Month: August 2022

The United Nations said Monday that 6 million Afghans are on the brink of famine, with winter around the corner and humanitarian appeals dramatically underfunded.

“Afghanistan’s crisis is a humanitarian crisis. It’s an economic crisis. It’s a climate crisis. It’s a hunger crisis. It’s a financial crisis,” U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the U.N. Security Council. “But it’s not a hopeless crisis.”

But he painted a bleak picture.

Griffiths said 24 million people need some kind of humanitarian assistance, and almost 19 million of them face acute hunger. An estimated 3 million children are acutely malnourished.

“They include over 1 million children estimated to be suffering from the most severe, life-threatening form of malnutrition,” he said. “Without specialized treatment, they could die.”

The U.N. launched its largest appeal ever last year, seeking $4.4 billion to assist Afghans, but faces a shortfall of $3.14 billion as winter approaches. Griffiths said $614 million is urgently needed to repair shelters and provide warm clothes and blankets, as well as another $154 million to pre-position supplies in remote areas that are hard to reach in winter.

“But we are up against time,” he said. “These activities must be implemented in the next three months.”

In the past year, Griffiths said, humanitarians have reached nearly 23 million people with assistance.

“But let me be clear. Humanitarian aid will never be able to replace the provision of systemwide services to 40 million people across the country,” the aid chief said.

He called on the international community to stand by the Afghan people and for the de facto Taliban authorities to do their part.

Since the Taliban seized power just over one year ago, the suspension of most international aid, which had propped up the previous government, has contributed to a breakdown in many basic services, including electricity, health services and education. Inflation is rampant, and the price of ordinary goods is beyond the reach of most Afghans.

On top of the political crisis, there has been an earthquake and severe floods. Afghanistan is also reeling from the effects of two severe droughts, in 2021 and 2018. After dropping significantly, civilian casualties have begun to rise again.

“The last three weeks have seen the highest number of civilian casualties in a one-month period since 15 August 2021, in a series of improvised explosive device attacks in Kabul, most claimed by ISIL-K [Islamic State Khorasan],” said Markus Potzel, the acting head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

Russia, US trade criticism

Russia asked for Monday’s meeting and used the opportunity to criticize the U.S. and its NATO partners for their 20-year-long war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

“Ultimately the people of Afghanistan, who as our American colleagues repeatedly told us they were there to protect, were abandoned to their fate,” Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “They were left face-to-face with ruin, poverty, terrorism, hunger and other challenges.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Washington and its allies have continued to assist the Afghan people, providing humanitarian assistance and other help.

“What are you doing to help other than rehash the past and criticize others?” she asked her Russian counterpart. “If you are concerned that Afghan women and children are dying, how are you helping them?”

She noted that Washington has provided more than $775 million in humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people in just the past year.

“Russia has contributed only $2 million to the U.N. Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Plan to date,” she said. “And Russia has contributed nothing — not one cent — nothing this year.” She suggested that if Moscow wanted to talk about how Afghanistan needs help, that is fine, “but we humbly suggest you put your money where your mouth is.”
…

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund approved almost $1.2 billion for Pakistan Monday, providing much-needed relief as the country grapples with an economic crisis worsened by massive floods.

“Pakistan’s economy has been buffeted by adverse external conditions, due to spillovers from the war in Ukraine, and domestic challenges,” Antoinette Sayeh, IMF deputy managing director and acting chair said in a statement.

Criticizing government policies that caused “uneven and unbalanced growth,” Sayeh stressed Pakistan must implement “corrective policies and reforms” to regain economic stability, and inclusive and sustainable growth.

The loan approval comes as Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves stand at a mere $13.5 billion, as of August 19 according to the State Bank of Pakistan. Weekly inflation touched 45% in August, according to government data, with prices of food and fuel skyrocketing.

Announcing the board’s decision on Twitter, Miftah Ismail, Pakistan’s finance minister, congratulated the nation and thanked prime minister Shahbaz Sharif, “for taking so many tough decisions and saving Pakistan from default.” The $1.17 billion is part of a $6 billion loan program agreed upon in 2019.

However, the funding may not be enough to pull Pakistan out of its deep economic crisis, as the country is dealing with some of the worst floods in over a decade. Since June, according to disaster managements agencies, countrywide rains and flooding have killed over 1,136 people, “badly affected” more than 33 million others and devastated crops.

The extent of the monsoon disaster, estimated to have caused around $5 billion in damage, prompted the government to declare a national emergency and appeal to the international community for aid last week.

The IMF statement did not make any mention of the economic fallout of the floods. It welcomed Pakistan’s plan to achieve a small budget surplus, calling it critical to contain spending and generate more tax revenues.

The loan approval from the IMF’s executive board comes after tough negotiations between the Fund’s staff and Pakistani officials. Before staff-level approval in July, the global lender had demanded Pakistan raise electricity and fuel rates, do away with many subsidies, let the open market determine the value of its currency which sent the rupee into a tailspin, and fill a budgetary shortfall of nearly $4 billion.

Drama at home

While Pakistan took austerity measures and managed to secure billions in financial commitments from friendly countries like China, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar, last-minute developments at home created concerns about Pakistan’s ability to unlock the IMF’s aid.

Under the IMF deal, all four provinces of Pakistan agreed to show a budget surplus this year. However, in a letter to finance minister Ismail, the finance minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), a province run by ousted prime minister Imran Khan’s PTI party, refused to meet the condition, citing flood damages and other outstanding financial issues with the federal government. Ismail called it a “conspiracy against Pakistan.”

On Monday, two audio clips began circulating in the media in which Khan’s former finance minister is allegedly heard asking the current finance ministers of Punjab and KP, both provinces run by PTI, to decline to show budget surplus in a bid to pressure Sharif’s government.

While the authenticity of the leaked audio clips is yet to be established, PTI leadership defended the conversations in a news conference Monday, calling it “advice.” In a separate news conference, finance minister Ismail criticized the PTI, saying “after God, [the] IMF program is the one support” for Pakistan that is drowned in floodwaters.

The IMF granted Pakistan’s waivers for nonobservance of some performance criteria. In a tweet Ismail thanked China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE for helping bridge funding gaps to revive the IMF program. He also thanked the U.S., Turkey, EU and others for their support.
…

Authorities and humanitarian groups are responding to the worst floods Pakistan has experienced in decades, as the devastation has impacted some 33 million people and led to the deaths of almost 1,200 others over the past two months.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said Monday that one-third of Pakistan, a country of about 220 million people, was under water, creating a “crisis of unimaginable proportions” since June when the monsoon seasonal rainfall began.

“It’s all one big ocean; there’s no dry land to pump the water out,” Rehman said.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), leading the response in coordinating assessments and directing humanitarian relief to affected people, declared 72 out of the country’s 160 districts as calamity-hit in its latest situation report.

The NDMA noted that at least 1 million homes, 162 bridges, and nearly 3,500 kilometers of roads have been damaged or destroyed across the South Asian nation.

The flooding has also killed more than 800,000 farm animals and damaged vital farmlands and crops.

Pakistan has already appealed for international help to deal with the massive floods. 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, the Pakistani military said Monday.

Pakistani and United Nations officials said the death toll is likely to rise as erratic monsoon rains continue and more rivers burst their banks, with many communities in the mountainous northern regions cut off.

Officials say that relief and rescue operations have almost concluded but that it may take “years” to rehabilitate flood victims. They also say the country will require international help to confront the emergency.

Julien Harneis, the U.N. resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator in Pakistan, said the flooding and landslides had brought widespread destruction across the country, creating its “biggest challenge” in decades.

Harneis called for “burden-sharing and solidarity” internationally in the wake of the “climate-change-driven catastrophe.” He warned that the humanitarian situation is expected to worsen, with diseases and malnutrition expected to rise.

The U.N. is set to launch a $161 million flash appeal for Pakistan on Tuesday, saying the funding will provide critical food and cash assistance to nearly one million people in districts across the four provinces, Baluchistan, Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The flooding comes at a time when the country faces an economic crisis, with dwindling foreign cash reserves and historic inflation.

Finance Minister Miftah Ismail told a news conference in Islamabad the economic impact could reach at least $10 billion. He also hinted at reopening some trade with arch-rival India to import vegetables in the wake of widespread devastation the flooding has unleashed on the agriculture sector.

Pakistan suspended already limited trade with India in 2019 when New Delhi unilaterally ended a semi-autonomous status of the disputed Kashmir region.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) 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.

Shabnam Baloch, the IRC country director, was quoted as saying Pakistan has been facing increasingly devastating climate-driven drought and flooding.

“Despite producing less than 1% of the world’s carbon footprint, the country is suffering the consequences of the world’s inaction and stays in the top 10 countries facing the consequences,” Baloch said.

The flash floods in Pakistan are comparable to those of 2010 when more than 2,000 people were killed.

AFP contributed to this report.
…

An American journalist and documentary-maker of Indian origin was sent back to the United States after he landed at New Delhi airport last week, his family reported.  

Angad Singh, who produces video documentaries for Vice News, had arrived to visit his relatives, including his mother and grandparents, in the northern Indian state of Punjab, when he was refused entry by Indian immigration officials at the airport, his mother told VOA.   

Angad arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport from the United States at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, he informed his mother Gurmeet Kaur in Punjab in a text message.  

“We were eagerly waiting to welcome him in Punjab. Fifteen minutes after sending the first message, my son texted me again saying that the immigration officials had taken away his passport,” Kaur, an American citizen who is on a family visit to India now, told VOA. “Three hours later, he was made to board a New York-bound flight and deported to the U.S.”   

Singh, who is an American citizen and a practicing Sikh, had visited India many times in the past and made documentaries on subjects including the country’s farmer protests, the COVID-19 pandemic, Kashmiri Muslim protests and “love jihad” — a right-wing Hindu belief that Muslim men lure Hindu women into marriage to convert them to Islam and spread the religion.  

Singh had last visited India two or three years ago and made a documentary on the Shaheen Bagh sit-in protest, Kaur said. In 2019 and 2020 in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh neighborhood, women, mostly Muslim, blocked a major road in protest of a new Indian citizenship law welcoming immigrants of all religions from neighboring countries except Muslims.  

Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic’s second wave, Singh made a documentary, Inside India’s COVID Hell, for which he received an Emmy nomination.  

Although Singh was on a personal visit to India this time, Kaur said, Indian authorities suspected that he would do some professional work while in the country.  

“He has so many relatives in India. He was certainly on a personal trip. But, I think, the Indian authorities thought that he would do some journalism-related work this time … There should be no other reason to deny the entry,” Kaur told VOA. 

Kaur said she thought Indian authorities stopped Singh from entering India because they suspected that he would work on a documentary on Dalits—who were once known as “untouchables” and remain at the bottom of India’s Hindu caste system. He has been denied a visa in the past to report on this issue.  

“[A] long time ago the application for his visa to work on the Dalits issue was rejected. This time his trip was purely personal, with no connection with any documentary on Dalits,” Kaur told VOA.  

Kaur wrote on Facebook that her son was deported because of his journalistic work, in which he has often been critical of the government led by Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.  

“They did not give any reason [describing why he was deported]. But we know it is his award-winning journalism that scares them,” Kaur wrote.  

“It’s not easy to be a Sikh, a Gursikh [a term used usually to describe a practicing Sikh] on top, a journalist, a warrior of truth and justice. … Speaking [the] truth has a price. We must pay it.”  

People should raise their voices against such deportation, Kaur said.   

“We cannot make out why the Indian authorities have been vindictive on him while he was on a personal visit to his motherland. Why are they forcing him to sever his connection with his motherland?” Kaur added. 

At least two journalism organizations have condemned the deportation of Singh as government “vendetta and harassment.”  

The episode is “gravely disturbing” and is part of the “ongoing trend of government authorities harassing and intimidating journalists,” Indian Journalists Union president Geetartha Pathak said. The International Federation of Journalists said the decision to send back Singh “smacks of vendetta and harassment,” in a statement posted on Twitter. The advocacy group said it “strongly condemns” the government’s action. 

Rohit Chopra, an associate professor at Santa Clara University, told VOA the decision to not allow Singh to enter India is “reflective of a pattern of denying or revoking visas to academics, journalists and artists, and reveals the deep insecurities that haunt the Hindu nationalist leadership” of the Indian state.  

“The message is clear: no matter what the evidence, no matter how grave the injustices to which you seek to draw attention, criticize Mr. Modi or his government at your peril,” Chopra added.  

The Indian Home Ministry, which controls the immigration authority, has not issued any statement on Singh. Phone calls to the ministry went unanswered. 
…

Deaths from widespread flooding in Pakistan topped 1,000 since mid-June, officials said Sunday, as the country’s climate minister called the deadly monsoon season “a serious climate catastrophe.”

Flash flooding from the heavy rains has washed away villages and crops as soldiers and rescue workers evacuated stranded residents to the safety of relief camps and provided food to thousands of displaced Pakistanis.

Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority reported the death toll since the monsoon season began earlier than normal this year — in mid- June — reached 1,061 people after new fatalities were reported across different provinces.

Sherry Rehman, a Pakistani senator and the country’s top climate official, said in a video posted on Twitter that Pakistan is experiencing a “serious climate catastrophe, one of the hardest in the decade.”

“We are at the moment at the ground zero of the front line of extreme weather events, in an unrelenting cascade of heatwaves, forest fires, flash floods, multiple glacial lake outbursts, flood events and now the monster monsoon of the decade is wreaking non-stop havoc throughout the country,” she said. The on-camera statement was retweeted by the country’s ambassador to the European Union.

Flooding from the Swat River overnight affected northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where tens of thousands of people — especially in the Charsadda and Nowshehra districts — have been evacuated from their homes to relief camps set up in government buildings. Many have also taken shelter on roadsides, said Kamran Bangash, a spokesperson for the provincial government.

Bangash said some 180,000 people have been evacuated from Charsadda and 150,000 from Nowshehra district villages.

Khaista Rehman, 55, no relation to the climate minister, took shelter with his wife and three children on the side of the Islamabad-Peshawar highway after his home in Charsadda was submerged overnight.

“Thank God we are safe now on this road quite high from the flooded area,” he said. “Our crops are gone and our home is destroyed but I am grateful to Allah that we are alive and I will restart life with my sons.”

The unprecedented monsoon season has affected all four of the country’s provinces. Nearly 300,000 homes have been destroyed, numerous roads rendered impassable and electricity outages have been widespread, affecting millions of people.

Pope Francis on Sunday said he wanted to assure his “closeness to the populations of Pakistan struck by flooding of disastrous proportions.’’ Speaking during a pilgrimage to the Italian town of L’Aquila, which was hit by a deadly earthquake in 2009, Francis said he was praying “for the many victims, for the injured and the evacuated, and so that international solidarity will be prompt and generous.”

Rehman told Turkish news outlet TRT World that by the time the rains recede, “we could well have one fourth or one third of Pakistan under water.”

“This is something that is a global crisis and of course we will need better planning and sustainable development on the ground. … We’ll need to have climate resilient crops as well as structures,” she said. 

In May, Rehman told BBC Newshour that both the country’s north and south were witnessing extreme weather events because of rising temperatures. “So in north actually just now we are … experiencing what is known as glacial lake outburst floods which we have many of because Pakistan is home to the highest number of glaciers outside the polar region.”

The government has deployed soldiers to help civilian authorities in rescue and relief operations across the country. The Pakistani army also said in a statement it airlifted a 22 tourists trapped in a valley in the country’s north to safety.

Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif visited flooding victims in city of Jafferabad in Baluchistan. He vowed the government would provide housing to all those who lost their homes.
…