Day: August 27, 2022

The Taliban have been in control of Afghanistan for more than a year but still do not have an ambassador in the United Nations or any country. And since last Friday, the regime’s foreign minister has been banned from traveling abroad.

Diplomatically, the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is even worse off than the dictatorship in North Korea, often said to be the most isolated country in the world, which has embassies in more than 45 countries and a seat at U.N. headquarters in New York.

A short-term travel waiver that had been granted to 13 Taliban officials expired on August 19 because U.N. Security Council members did not agree to extend it.

Since 1999, under UNSC Resolution 1267, 151 Taliban officials have been banned from traveling abroad because of their alleged links to international terrorism.

The U.S. government, which fought the Taliban for two decades in Afghanistan and has designated several Taliban leaders as international terrorists, wants “strictly limited” diplomatic engagement with the Taliban.

“[F]ace-to-face discussions in third countries with the Taliban have proven to be useful to advance our interests, particularly as we have no presence in Afghanistan at this time,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told VOA.

Extending the travel exemption to a smaller group of more moderate Taliban officials is also an option cited in some diplomatic circles.

But the differences among UNSC powers are deeper than minor preferences, some analysts say.

“The Taliban travel ban waiver issue is no longer so much about the situation in Afghanistan. It is now a … great power alignment crisis within the UNSC,” Omar Samad, a former Afghan ambassador, told VOA.

“The real issue itself is sensitive enough, given the political and technicality pillars, but it has now become embroiled in high-wire diplomacy influenced by East-West tensions.”

Ineffective sanctions?

From asset freezes to travel bans to rewards for their arrest, Taliban leaders have been facing strong international sanctions for more than two decades.

While many observers criticize these sanctions as largely ineffective, others say the Taliban’s refusal to accept international laws leaves the world with few options but to impose sanctions on them.

“As much as you offer latitude to the Taliban, they think that’s a reflection of their strength,” said Shinkai Karokhail, a former Afghan lawmaker and diplomat, “and they show no commitment to international norms.”

Karokhail said the sanctions regime needs improvement and should specifically target the most problematic elements in the Taliban leadership.

“If Taliban’s ties to Pakistan are effectively sanctioned, this will bring cataclysmic changes in the Taliban regime,” she told VOA, referring to the alleged support of the Taliban by Pakistani intelligence.

The Taliban deny receiving orders from Pakistan, but U.S. officials and many Afghan observers say the group has deep ties to Pakistan.

In a recent interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai alleged that the Taliban have shut secondary schools for Afghan girls at the behest of Pakistan.

Taliban officials say that the sanctions are counterproductive and that no external pressure will force them to compromise on their Islamist policies, “even if they use a nuclear bomb,” the Taliban’s supreme leader told a religious gathering in Kabul in July.

US presence

With more than $700 million in aid, the U.S. has been the single largest humanitarian donor to Afghanistan over the past year.

The U.S. has channeled funds through the U.N. and other international organizations and has no presence in Afghanistan to monitor how its aid dollars are being used.

“The best way for the United States to maintain regular contact and develop insights into conditions on the ground would be to reestablish a diplomatic presence in Kabul,” a report by RAND, a U.S. global policy think tank, recommended in May 2022.

The authors of the report, two former senior U.S. diplomats and one researcher with extensive work on Afghanistan, described the engagement policy with the Taliban as a preferable option for the U.S. to further its interests and hold the Taliban accountable to their counterterror commitments.

“The United States has no immediate plans to resume operations at Embassy Kabul,” a State Department spokesperson said without offering details.

On August 1, a U.S. drone killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, an event that significantly set back U.S. engagement with the Taliban. U.S. officials have accused the Taliban of “a flagrant violation” of their commitment not to host al-Qaida and other terrorists in areas under their control.

More than three weeks since the drone bombing, Taliban officials maintain they have not found al-Zawahiri’s body and instead criticize the U.S. for violating Afghanistan’s aerial sovereignty.

Source: Voice of America

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund is slated to convene Monday to decide whether to disburse over $1 billion in loans to Pakistan. The move will unlock critically needed additional foreign funding as the country struggles to avoid economic collapse amid high inflation and low foreign exchange reserves.

While Pakistan’s economic woes are nothing new, experts say its strategic significance compels global powers to keep this nuclear-armed South Asian nation of almost 230 million people afloat.

How poor is Pakistan’s economy?

The Pakistani currency, the rupee, lost more than a third of its value and hit an all-time low against the U.S. dollar in July before rebounding a bit. Year-over-year inflation touched a painful 25%, according to government data released in July, with prices of staples like cooking oil and lentils almost doubling.

Earlier the government banned imports of more than three dozen “nonessential” or “luxury” items including canned fish, jams and jellies. A government minister famously urged people to “drink less tea” as the rising import bill, coupled with a lack of foreign funding, ate away at the country’s foreign exchange reserves.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves stood below $8 billion in mid-August, barely enough to cover a few weeks’ worth of imports.

Government officials blame the country’s economic woes on the global rise in the cost of food and fuel because of supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Uzair Younus, director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, said in an interview, “Pakistan’s COVID strategy on the health and economic side was perhaps the best in the region … [but] the amount of stimulus and amnesties that were given were just enormous, and so a lot of import spending went out as a result of that.”

The country relies heavily on foreign loans and imports. Government data show its total external debt — the money it owes other countries and foreign lenders — is more than 80% of its GDP.

Why Pakistan’s economic stability matters

Standing on the brink of default, Pakistan managed in the last six weeks to secure loans, financing, deferred oil payments and investment commitments close to $12 billion from China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE. However, much of this and more from other multilateral lenders such as the World Bank will become available only after the IMF board approves the release of almost $1.2 billion.

Younus believes the optics of a Pakistan in peril are particularly poor for China, which is anxious for the success of its global infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

“If the BRI is the poster child of China’s foreign and economic policy globally, that shows China has arrived, then CPEC was its crown jewel in so many ways,” he told VOA, referring to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an almost $60 billion collection of infrastructure development projects funded by Chinese loans and investments in Pakistan.

“If [Pakistan] goes belly up and defaults, that will really raise questions about China’s own ability to set up competing infrastructure, competing financial instruments, et cetera … for its own strategic partners,” Younis said. In that event, “the contagion effect of Pakistan’s economic collapse on broader Chinese foreign policy, economic policy, would be too big.”

Tamanna Salikuddin, director of South Asia programs at the United States Institute of Peace, said the “U.S. tap [has] much more dried up” over the last 20 years as the war in Afghanistan dragged on.

However, she said, Washington still supports the loans through the IMF, where it is the biggest donor, because “a crisis on Afghanistan’s border is not something that the U.S. wants to see. … Counterterrorism interests and nuclear security and stability remain in U.S. national security interests.”

As the competition for global influence between Beijing and Washington heats up, Salikuddin said, Pakistan can position itself in the middle and ensure that it “certainly gets bailed out.”

Why Pakistan needs repeated bailouts

Pakistan is among the world’s most bailed-out countries. It is currently participating in its 23rd loan program with the IMF since the country joined the institution in 1950, just three years after partition from India.

Successive governments have promised to “break the beggar’s bowl” or get the country out of IMF’s “trap,” but experts note a consistent lack of political will and public appetite for necessary economic reforms. In a nation of almost 230 million, fewer than 3 million file income tax returns, according to government data. Any efforts at expanding the tax net are met with severe opposition.

The latest disbursement to be decided on by the IMF board Monday is, in fact, part of a $6 billion loan program agreed upon with Islamabad in 2019. If approved, the money will come after months of delays and tough negotiations as Pakistan backtracked on promised policy reforms.

Younis applauded the new government that took over in May for its willingness to make some tough choices like raising taxes on fuel and electricity and reducing government subsidies after a few reversals but sees no signs of long-term reform.

What’s next for Pakistan?

Lifting the ban on most “luxury” imports at the end of last month, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail assured a late-night news conference that Pakistan would not default. However, political wrangling at home may still derail plans with the IMF.

Experts VOA spoke to noted that Pakistan’s economy is broad and deep and its geostrategic position strong enough for it to avoid default.

However, Salikuddin said, it’s partially this geostrategic importance that leads Pakistan to make “irresponsible” economic policies as the leadership perhaps believes the country is “too big to fail.”

Source: Voice of America

Officials in Pakistan said Friday that weeks of flooding triggered by historic monsoon rains had killed nearly 1,000 people and “badly affected” 33 million others, and they appealed for international help to deal with the calamity.

The devastation across all four provinces of the country prompted Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to declare a national emergency amid forecasts of more rain, his office said.

Sharif was quoted as saying the government was working closely with the United Nations to launch a flash flood appeal on August 30.

Southwestern Baluchistan and southern Sindh provinces were the hardest hit. Video showed swollen rivers and gushing floodwaters submerging towns, destroying buildings, washing away villages, bridges, roads and other infrastructure.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman described the seasonal rainfall as a “monsoon monster” and blamed climate change for the deadliest flooding in the South Asian nation of about 220 million people in more than a decade.

She declared that Pakistan was living through “one of the most serious climate catastrophes” in the world, and that it was wreaking nonstop havoc throughout the country.

“We are at this point ground zero, the front line, with extreme weather events, which we have seen from early this year in an unrelenting cascade of heat wave, forest fires, flash floods, multiple glacial lake-outburst-flood events and now the monster monsoon of the decade,” Rehman said.

“The amount of water on the ground has inundated huge swaths of Pakistan, with 33 million people affected, many stranded,” she said. “Thousands are without shelter; many are without food. And people are stranded.”

Baluchistan, already battered by flash floods, lost communication with the rest of the country after massive overnight rains, said the English-language Dawn newspaper. The communication breakdown was hampering rescue and relief operations in the impacted region.

The Pakistan Telecom Authority said Friday that it had restored voice and data services in Baluchistan and efforts were being made to resolve “this unprecedented situation.”

Officials at the Pakistan Meteorological Department said the country saw its wettest July since 1961, warning another cycle of torrential rains could emerge next month. Rescue teams, assisted by Pakistani military troops, were erecting tents and shelters in the flood-affected areas, where many were without food and shelter.

Rehman said an assessment of needs was being prepared but that Pakistan would require all the international help it could get because dealing with the disaster was beyond the capacity of federal or provincial governments.

Sindh received “784%” more rainfall this month than the August average, while Baluchistan had received almost 500% more, according to official data.

Since mid-June, when the monsoon seasons began in Pakistan, more than 3,000 kilometers of roads, 130 bridges and tens of thousands of homes have been damaged across the country, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.

Parts of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and central Punjab provinces might face “very high to an exceptionally high level of flooding” in the next few days, according to the NDMA forecast.

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party rules KP, visited flood-hit parts Friday and described on Twitter the level of destruction in the province as massive. The scenic Swat valley in the province was one of the hardest-hit districts.

The calamity has struck Pakistan at a time when the country faces an economic crisis, with dwindling foreign cash reserves and historic inflation.

The Sharif government has cut spending and increased fuel and utility prices to ensure Pakistan receives a much-needed $1.2 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund.

The United Nations has responded by allocating $3 million. “This will be used for health, nutrition, food security, and water and sanitation services in flood-affected areas, focusing on the most vulnerable,” said a U.N. statement.

Source: Voice of America

As Friday’s end to a four-week conference to review the landmark U.N. treaty aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear weapons neared, delegates scrambled to reach agreement on a final document with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and takeover of Europe’s largest nuclear power a key obstacle.

Argentine Ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen, president of the conference reviewing the 50-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament, circulated a revised 36-page draft final document that aimed to address some of China’s concerns. But it still made the same four references to Russia’s occupation of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine — though without naming Russia.

Any document must be approved by all 191 countries that are parties to the treaty, and the closing plenary meeting to consider the revised draft was delayed while delegates met behind closed doors to try to get all countries on board.

Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that the Biden administration is seeking a consensus final document that strengthens the nuclear treaty and acknowledges “the manner in which Russia’s war and irresponsible actions in Ukraine seriously undermine the NPT’s main purpose.”

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the United States and its allies at that council meeting of “politicizing the work on the final document, putting their geopolitical interests in punishing Russia above their collective needs in strengthening global security.”

“Against the backdrop of the actual sabotage by the collective West of the global security architecture, Russia continues to do everything possible to keep at least its key, vital elements afloat,” Nebenzia said.

The four references to Zaporizhzhia, where Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of shelling, would have the parties to the NPT express “grave concern for the military activities” at or near the facility and other nuclear plants, recognize Ukraine’s loss of control and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inability to ensure its nuclear material is safeguarded.

The parties would also support IAEA efforts to visit Zaporizhzhia to ensure there is no diversion of its nuclear materials, which the agency’s director is hoping to organize in the coming day. And it would express “grave concern” at the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities, in particular Zaporizhzia, and stress “the paramount importance of ensuring control by Ukraine’s competent authorities.”

The NPT review conference is supposed to be held every five years but was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The last one in 2015 ended without an agreement because of serious differences over establishing a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

Those differences haven’t gone away but are being discussed, and both draft documents obtained by The Associated Press would reaffirm the importance of establishing a nuclear-free Mideast zone. So, this is not viewed as a major stumbling block this year.

The issue that has changed the dynamics of the conference is Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning that Russia is a “potent” nuclear power and any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen,” and his decision soon after to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.

Putin has since rolled back, saying that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” a message reiterated by a senior Russian official on the opening day of the NPT conference on Aug. 2. But the Russian leader’s initial threat and the occupation of Zaporizhzhia by Russian forces soon after the invasion as well as their takeover of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, renewed global fears of another nuclear emergency.

Under the NPT’s provisions, the five original nuclear powers — the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain and France — agreed to negotiate toward eliminating their arsenals someday and nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for a guarantee to be able to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

India and Pakistan, which didn’t join the NPT, went on to get the bomb. So did North Korea, which ratified the pact but later announced it was withdrawing. Non-signatory Israel, which is believed to have a nuclear arsenal but neither confirms nor denies it, has been an obstacle in discussions of a Mideast zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

Nonetheless, the treaty has been credited with limiting the number of nuclear newcomers (U.S. President John F. Kennedy once foresaw as many as 20 nuclear-armed nations) as a framework for international cooperation on disarmament.

The draft final document would express deep concern “that the threat of nuclear weapons use today is higher than at any time since the heights of the Cold War and at the deteriorated international security environment.” It would also commit the 191 parties to the treaty “to making every effort to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again.”

The parties would call on India, Israel and Pakistan to join the NPT “as non-nuclear-weapon states” and on South Sudan to become a party as soon as possible. It would call on North Korea to return to the treaty at an early date and immediately cease its nuclear activities.

Diplomats and nuclear experts monitoring the closed-door negotiations cited differences between China and the West that could have blocked agreement on a final document but appear to have been resolved in the final draft.

China wanted the document to mention the U.S.-UK-Australia deal to provide Australia with a nuclear-powered submarine, and the final draft notes that parties to the NPT are interested in “the topic of naval nuclear propulsion” and the importance of a transparent and open dialogue on it.

Of the five nuclear powers, China is the only one still producing fissile material — either uranium or plutonium — needed to produce nuclear weapons, and several Western nations wanted to pressure Beijing to halt production.

The original draft included a call to the five nuclear weapon states “to declare or maintain existing moratoria on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other explosive devices.” This was eliminated in the final draft which calls for the immediate start of negotiations on a treaty banning production of fissile material.

The final draft document barely mentions the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, saying only that it was adopted in July 2017, entered into force in January 2021, and held its first meeting of states parties in June 2022. Some Western countries maintain that calls for immediate nuclear disarmament are totally unrealistic in the current highly polarized and chaotic world.

Source: Voice of America

A lawyer for an Afghan refugee accused in the Albuquerque slayings of three Muslims entered a not guilty plea Friday on her client’s behalf as the community continues its struggle to understand the motives behind the killings.

Muhammad Syed, 51, appeared remotely for the court hearing and will remain held without bond pending trial. He is charged with three counts of murder and tampering with evidence, and police have identified him as the suspect in the killing of a fourth Muslim man.

Syed, who has been in the U.S. with his family for several years, previously denied involvement in the killings when authorities detained him earlier this month.

Authorities have not disclosed a motive for the killings, but prosecutors have described Syed as having a violent history. His public defenders have argued that previous allegations of domestic violence against Syed never resulted in convictions.

Authorities have said they have linked bullet casings found at two of the crime scenes with casings found in Syed’s vehicle and with guns found at his home and in his vehicle.

Syed was arrested August 8 more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from his Albuquerque home after tips led investigators to the Syed family. He told authorities he was on his way to Texas to find a new home for his family, saying he was concerned about the ambush-style killings.

Syed has been charged with these killings:

— Aftab Hussein, 41, was slain July 26 after parking his car in his usual spot near his home.

— Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, a 27-year-old urban planner who had worked on the campaign of a New Mexico congresswoman, was gunned down August 1 while taking his evening walk.

— Naeem Hussain was shot August 5 as he sat in his vehicle outside a refugee resettlement agency on the city’s south side following funeral services for two of the other shooting victims. Shots were fired at Hussain’s SUV, striking him in the head and the arm.

Syed is the primary suspect — but hasn’t been charged — in last November’s slaying of Muhammad Zahir Ahmadi, a 62-year-old Afghan immigrant who was fatally shot in the head behind the market he owned.

Muhammad Imtiaz Hussain, the older brother of Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, said in an interview Friday that his family is heartbroken and frustrated because they have no idea why the young man from Pakistan would have been targeted or how he would have crossed paths with Syed.

The two men were from different Islamic backgrounds. Syed speaks Pashto and no English. Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, who was the son of an elementary school teacher, studied law and human resource management at the University of Punjab before coming to the U.S. in 2017.

“These questions are rattling in my mind,” the victim’s brother said. “If you punish him [Syed] for 10 years, 20, 30, 1,000 or a million years, how would I satisfy myself if I don’t know why he killed my brother? What happened to him? For me, for justice, we need to know why.”

Muhammad Afzaal Hussain was working as the city of Española’s planning and land use director after receiving a master’s degree from the University of New Mexico. During his time at UNM, he became a student leader and an advocate for the international community.

His colleagues and those in political circles described him as having a bright future. His brother said his goal was to open a school in their hometown in Pakistan so other children could be afforded a quality education.

Muhammad Imtiaz Hussain said that mission will continue.

“My brother died but we will aim to make more brothers and sisters like him who can inspire people, who work for the benefit of humanity, who help others, who raise their voice for others,” he said.

Source: Voice of America