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MELBOURNE, Australia — Air Vanuatu filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday a day after the South Pacific state-owned carrier cancelled all international flights, stranding thousands of travelers. The airline on Wednesday canceled more than 20 flights to and from the Australian cities of Sydney and Brisbane, and the New Zealand city of Auckland for the rest of the week. The airline said it was the result of "extended maintenance requirements" on their aircraft. Ernst & Young Australia's Morgan Kelly, Justin Walsh and Andrew Hanson were appointed liquidators in an equivalent of a U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the firm said in a statement. The liquidators said safety and maintenance checks would be made before normal operations resumed. Kelly said the airline's existing management team would remain in place. "Air Vanuatu is critical to the people of the Republic of Vanuatu and a strategically important business to the nation," Kelly said. "Our team is working closely with management to ensure continuity of service to customers and to ensure services continue as seamlessly as possible." "The outlook for the airline is positive, despite pressures on the broader industry, and we will be focused on securing the future of this strategically vital national carrier," he added. Affected travelers would be informed of this disruption and rebooked on flights as soon as operations resumed, the statement said. Air Vanuatu operates four planes, including one Boeing 737 and three turboprop planes. Tourism contributed 40% of Vanuatu's gross domestic product. The Vanuatu Tourism Office apologized to travelers for the disruption. "This is an evolving situation and we will continue to post updates," the office said in a statement. The office's chief executive Adela Issachar said the administrator was in discussions with Virgin Australia and Fiji Airways, airlines that currently service Vanuatu, about flying stranded passengers. "The updated schedule should be advised soon so we're all looking forward for that," Issachar told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Kelly said Air Vanuatu had been impacted by labor shortages, rising operating costs, elevated interest rates and tropical cyclones on tourist numbers in recent years. "We'll be looking at all options. And the Vanuatu government has indicated that they would prefer to resume operations as quickly as possible. Our role as voluntary liquidators will be to look at to assess all options to achieve that and make that sustainable," Kelly told reporters. "So that might involve some kind of sale process, it may involve some kind of partnership arrangement with another airline," Kelly added. Australian tourist Sally Witchalls said she and four friends had been checking out of their Port Vila hotel on Wednesday morning when they were told at reception that their Air Vanuatu flight would not fly that day. She has since discovered that her travel insurance did not cover an airline going into voluntary administration, as Air Vanuatu had done, or bankrupt. "We're now on our own working out how we pay for the accommodation from here on out while we wait to see how the situation with Air Vanuatu unfolds," Witchalls told ABC.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a U.S. threat to withhold some arms would not prevent Israel from continuing its offensive in Gaza, indicating it might proceed with an invasion of the packed city of Rafah against the wishes of its closest ally. The United States warned on Thursday that Israel will be dealing a strategic victory to Hamas if it carries out plans for an all-out assault on Rafah. We talk to University of California San Diego professor Michael Provence who teaches modern Middle East history, focusing on the 20th century Arab East. Displaced Palestinians are fleeing Rafah, fearing an Israeli ground offensive is imminent. And a girl born deaf can hear after breakthrough gene-therapy.

Washington — Tufail Dawar, a resident of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan, recounted a harrowing day on April 30 when he and his fellow villagers were trapped in their homes by gunfire outside. "We couldn't go out for the entire day as security forces and militants engaged in a fierce shootout during a military operation in our village," Dawar explained. During the crossfire, one of his cousins was injured and is currently receiving treatment in a local hospital. Resident of the restive tribal districts of Pakistan along the Afghan border and adjacent areas tell VOA Deewa that due to increasing military operations many areas have been declared no-go zones, restricting their daily mobility. "Our village has been declared a no-go zone by security forces and no development work is happening. There are no sources of livelihoods and many families have left the area due to military operations," Maulana Naqibullah Khan told VOA Deewa over the phone. Khan said that in the past three months locals had negotiated with the security forces to secure the release of nearly 60 residents who had been arrested after being accused of providing food and medical treatment to the militants. "The situation has deteriorated; we have seen helicopter shellings in December 2023, and the security forces operation continues. Locals have suffered property and human losses and we have held meetings, but it persists," said Muhammad Amin, a village council member in Kadera, a community of 900 homes in northwestern Pakistan. The Pakistani military says that army, police, intelligence and other law enforcement agencies are carrying out more than 100 operations daily against terrorism in the country. Major-General Ahmed Sharif, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s military, said during a live broadcast news conference Tuesday that security forces have conducted 13,135 small and major intelligence-based operations so far this year against terrorists and their facilitators, "during which 249 terrorists were sent to hell while 396 were arrested." VOA reached out to Pakistan military media wing Inter Services Public Relations official Brigadier Ghazanfar via WhatsApp seeking further details on the military operations in the region, but he has not responded. Asif Durrani, Pakistan's special representative for Afghanistan, told a gathering organized by the Institute of Regional Studies on Tuesday that there has been a 60% increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. Haq Nawaz, a Peshawar-based analyst, said Pakistan lacks a clear strategy to combat terrorism. "Pakistan has adopted both the dialogue and military operations strategy in the past, but terrorism is on the rise in Pakistan and Pakistan's military and political forces should work together to devise a new strategy," he said. The Center for Research and Securities Studies (CRSS), an Islamabad-based think tank tracking terrorism in Pakistan, has said that terror-related fatalities surged 17% in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the corresponding period in 2023. The report says 432 people were killed and 370 others were injured in the first three months in 245 attacks and military operations. The provincewise breakdown is not yet available, but CRSS says that 92% of the violence occurred in KP and Baluchistan. This story originated in VOA’s Deewa Service. 

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Washington — Seoul is mulling over sharing advanced military technology with the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia through what is known as AUKUS Pillar II, a move that would enhance its security capabilities at the risk of angering its powerful neighbor, China. AUKUS is a trilateral security partnership formed among Australia, the U.K. and U.S. in 2021 to push back against China’s growing aggression in the Indo-Pacific. The Pillar II of AUKUS aims to deliver and share advanced military technology among its partners, including hypersonic, artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber technology. Its Pillar I is designed to deliver nuclear-powered attack submarines to Australia. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, objected to the arrangement, telling VOA’s Korean Service on Monday, "Despite being called a ‘trilateral security partnership,’ AUKUS is essentially about fueling military confrontation through military collaboration." "It creates additional nuclear proliferation risks, exacerbates the arms race in the Asia-Pacific and hurts regional peace and stability. China is deeply concerned and firmly opposed to it," Pengyu said. He made the comments without naming South Korea. Seoul has not been admitted officially to AUKUS but talks about South Korea's inclusion in Pillar II were held between Seoul and Canberra earlier this month. On May 1, after a meeting with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles in Melbourne, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik told reporters that he had discussed with his Australian counterparts the possibility of joining AUKUS Pillar II. A U.S. Defense Department spokesperson told VOA’s Korean Service on May 2 that "AUKUS partners have developed principles and models for additional partner engagement." The spokesperson added that the U.S. "will undertake consultations in 2024 with prospective partners regarding areas where they can contribute to and benefit from this historic work." Talks about bringing Japan into Pillar II are even more advanced. Washington announced during a U.S.-Japan summit on April 10 that the three AUKUS partners are "considering cooperation with Japan on AUKUS Pillar II advanced capability projects." A day after talks with the South Korean defense minister, Marles met with the Japanese Defense Minister Kihara Minoru and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Hawaii where they reaffirmed their consideration for Japan’s involvement in Pillar II. A spokesperson for the British Defense Ministry told VOA’s Korean Service on May 2 that the U.K. "will continue to seek opportunities to engage allies and close partners as work on AUKUS Pillar 2 progresses, however, no decisions have been made on which countries, beyond Japan, we could collaborate with." The spokesperson said any decisions on bringing other states into the arrangement would be announced at an appropriate time. Terence Roehrig, a professor of national security and Korea expert at the U.S. Naval War College, said, "There is a strong possibility that South Korea will join AUKUS Pillar II" as it "has a solid reputation in developing advanced technologies" such as "semiconductors, AI, hypersonic, robotic, and unmanned systems." Roehrig continued, "No doubt, Beijing will protest Seoul’s inclusion," but "South Korea has much to gain from joining AUKUS, and if managed carefully, can reduce the risk of any major Chinese response." Melanie Hart, the China policy coordinator for Undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose Fernandez at the State Department, said the U.S. will do all it can to help South Korea if it is faced with a Chinese economic retaliation. She made the remark in an interview with South Korean media Yonhap earlier in the month. David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, said Seoul’s involvement in AUKUS fits into South Korea’s goal of becoming a global pivotal state and its alignment with countries supporting a rules-based international order. He said Beijing would expose "its own weakness and malign activities if it chooses to attack South Korea" economically and that Seoul should not base its decision on how China might respond. Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, agreed that Seoul would be a good fit for AUKUS. But, he said, "South Korea must have its main eye on North Korea" whereas AUKUS is focused on China. Therefore, he continued, "There are limitations to what could likely be expected in any tightening of the collaboration." An involvement in AUKUS would entail "significant cost-sharing," said James Przystup, senior fellow at Hudson Institute and Japan chair specializing alliance management in the Indo-Pacific. But both Seoul and Tokyo joining the Pillar II "is an idea whose time has come." 

washington — The Senate has passed a $105 billion bill designed to improve air safety and customer service for air travelers, a day before the law governing the Federal Aviation Administration expires.  The bipartisan bill, which comes after a series of close calls between planes at the nation's airports, would boost the number of air traffic controllers, improve safety standards and make it easier for customers to get refunds after flights are delayed or canceled.  The bill passed the Senate 88-4. The legislation now goes to the House, which is out of session until next week. The Senate is considering a one-week extension that would give the House time to pass the bill while ensuring the FAA isn't forced to furlough around 3,600 FAA employees.  The bill stalled for several days this week after senators from Virginia and Maryland objected to a provision that would allow an additional 10 flights a day to and from the heavily trafficked Reagan Washington National Airport. Other senators have tried to add unrelated provisions, as well, seeing it as a prime chance to enact their legislative priorities.  But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called a vote Thursday evening after it became clear that senators would not be able to agree on amendments to the bill before it expires. After the bill passed, leaders in both parties were still working out how to pass an extension and ensure the law does not expire on Friday. The House passed a one-week extension earlier this week.  The FAA has been under scrutiny since it approved Boeing jets that were involved in two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019. The Senate legislation would govern FAA operations for the next five years and put several new safety standards in place.  The bill would increase the number of air traffic controllers and require the FAA to use new technology designed to prevent collisions between planes on runways. It would require new airline planes to have cockpit voice recorders capable of saving 25 hours of audio, up from the current two hours, to help investigators.  It would also try to improve customer service for travelers by requiring airlines to pay a refund to customers for flight delays — three hours for a domestic flight and six for an international one.   In addition, the bill would prohibit airlines from charging extra for families to sit together and triple the maximum fines for airlines that violate consumer laws. And it would require the Transportation Department to create a "dashboard" so consumers can compare seat sizes on different airlines.  The FAA says that if the law expires on Friday, the 3,600 employees would be furloughed without a guarantee of back pay starting at midnight. The agency would also be unable to collect daily airport fees that help pay for operations, and ongoing airport improvements would come to a halt.  No one in "safety critical" positions — such as air traffic controllers — would be affected if the deadline is missed, the FAA says, and the safety of the flying public would not be at risk. 

washington — President Joe Biden on Thursday proposed a new regulation to expedite the asylum claims process for specific migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, but the plan drew objections from both immigrant advocates and administration critics. The order would target individuals with criminal backgrounds and those likely to be found ineligible for asylum for other reasons.   The proposed change would allow an asylum officer to decide whether someone qualifies for asylum during the initial screening at the border, rather than waiting months or years for a judge to decide. This would affect a small group of migrants who likely wouldn't qualify for asylum anyway. In a call with reporters on Thursday, a senior administration official from the Department of Homeland Security could not estimate how many people the proposed rule would affect but did say the rule would allow asylum officers to quickly decide that a given migrant poses a threat to national security or public safety and therefore does not qualify for asylum. “I think it's important that everybody understand that this really only applies to individuals who have a serious criminal history or who are, you know, linked to terrorist activity, and that's inherently a small fraction of the individuals that we encounter or interview on a given day,” the DHS official said. According to federal law, people who are considered dangerous to national security or public safety can't receive asylum. This includes those who have committed serious crimes, helped in persecuting others, or are a threat to the country's security. Currently, these individuals are detained while their asylum eligibility is determined. But the proposed rule allows asylum officers to make that determination during the credible-fear interview, earlier in the immigration process. The rule will be published Monday, and comments will be accepted for 30 days. Immigration officials expect the final rule to be issued this year. Reactions Immigration advocates worry that migrants, who often undergo these interviews right after dangerous journeys to the U.S., might not get a fair chance. They argue that the initial interviews should be more lenient to prevent wrongful deportations. They also question whether migrants in custody can get enough legal assistance to prepare for this crucial step in seeking asylum. The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Mark Green of the state of Tennessee, objected later Thursday that the administration’s proposal does not go far enough. "The proposed rule will only apply to illegal aliens who are believed to be either a national security or public safety threat," Green said. "The rule will not impact or reduce the millions of illegitimate asylum claims being filed by economic migrants." The Biden administration is between “a rock and a hard place,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School, in an email to VOA. "But the public is demanding immigration changes. The Biden administration seems damned if it tries to do anything to resolve the border crisis and damned if it doesn't,” he wrote. A sharp increase in the number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has presented a political crisis for Biden since the beginning of his administration. Many migrants come to the U.S. seeking better economic prospects or to escape violence. The Biden administration introduced strict asylum measures in 2023 and is trying to address the causes of migration. Biden asked Vice President Kamala Harris to spearhead a "root causes" strategy at the beginning of his presidency, banking heavily on using American investments to improve living conditions in three Central American nations known as the Northern Triangle: Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.  

Porto Alegre, Brazil — Teams raced against the clock Thursday to deliver aid to flood-stricken communities in southern Brazil before the arrival of new storms forecast to batter the region once again. About 400 municipalities have been affected by the worst natural calamity ever to hit the state of Rio Grande do Sul, with at least 107 people dead and hundreds more injured. More than 164,000 people have been forced from their homes in the state capital Porto Alegre, a city of some 1.4 million people, and hundreds of other cities and towns. Many in the region have no access to drinking water or electricity, or even the means to call for help, with telephone and internet services down. At least 134 people were reported missing and nearly 1.7 million have suffered damage in flooding that government and experts have linked to climate change. On Thursday, rescuers in boats and on jet skis were traveling streets turned into rivers, looking for people trapped in their homes or those reluctant to leave for fear of looting. In the town of Canoas outside the state capital, a horse was hauled from a rooftop by rescuers in inflatable boats, according to images on local media. The state's Guaiba River, which runs through Porto Alegre, reached historic levels this week, and officials have warned five dams were at risk of rupturing. "The focus is still on rescues ... but we are working very hard on delivering humanitarian aid," Sabrina Ribas, a spokesperson for the civil defense force that handles disaster relief, told journalists. These efforts may be hindered in the coming days, she added, given warnings of new downpours from Friday to Sunday. In a sports complex in downtown Porto Alegre, a makeshift shelter accommodated 450 people on mattresses scattered around the floor, as well as a few dozen dogs and a small pig. "The solidarity is impressive," school director Resplande de Sa, 57, told AFP at a donation center as volunteers sorted through bedding, clothes and diapers. Several prisons have sought federal assistance after being left without potable water, according to the non-governmental Criminal Justice Network. At one jail, prisoners had to be moved to higher floors as floodwaters entered the complex. The disaster has damaged more than 60,000 homes and devastated the economy of the largely agricultural state, which normally supplies more than two-thirds of the rice consumed in Brazil. The federal government said Thursday it would set aside $10 billion for reconstruction of the region. And the Inter-American Development Bank pledged $1.1 billion for infrastructure rebuilding, support to businesses and measures to help people keep their jobs.  The Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro was lit up Wednesday night in homage to the victims, with a message appealing for more donations.  Help arrived from outside Brazil as well.  Pope Francis sent $107,000 to help care for evacuees, and tycoon Elon Musk said his Starlink satellite company will donate 1,000 terminals to emergency responders "and make usage for all terminals ... free until the region has recovered."  Only two of Porto Alegre's six water treatment plants were functioning, the mayor's office said earlier this week, and hospitals and shelters were being supplied by tankers.  The federal government, meanwhile, said it would import 200,000 tons of rice to guarantee supplies and preempt price speculation.  

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

The first shipment of humanitarian aid bound for a U.S.-built pier in Gaza left a port in Cyprus on Thursday on the U.S. container ship Sagamore. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb reports the aid is desperately needed as the Rafah border crossing remains closed by Israeli forces.

N'DJAMENA, Chad — Chad's state election body said on Thursday interim President Mahamat Idriss Deby had won the May 6 presidential election outright with more than 61% of the vote, citing provisional results, even as his main challenger declared himself the winner. Chad's junta has become the first of the coup-hit countries in West and Central Africa to stage a return to constitutional rule via the ballot box, but some opposition parties have cried foul over vote-rigging concerns. With tensions running high, large numbers of security forces deployed at major intersections in the capital, N'Djamena, ahead of the results announcement. National Election Management Agency chief Ahmed Bartichet said Deby had secured 61.3% of the vote, comfortably more than the 50% needed to avoid a runoff. He said Deby's prime minister and top opposition candidate Succes Masra, 40, had won 18.53%. Just before the ceremony, Masra claimed victory in a live broadcast on Facebook and called on security forces and his supporters to oppose what he called an attempt to steal the vote. "A small number of individuals believe they can make people believe that the election was won by the same system that has been ruling Chad for decades," he said. "To all Chadians who voted for change, who voted for me, I say: mobilize. Do it calmly, with a spirit of peace," he said. What happens next is unclear. While Masra drew larger-than-expected crowds on the campaign trail, analysts had widely predicted that the victor would be Deby, who seized power when rebels killed his long-ruling father, Idriss Deby, in April 2021. "Post-election protests are possible, though the threat of police repression could dissuade many people from taking to the streets," Crisis Group experts said ahead of the vote. The election is being closely watched from abroad. While other juntas in the insurgency-torn Sahel region, including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, have told Paris and other Western powers to withdraw and turned to Moscow for support, Chad remains the last Sahel state with a substantial French military presence. Security and the economy have been key campaign issues. One of the world's least-developed countries, Chad's meagre resources have been stretched thinner by multiple shocks including climate change-fueled heatwaves and a refugee crisis linked to the civil war in Sudan. 

belgrade, serbia — Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Serbia this week brought out a crowd waving Serbian and Chinese flags and praising the "ironclad" friendship of two countries. Elsewhere in the West, it raised many questions about Serbia's future role in Europe.  Analysts say that was exactly the idea. At a time of global rivalry between Beijing and Washington, the messages Xi delivered from Belgrade appeared aimed at a much wider audience.  Xi and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic signed a number of bilateral agreements on Wednesday, which followed the 25th anniversary of NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO's 1999 campaign to halt the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. The U.S. apologized for that action, calling it "a mistake."  David Shullman, an expert on China with the Washington-based Atlantic Council, told VOA that Xi's arrival in Belgrade on the May 7 anniversary was aimed at sending a broader message in the context of the war in Ukraine: that China is not a "warmonger" like the U.S. and NATO.  Chinese messaging, Shullman said, "parrots Russia's messaging about the war in Ukraine, about not putting a blame on Russia, but putting a blame on the U.S., NATO for 'fanning the flames' of the war, continuing to support the Ukrainians, and that China is the one that's the force for peace and stability. …   "There is an awareness in the Chinese system [that] this is a key binding point between China and Serbia, and it fits into that message that China has been pushing about NATO and the U.S."  China's president referred to the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in an op-ed published Tuesday in Serbia's pro-government newspaper Politika: "The people of China value peace, but they will never allow a historical tragedy to happen again."   Paul McCarthy, director for Europe at the International Republican Institute in Washington, agreed that the timing of Xi's visit was no accident.  "I think that Xi's entire visit to Europe was organized around the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing," he said. "It is too symbolic an opportunity for the Chinese to miss and underlines, so to speak, the position of Serbia and the strategic disagreement with the West that has been going on for 25 years."  Xi and Vucic signed a statement on the two countries' "shared future," which the Serbian president described as being a level above the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership the two countries agreed to in 2016.  According to the Atlantic Council's Shullman, Xi has often used the phrase "shared future" to indicate he wants a new balance of power in the world.  "The story of a shared future is how China wants to establish a global order that is less U.S.-led, that is multipolar, that is a more 'democratic' international order — as the Chinese say," he said.  "In essence, it is an order that is no longer led by the U.S. and in which China plays a more significant role."  He added: "The fact that Serbia is spoken of as the first European country that will be part of the community and 'common future' shows that for Chinese leaders, especially Xi, Serbia is of great importance ... as an economic partner and as a country that is a candidate for the EU."  In addition, Xi's visit to Serbia signaled to Washington that China has reliable partners in Europe and that the U.S. "will not be able to completely win over Europe to its side."   China owns mines and factories across Serbia and has provided billions of dollars' worth of funding for roads, bridges and various facilities, becoming Serbia's key partner in much-needed infrastructure development.   Still, some experts say the future of cooperation between Belgrade and Beijing is uncertain, given the complicated relations between the U.S. and China.  Vuk Vuksanovic, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, told VOA that broadening cooperation between Serbia and China from a strategic partnership to the level of "building a community of Serbia and China with a common future in the new era" is little more than a diplomatic game that suits both governments at the moment.  He added that the future relationship depends much more on Beijing than on Belgrade.   "The previous strategic partnership agreement was a joint statement from 2009 that had warm rhetoric but did not actually bring about any monumental transformation of those relations," he said.  "And that was until the moment when China showed greater interest in the Balkans due to the Belt and Road Initiative," a massive, Chinese-led global infrastructure development strategy. "I think the key question for the U.S. will be whether that cooperation will include some major project in the field of defense and high technology."  The International Republican Institute's McCarthy said it is unclear how the agreements between Serbia and China and the plans for a "common future" will affect Serbia's relationship with the West.  Still, he noted, a free-trade agreement between China and Serbia that comes into force in July "turns Serbia more towards the East," raising the question of "how serious is Serbia on its European path."  He added: "I have to say that, from Washington's perspective, they might feel like they're losing the battle for Serbia's heart, so to speak."  This article originated in VOA’s Serbian Service with contributions from Dino Jahic, Marko Protic and Stefan Miljus.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

islamabad — At least four people were reported killed on Thursday during clashes between protesters and Taliban security forces in eastern Afghanistan. Residents in Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan, held a demonstration after being told by Taliban authorities to vacate their homes for the construction of a customs clearing facility, according to witnesses and officials. Protesters blocked a busy highway linking Afghanistan to Pakistan and refused to allow the destruction of their properties. Taliban security forces fired gunshots to disperse the crowd and clear the highway to allow trade convoys to resume their journey in both directions, eyewitnesses reported. An area information and culture department spokesperson confirmed the clashes, saying residents "created chaos in response" to the official order. Arafat Mohajer said that the violence resulted in the death of a Taliban officer and "a number of people who were occupying the [state[ land [illegally]." He did not share further details. Protesters refuted the official claims, saying they had the deeds and owned the land. A resident in Jalalabad, the provincial capital, confirmed to VOA by phone that firing by Taliban security forces killed three protesters. The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan three years ago and faced no public opposition to their hard-line policies until this month. Last week, farmers and residents took to the streets in northeastern Badakhshan province to protest the eradication of poppy fields by the Taliban counternarcotics units. Security forces opened fire to disperse the demonstrators, killing two people. Hibatullah Akhundzada, the reclusive Taliban supreme leader, has imposed a nationwide ban on poppy cultivation and production, usage, transportation and trade of all illicit drugs in Afghanistan. Some information for this report came from AFP.