country that did little to cause the warming, but keeps getting hit, just like the relentless rain.
“This year Pakistan has received the highest rainfall in at least three decades. So far this year the rain is running at more than 780% above average levels,” said Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute and a member of Pakistan’s Climate Change Council. “Extreme weather patterns are turning more frequent in the region and Pakistan is not a exception.”
Climate Minister Sherry Rehman said “it’s been a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.”
Pakistan “is considered the eighth-most vulnerable country to climate change,” said Moshin Hafeez, a Lahore-based climate scientist at the International Water Management Institute. Its rain, heat and melting glaciers are all climate change factors scientists warned repeatedly about.
While scientists point out these classic climate change fingerprints, they have not yet finished intricate calculations that compare what happened in Pakistan to what would happen in a world without warming. That study, expected in a few weeks, will formally determine how much climate change is a factor, if at all.
‘An outcome of the climate catastrophe’
The “recent flood in Pakistan is actually an outcome of the climate catastrophe … that was looming very large,” said Anjal Prakash, a research director at India’s Bharti Institute of Public Policy. “The kind of incessant rainfall that has happened … has been unprecedented.”
Pakistan is used to monsoons and downpours, but “we do expect them spread out, usually over three months or two months,” said the country’s climate minister Rehman.
There are usually breaks, she said, and not as much rain – 37.5 centimeters (14.8 inches) falls in one day, nearly three times higher than the national average for the past three decades. “Neither is it so prolonged. … It’s been eight weeks and we are told we might see another downpour in September.”
“Clearly, it’s being juiced by climate change,” said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts.
Relentless heat and rain
There’s been a 400% increase in average rainfall in areas like Baluchistan and Sindh, which led to the extreme flooding, Hafeez said. At least 20 dams have been breached.
The heat has been as relentless as the rain. In May, Pakistan consistently saw temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit). Scorching temperatures higher than 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) were recorded in places like Jacobabad and Dadu.
Warmer air holds more moisture – about 7% more per degree Celsius (4% per degree Fahrenheit) — and that eventually comes down, in this case in torrents.
Across the world “intense rain storms are getting more intense,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. And he said mountains, like those in Pakistan, help wring extra moisture out as the clouds pass.
Instead of just swollen rivers flooding from extra rain, Pakistan is hit with another source of flash flooding: The extreme heat accelerates the long-term glacier melting then water speeds down from the Himalayas to Pakistan in a dangerous phenomena called glacial lake outburst floods.
“We have the largest number of glaciers outside the polar region, and this affects us,” climate minister Rehman said. “Instead of keeping their majesty and preserving them for posterity and nature. We are seeing them melt.”
‘Coming to a tipping point’
Not all of the problem is climate change.
Pakistan saw similar flooding and devastation in 2010 that killed nearly 2,000 people. But the government didn’t implement plans to prevent future flooding by preventing construction and homes in flood prone areas and river beds, said Suleri of the country’s Climate Change Council.
The disaster is hitting a poor country that has contributed relatively little to the world’s climate problem, scientists and officials said. Since 1959, Pakistan has emitted about 0.4% of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, compared to 21.5% by the United States and 16.4% by China.
“Those countries that have developed or gotten rich on the back of fossil fuels, which are the problem really,” Rehman said. “They’re going to have to make a critical decision that the world is coming to a tipping point. We certainly have already reached that point because of our geographical location.”
Borenstein reported from Kensington, Maryland, and Arasu from New Delhi. AP journalists Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi contributed to this report.
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A year after the last U.S. troops left Kabul, there appears to be little consensus on whether the world, and the West in particular, is any safer from the terrorist groups that call Afghanistan home.
One of the most polarizing developments in the debate came on July 31 of this year, when a U.S. airstrike — the first in Afghanistan since U.S. forces departed on August 30, 2021 — targeted a safe house in downtown Kabul, killing al-Qaida terror group leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
U.S. officials said al-Zawahiri had moved to the Afghan capital months earlier, residing in a house owned by members of the Taliban’s ruling coalition and that Taliban officials were aware he was there.
“The United States does not need a permanent troop presence on the ground in harm’s way to remain vigilant against terrorism threats or to remove the world’s most wanted terrorist from the battlefield,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson wrote in a memo issued Monday.
A recently declassified U.S. intelligence assessment also downplays the threat from al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaida in particular “does not have a capability to launch attacks against the U.S. or its interests abroad from Afghanistan,” according to the assessment, which added that the group “has not reconstituted its presence in Afghanistan since the U.S. departure in August 2021.”
But there are skeptics of the view that al-Qaida has been diminished, including some U.S. lawmakers and former U.S. military and intelligence officials, who argue al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul should renew fears that the Taliban would fail to adhere to promises codified in the 2020 Doha agreement with the United States, including severing ties with al-Qaida.
And it is not just a potentially resurgent al-Qaida that has raised concerns among counterterrorism agencies around the world.
A U.N. report issued last month warned the Islamic State terror group affiliate in Afghanistan was expanding, and that IS core leadership now “views Afghanistan as a base for expansion in the wider region for the realization of its ‘great caliphate’ project.”
The same report argued that al-Qaida may be better positioned to emerge as the greatest long-term terror threat.
“I think we are on the same precipice of concern about state collapse that could lead to the rise or the empowerment of transnational terrorist organizations,” Republican Representative Peter Meijer said in prerecorded remarks Monday to the Center for Strategic and International Security, likening conditions in Afghanistan now to those that existed prior to the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.
“We have a vested interest today in making sure that Afghanistan does not collapse, that there is not an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe that will only empower those who seek to do the West harm,” Meijer added.
And even U.S. intelligence officials have refused to rule out that al-Qaida, or IS, in particular, could one day move to strike the West.
Earlier assessments suggested that could happen in as little as six months to a year, but newer reports suggest it will still take both terror groups about a year to rebuild external attack capabilities, should they decide to do so.
Here is a look at the Taliban and the major terrorist organizations now operating in Afghanistan, and how they have fared in the year since U.S. and coalition forces left the country.
Click on the name of the organization to jump to that section, or scroll to read them in order.
Taliban
Islamic State Khorasan Province
Al-Qaida core
Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent
Haqqani network
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
Khatiba Imam al-Bukhari
Islamic Jihad Group
Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement/Turkistan Islamic Party
Lashkar-e-Islam
Hezb-e-Islami
Lashkar-e-Taiba
Taliban
Since its emergence in 1994, the Taliban movement, which calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, has been led by an emir, a central figure ostensibly appointed for life by a religious council of Taliban leaders.
Like his two predecessors, current emir Hibatullah Akhundzada has made few public appearances and leads a reclusive life in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province.
Initial intelligence assessments indicated Akhundzada had been leaving management of day-to-day government affairs to his appointed caretaker Cabinet in the Afghan capital. But newer intelligence from several countries indicates things have been changing.
“Outsiders’ access to the Taliban leader is limited, and Hibatullah himself has reportedly been less open to deliberation with other Taliban leaders with whom he previously held regular consultations,” the United Nations concluded in a report in May, based on member state intelligence.
Akhundzada “is said to have become more autocratic and dismissive of dissent,” the report added.
There are also signs that the Taliban under Akhundzada are still working to consolidate power.
“The Taliban have been shifting to what I would call calculated coercion, using not as little violence as possible, but selectively applying and targeting violence. That’s both in a military sense and in a social sense in terms of repression, of political opposition of dissenting speech,” Andrew Watkins, a senior expert with the U.S. Institute of Peace, told an online forum hosted Tuesday by the CATO Institute.
Various estimates by U.S. intelligence agencies and U.N. member states put the number of Taliban fighters between 58,000 and 100,000, with numbers fluctuating according to the time of year and battlefield conditions.
Intelligence assessments shared with the U.N., however, suggest the Taliban are seeking to increase the size of their standing military to as many as 350,000 fighters. As of May, it was believed 7,000 new recruits had completed training.
The Taliban are also trying to nurture a nascent air force, with 40 operational aircraft captured from the former U.S.-backed Afghan military. The list of aircraft includes two Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters, two U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopters, two Mi-24 helicopter gunships and a transport plane.
Intelligence shared publicly by the U.S. and U.N. member states further accuses the Taliban of continuing to work closely with al-Qaida and maintaining ties with other terrorist groups, pushing some to become part of a new Taliban-run Afghan military force.
For their part, Taliban officials have publicly denied that terrorism is an issue for Afghans under their leadership and recently claimed they had “no knowledge” that al-Zawahiri was living in Kabul.
U.S. officials are skeptical.
“We have reason to believe — very good reason to believe — that members of the Taliban, Haqqani network, were aware of his [al-Zawahiri’s] presence in Kabul,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Monday. “And we are taking a look at the implications of that.”
Recent intelligence shared with the U.N. also suggests the Taliban are looking for ways to confront Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan Province, or IS-Khorasan.
Reports indicate the Taliban have set up three special forces battalions to take on IS-Khorasan, with one of the battalions boasting 1,000 fighters.
Islamic State Khorasan Province
IS-Khorasan is a sworn enemy of both the Taliban and al-Qaida, which has deep and long-standing ties to Taliban leadership. But IS-Khorasan is also one of the terror groups that has benefited the most from the Taliban takeover.
As Taliban forces quickly took control of Afghanistan last year, they emptied numerous prisons and allowed IS-Khorasan fighters to escape. At the time, U.S. military officials cautioned that the prison breaks allowed the terror group’s numbers to swell from several hundred fighters to a couple thousand.
More recent assessments from the U.S. and the U.N. now put the size of IS-Khorasan at between 1,500 and 4,000 fighters, concentrated mostly in remote parts of Kunar, Nangarhar and Nuristan provinces.
Some intelligence agencies also argue there is evidence of smaller, covert IS-Khorasan cells spread across the northern Afghan provinces of Badakhshan, Faryab, Jowzjan, Kunduz and Takhar.
“I think the threat of Daesh is growing,” former Afghan national security adviser Hamdullah Mohib told VOA’s Afghan Service, using the Arabic acronym for the terror group.
The Taliban “are incapable of preventing Daesh attacks, and in fact, their recruitment has been on the rise,” Mohib said. “Members of the Taliban perhaps have also joined Daesh as retaliation to maybe some of their policies and other grievances that they would have with their leadership.”
Recent intelligence shared with the U.N. indicates the Taliban are having difficulties putting pressure on IS-Khorasan, and that some efforts may backfire.
Reports also suggest that in addition to disgruntled former Taliban fighters, IS-Khorasan has also attracted some former members of the U.S.-backed Afghan military who fear retaliation from the ruling Taliban government.
The pace of IS-Khorasan attacks also seems to have increased, with the group claiming rocket attacks against targets in Pakistan and Uzbekistan, and also increased activity along the border with Tajikistan.
“I think they’re really trying to establish that they are not just confined to Afghanistan. They have broader aims, regional aims, as well,” Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told VOA in June.
But Mir doubts that for now, IS-Khorasan is prepared to expand its footprint.
IS-Khorasan leader Sanaullah Ghafari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajir, “doesn’t believe in holding territory. He seems to think that holding territory is costly, and so he doesn’t want to do that,” Mir said. “I think their primary focus will remain Afghanistan. They will continue to attack these religious minorities and then make a real effort to target Taliban leaders.”
Earlier this month, IS-Khorasan claimed an attack that killed one of those leaders, Talban cleric Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani.
Officials from the U.S. and other countries have said there are no signs IS-Khorasan is planning to conduct attacks against the West, and that it could take until early next year for the group to muster the needed capabilities.
But a U.S. official speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence warned the timing depends on IS-Khorasan’s political calculations.
The official said should IS-Khorasan decide to make attacks against the West or the U.S. a priority, it could do so more quickly.
Al-Qaida core
Intelligence assessments from a number of countries shared with the U.N. in the months after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan suggested al-Qaida was enjoying “a significant boost” from the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
And an updated U.N. report written before al-Zawahiri was killed on July 30 said he was “alive and communicating freely.”
The report further warned that, “the international context is favorable to al-Qaida, which intends to be recognized again as the leader of global jihad.”
But al-Qaida’s fortunes appear to have taken a major downturn following the July 30 strike that killed al-Zawahiri.
A newly declassified U.S. intelligence community assessment, highlights of which were shared with VOA, rejects the notion that the al-Qaida core is building momentum, despite a historically cozy relationship with the Taliban.
“Al-Qaida has not reconstituted its presence in Afghanistan since the U.S. departure in August 2021,” according to the assessment, first reported by The New York Times.
“Ayman al-Zawahiri was the only key al-Qaida figure who attempted to reestablish their presence in country when he and his family settled in Kabul earlier this year,” the assessment continued. “Less than a dozen al-Qaida core members with historical ties to the group remain in Afghanistan and probably were located there prior to the fall of Kabul; we have no indication that these individuals are involved in external attack plotting.”
Still, intelligence from other countries that was shared with the U.N. would suggest that while al-Qaida may not present an immediate threat, there is reason for concern.
“Al-Qaida leadership reportedly plays an advisory role with the Taliban, and the groups remain close,” last month’s U.N. report cautioned. “Al-Qaida propaganda is now better developed to compete with [Islamic State] as the key actor in inspiring the international threat environment, and it may ultimately become a greater source of directed threat.”
But there are questions as to whether Afghanistan will continue to play a prominent role in incubating al-Qaida and its larger aspirations.
Current and former Western counterterrorism officials say expectations that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan would spur a migration of al-Qaida followers to the country appear to have fizzled out.
So, too, none of al-Zawahiri’s likely replacements are currently in Afghanistan.
Al-Zawahiri’s No. 2, Saif al-Adel, is in Iran, where he has been for several years.
“He’s in Iran … do the Iranians let him leave?” said a former Western counterterrorism official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss classified intelligence. “It’s sort of tough to be the leader of al-Qaida while stuck in a gilded cage.”
Al-Qaida’s No. 3, Abd al-Rahman al-Maghrebi, is likewise thought to be in Iran. And the next two in line to lead al-Qaida are in Africa: Yazid Mebrak, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) leader, and Ahmed Diriye, leader of al-Shabab.
As for the al-Qaida officials still in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence agencies are skeptical they could muster a substantial threat.
“We assess that neither the few remaining al-Qaida core members, nor its regional affiliate, are plotting to attack the Homeland,” the recently declassified intelligence assessment concluded. “Al-Qaida has several affiliates we believe it would call upon outside the region to drive potential plots.”
Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent
One of al-Qaida’s key offshoots, al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), appears to now have a greater presence in Afghanistan than the group’s core.
Intelligence estimates from U.N. member states say AQIS has up to 400 fighters in Afghanistan spread across Ghazni, Helmand, Kandahar, Nimruz, Paktika and Zabul provinces.
But U.N. reports and assessments from U.S. counterterrorism officials question whether AQIS is still capable of presenting any sort of united or coherent front.
The recently declassified U.S. intelligence community assessment called AQIS “largely inactive,” with many of its members focused more on media production than on plotting terror attacks against the West.
National Intelligence Council Deputy National Intelligence Officer Anastasia Smith, speaking publicly in June, went as far as to describe AQIS as “weak.”
The possibility its members could simply be absorbed into the Taliban “[is] certainly something we’re watching for,” she said.
AQIS fighters, including native Afghans and fighters from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Myanmar, are said to have fought alongside the Taliban against the U.S.-backed government prior to its collapse.
AQIS leader Osama Mehmood and AQIS deputy Atif Yahya Ghouri are both thought to reside in Afghanistan.
Haqqani network
The Haqqani network is widely considered to be the most influential and strategically successful extremist group in the region. While nominally loyal to the Taliban, the network, as described by the U.N., is “semi-autonomous,” maintaining ties with both al-Qaida and IS-Khorasan.
The group boasts a “highly skilled core of members who specialize in complex attacks and provide technical skills, such as improvised explosive device and rocket construction,” according to the U.N.
The Haqqani network also oversees a force of between 3,000 and 10,000 traditional armed fighters in Khost, Paktika and Paktiya provinces, with a recent U.N. assessment warning the group now also controls at least one elite unit and controls security in Kabul and across much of Afghanistan.
The network is run by Sirajuddin Haqqani, a son of the late mujahedeen commander and network founder Jalaluddin Haqqani. For much of its existence, the group has been based in Pakistan’s tribal areas as it operated across the border in Afghanistan. The more than 40-year-old Haqqani has a $10 million bounty on his head from the U.S. government and works as a deputy emir of the Taliban, as well as the interior minister of Afghanistan.
The Haqqanis have been accused of perpetrating some of the deadliest and most sophisticated attacks against U.S., Indian and former Afghan government targets in Afghanistan since 2001.
The network is believed to have strong ties to Pakistani intelligence and al-Qaida. The U.S. designated it a foreign terrorist organization in 2012.
Intelligence gathered over the past couple of years from some U.N. member states said that at times, the Haqqanis have acted as a go-between for the Taliban and IS-Khorasan, and that with the tacit approval of the Taliban, they directed the Islamic State affiliate to attack the now defunct U.S.-backed Afghan government.
With U.S. forces no longer in Afghanistan, it appears the Haqqani network has ceased to nurture ties with IS-Khorasan.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan
Most active on the 2,640-kilometer-long border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is an insurgent group involved in terrorist attacks in both countries.
The latest U.N. intelligence estimates put the number of TTP fighters at between 3,000 and 4,000.
The group’s stated objectives are to end the Pakistani government’s control over the Pashtun territories of Pakistan and to form a strict government based on Islamic law.
And the most recent intelligence shared with the U.N. indicates the group’s fortunes have been on the rise.
“TTP has arguably benefited the most of all the foreign extremist groups in Afghanistan from the Taliban takeover,” the U.N. warned in May. “It has conducted numerous attacks and operations in Pakistan … suggesting that cease-fire deals have a limited chance of success.”
The report added, “TTP also continues to exist as a stand-alone force, rather than feeling pressure to merge its fighters into Afghan Taliban units, as is the prospect for most foreign terrorist fighters.”
U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani military have killed or captured several TTP leaders over the past two decades.
The group’s current leader, Noor Wali Mehsud, has publicly declared allegiance to the Afghan Taliban leader.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was founded in the late 1990s with help and financial support from al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden. Several IMU leaders have served as part of the al-Qaida hierarchy. The group has sought to replace the Uzbek government with a strictly Islamic regime.
IMU launched its first attack in February 1999 by simultaneously detonating five car bombs in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital. The group is also believed to have carried out attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In 2015, then-IMU leader Usman Ghazi and other senior members of the group shifted allegiance from al-Qaida to the rival Islamic State. But the move did not sit well with Taliban leaders, who launched a major military campaign against Ghazi, killing him and nearly wiping out the group.
IMU’s force size was estimated at several hundred in 2018, but the group was reportedly battered by a large-scale Taliban onslaught in Afghanistan’s Faryab province that year.
As of mid-2021, intelligence suggested IMU had divided into Uzbek and Tajik factions, with the Uzbek faction possibly entertaining the idea of joining IS.
Recent intelligence suggests the remnants of IMU were fighting alongside the Taliban as they took over Afghanistan, which has earned the terror group more freedom of movement.
Khatiba Imam al-Bukhari
Khatiba Imam al-Bukhari (KIB) was founded in 2011 by fighters who left the IMU and fought alongside the Taliban against the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
The group is led by Dilshod Dekhanov, a Tajik national.
KIB’s forces are in Afghanistan’s Badghis province, though the group is also thought to have about 100 or so fighters in Syria, possibly in Latakia or Idlib governorates.
According to the U.N., KIB’s numbers in Afghanistan have been growing because of the successful recruitment of locals. KIB not only has received money from the Taliban but also raises funds through its leadership in Syria.
Intelligence shared with the U.N. indicates Dekhanov visited Kabul in September, asking the Taliban to unify KIB and IMU under his leadership.
Dekhanov’s request was denied, reports say, with Taliban officials pushing to make the KIB part of a new Taliban army.
Islamic Jihad Group
According to intelligence assessments shared with the U.N., the Islamic Jihad Group (IJG) is considered “the most combat-ready Central Asian group in Afghanistan” and is known for expertise in “military tactics and the manufacture of improvised explosive devices.”
The group is led by Ilimbek Mamatov, a Kyrgyz national. The group’s second-in-command, Amsattor Atabaev, is from Tajikistan.
IJG’s fighters operate across Badakhshan, Baghlan and Kunduz provinces, fought alongside Taliban forces against the previous government, and even got some financial support from the Taliban over the past year.
Like KIB’s leader, Mamatov is reported to have asked Taliban leaders to unite key Central Asian groups under his leadership. But reports say his request was rejected.
Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement/Turkistan Islamic Party
The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), was established in the Xinjiang region of China, with its first reported attack in 1998.
After 2001, it began getting help from both al-Qaida and the Taliban, and it has been consistently active in Afghanistan since 2007.
According to intelligence estimates provided by U.N. member states, ETIM has as many as 1,000 fighters in Afghanistan training and plotting for attacks on Chinese targets.
Most of the ETIM fighters had been in Badakhshan province, which borders China. But intelligence shared with the U.N. indicates the Taliban relocated many of the fighters “to both protect and restrain the group.”
Recent intelligence suggests that ETIM fighters have embraced the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and that members have been encouraged to forge deeper ties with Afghanistan.
“Several member states reported some ETIM/TIP members have fraudulently obtained local identity documents by fabricating Afghan identities,” the U.N. said in a recent report.
“The group is seeking to further entrench its presence in the country by both organizing marriages to local women and facilitating the relocation of Uyghur women to Afghanistan,” the report added.
In addition to the group’s close ties to the Taliban and al-Qaida, it has been reported to collaborate with other groups in Afghanistan, including TTP and Jamaat Ansarullah, an ethnically Tajik faction of the IMU.
Intelligence also suggests that ETIM has lost some members to IS-Khorasan or is actively working with the group, with as many as 50 Uyghur fighters siding with the IS affiliate in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province.
Lashkar-e-Islam
Lashkar-e-Islam was founded in the Khyber district of Pakistan in 2004 but relocated to Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province in 2014, following clashes with the Pakistani military.
Since coming to Afghanistan, Lashkar-e-Islam has clashed with IS-Khorasan, with major skirmishes taking place in 2018 as the two groups fought for control of territory and resources.
Hezb-e-Islami
Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam, was founded in 1976 by former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
The group shares much of the same ideology as the Taliban, and its fighters have assisted the Taliban in the past.
In 2015, Hekmatyar ordered his followers to help IS fighters in Afghanistan but never pledged allegiance to IS.
Hezb-e-Islami was known to target U.S. forces in Afghanistan, carrying out a series of attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in from 2013 to 2015.
Lashkar-e-Taiba
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or Army of the Pure, was founded in Pakistan in the 1990s and is sometimes known as Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
Led by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and aligned with al-Qaida, the group is perhaps best known for carrying out the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed more than 160 people.
Recent intelligence assessments shared with the U.N. warn the group’s leadership met with Taliban officials in January and is also now operating training camps in Afghanistan, having previously sent fighters to Afghanistan to assist the Taliban in their efforts.
The U.S. is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to Saeed’s conviction in the Mumbai attacks.
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An Istanbul court has released Turkish pop star Gulsen from pretrial detention but put her under house arrest with judicial control on Monday over a remark she made about religious schools in Turkey.
The 46-year-old singer-songwriter, whose full name is Gulsen Colakoglu, was taken into custody for questioning on charges of “inciting hatred and enmity among the public” and put in pretrial detention last Thursday.
The charges were based on a joke she made onstage about Turkey’s religious Imam Hatip schools in April.
“He studied at an Imam Hatip [school] previously. That’s where his perversion comes from,” Gulsen says in a video of the incident, referring to a musician in her band.
The video was circulated by pro-government daily Sabah a day before her detention and widely shared on social media by pro-government accounts.
Several ministers condemned her words on Twitter, including Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag.
“Inciting one part of society towards another using begrudging, hateful and discriminating language under the guise of being an artist is the biggest disrespect to art,” Bozdag tweeted.
Imam Hatips are state-run middle and high schools providing religious education for boys and girls ages 10 to 18 in Turkey. There are several graduates of Imam Hatip schools in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Cabinet, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Bozdag.
The AKP government is a staunch supporter of Imam Hatip schools, as Erdogan has said in the past that he aims to raise a “pious generation” in Turkey.
In a statement on her social media accounts, Gulsen apologized for her remark, adding that what she said was used by some people who want to polarize society. She also denied the accusations in her testimony at the police station.
Her lawyer Emek Emre appealed the pretrial detention decision last Friday and said he will appeal the house arrest decision Monday.
Reactions
Her arrest has sparked controversy about Turkey’s freedom of expression and judicial independence.
Yigit Acar, a lawyer who specializes in freedom of expression and human rights violations, calls the court decision to keep her under house arrest “a disgrace.”
“This decision meets the wishes of a group of conservative people who are uncomfortable with her and are not a large group. Look at the court decision where the lynching campaign against Gulsen was used as a reason for the arrest,” Acar told VOA.
Acar believes that putting the singer under house arrest is intended to be a deterrent.
“The purpose has already been accomplished. The purpose was to keep Gulsen away from the stage and to make her modern, secular view invisible,” Acar said, adding that the government is sending a message to millions of people by putting the singer under house arrest.
The singer has long been a target of conservative circles in Turkey because of her revealing stage outfits and support for the LGBTQ community.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), called for her release, saying that her arrest was aimed at polarizing society to keep Erdogan’s government in power. The next parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled for June 2023, but the opposition parties are calling for snap elections, which Erdogan has repeatedly rejected.
Responding to an inquiry from VOA on the pop star’s arrest, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said, “The right to exercise freedom of expression, even when it involves speech which some find controversial or uncomfortable, strengthens democracy and must be protected.”
“The United States remains concerned by widespread use of censorship, criminal insult suits, and other forms of judicial harassment to restrict freedom of expression in Turkey. We urge Turkey to respect and ensure freedom of expression,” the spokesperson said, adding that the U.S. “opposes discrimination against LGBTQI+ persons and those who support LGBTQI+ rights.”
The Turkish government has argued that the judiciary is free from political interference.
Cultural hegemony
Yuksel Taskin, deputy leader of the CHP and a former professor of political science at Istanbul’s Marmara University, argues that the singer’s arrest was part of the government’s efforts to establish cultural hegemony among the Turkish public through its ideological lens.
Taskin recalls Turkish presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun’s tweet from 2018: “Your political hegemony is over. Your cultural hegemony will also end,” referring to Turkey’s Kemalist elites before the AKP came into power. Kemalism, as an ideology, is based on the principles of modern Turkey founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which include secularism.
“A cultural hegemony based on intimidation and oppression has no chance to survive,” Taskin told VOA.
Ezel Sahinkaya contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
This story originated in VOA’s Turkish Service.
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In the Russian government’s latest move to reduce its reliance on a global financial system dominated by the United States and its allies, Kremlin authorities Monday began a policy of barring the use of U.S. dollars as collateral for transactions on the Moscow Exchange, Russia’s largest financial services marketplace.
According to experts, the change was more symbolic than practical, because a broad slate of sanctions imposed on Russia over its expanded invasion of Ukraine have made it almost impossible for Russian businesses to make dollar-based transactions. The change comes just a few weeks after the Moscow Exchange reduced the acceptable percentage of U.S. dollars in collateral from 50% of total value to 25%.
Still, the change underlines Moscow’s efforts to chart a path through the maze of economic barriers constructed by the U.S. and its allies over the more than six months since the invasion began. Kremlin officials have called on Russian businesses and individuals to divest themselves of “toxic” currencies issued by governments that have acted to thwart President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to expand Russian territory by force.
“The blocking of Russian assets by unfriendly countries, as well as operational restrictions on settlements in the world’s major reserve currencies, create risks for citizens and businesses when using the U.S. dollar and the euro,” the Russian central bank said in a statement issued last month.
Heavy sanctions
In the days after Russian troops crossed into Ukraine in February, the U.S. and its allies, including most of the European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia and almost all other major Western economies began applying unprecedented economic pressure in an effort to get Putin to reverse course.
A large portion of the assets of the Russian central bank held overseas were frozen, as were the assets of many wealthy Russian businesspeople. U.S. banks were effectively barred from doing business with Russian businesses, with some exceptions for energy payments, which had the result of cutting Russian firms off from the dollar-based transactions that represent a large share of global commerce.
Russian banks were eventually barred from SWIFT, the global messaging network that international banks use to settle cross-border transactions, and export controls have made it difficult for Russia to purchase high-end electronic components and other goods essential to operating a modern economy in the 21st century.
Faulty assumptions
The Kremlin may have been surprised by the unity with which the U.S. and its allies acted. Experts said that Russian leaders likely assumed that it would be cut off from the dollar after invading Ukraine — indeed, Russian has, for years, been taking steps to insulate itself from the dollar.
However, the Kremlin did so on the assumption that other global currencies, primarily the euro, but also the Japanese yen and the British pound, would remain available to it.
“What’s so important to understand about this is that Putin and Elvira Nabiullina, the central bank governor, truly believed that it was OK to be less reliant on the dollar, because they could diversify into euros and other currencies,” Josh Lipsky, the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, told VOA.
But the world’s seven leading industrialized democracies, the G-7, remain firm on sanctions, and have pledged solidarity with Ukraine.
“What surprised them was the unity amongst the G-7 — that the dollar and the euro and the yen and the pound were acting in tandem,” Lipsky said. “And that gave them no other outlets.”
Other markets
While Russia has found itself largely blocked from doing business with much of the world, a set of exceptions has been put in place that allow the Kremlin to continue selling energy products, primarily oil and gas. Those sales, boosted by months of abnormally high energy prices, have helped Russia avoid the worst potential consequences of its economic isolation.
At the same time, Russia has been working to develop alternatives to its traditional trade and financial flows. Turkey, whose leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has positioned himself as an intermediary between Putin and Western leaders, agreed earlier this month to pay for some Russian natural gas in rubles.
China and India, both major consumers of Russian energy, have both increased their purchases in the months since the invasion, settling transactions in their national currencies rather than in dollars, as is common on global markets.
However, even Russian officials have conceded that creating a system completely independent of the dollar is not feasible.
Commenting on his country’s growing relationship with China in June, Russian Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov said, “Full de-dollarization is impossible in principle, and no one is setting this goal, considering that the dollar is actually a tool, an accounting currency, means for international settlements and international payments.”
Bad options
Jeffrey Mankoff, a distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University and a non-resident senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA that while Russia may be able to make some transactions in non-dollar currencies, the practice is “suboptimal” at best, and the future looks bleak for the Russian economy.
“The problem is, there’s not really a good alternative to the dollar at this point,” Mankoff said. “There’s no other currency that is convertible to the extent the dollar is and has a deep liquid securities market behind it so that you’re not taking on big exchange rate risks by doing business in it.”
While the use of non-dollar currencies for settlement keeps cash flowing into Russian coffers, he said, “The problem is the money can’t really flow out. Or, it can’t flow out to buy the things that Russia needs, which are restricted because of sanctions.”
Russia cannot import many of the consumer goods that its citizens had been used to purchasing, which has eroded living standards. Additionally, Russia cannot import semiconductors and other high-tech components needed for domestic manufacturing operations.
In the end, Mankoff said, Russia’s options are starkly limited if it remains cut off from most global markets, and economic conditions are likely to get worse.
“Manufacturing, anything kind of high-tech related, and that includes military goods, is going to get harder and harder,” Mankoff said. “If this war is still going on six months or 12 months or longer from now, I think you’re going to see the impact of these restrictions increasing over time.”
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