Feed aggregator

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan strongly objected Wednesday to a U.S. congressional resolution calling for an investigation into interference and fraud allegations related to Pakistan’s February 8 parliamentary elections. “We believe that the timing and context of this particular resolution does not align well with the positive dynamics of our bilateral ties,” said the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad. The statement said the resolution “stems from an incomplete understanding of the political situation and electoral process” in Pakistan. The rebuke came a day after the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted (368-7) to approve a resolution urging “the full and independent investigation of claims of interference or irregularities” in Pakistan’s election. The U.S. lawmakers also condemned what they described as “attempts to suppress” participation of Pakistanis in their democracy “through harassment, intimidation, violence, arbitrary detention, restrictions on access to the internet and telecommunications.” In its response, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry stated that Islamabad was committed to “the values of constitutionalism, human rights, and the rule of law in pursuance of our own national interest.” It urged the U.S. Congress to play its role in strengthening bilateral relations and mutual collaboration benefiting both countries. “We believe in constructive dialogue and engagement based on mutual respect and understanding. Such resolutions are, therefore, neither constructive nor objective.” Khawaja Asif, the Pakistani defense minister, also went on social media platform X to criticize the U.S. lawmakers’ call for an impartial election probe. “This is from the country that spent the 20th century overthrowing democratically elected governments, and currently facilitating the Palestinian genocide,” Asif wrote. “Let’s look at their history of irregularities in 2016 & 2020 elections, both Democrats and Republicans accused of foreign intervention and rigging, how about asking U.N. for probe.” U.S. State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller declined to comment specifically on the resolution while addressing a regular news conference in Washington. “Our most senior officials, including Secretary [of State] Antony Blinken and Ambassador Donald Blome [in Islamabad], have consistently, both privately and publicly, urged Pakistan to respect the rights of its people and live with its constitutional and international obligations,” Miller said. “We continuously urge the government of Pakistan to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly, religion, as well as the rights of marginalized populations such as women and religious minorities,” he said. Analysts, such as Washington-based Michael Kugelman, said the resolution would not have much impact on U.S. policy toward Pakistan, noting that the Biden administration already has called for an investigation into charges of election irregularities. “But the vote does raise questions about what additional legislation we could see re Pakistan,” Kugelman, the South Asia Institute director at the Wilson Center, wrote on X. “What really stands out for me is the margin of the vote, and the number of Members that voted. 85% of House members voted on it, and 98% voted in favor of the resolution. This is quite significant.” Pakistani authorities have vehemently defended the February 8 vote and its outcome. Opposition parties and independent domestic and foreign observers, however, have complained of nationwide mobile phone and internet shutdowns on the polling day, unusually delayed results, and a state crackdown against jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party in the run-up to the election. Khan, who has been in jail since last August on controversial graft charges, was convicted in several other cases just days before election day in an apparent bid to keep him from contesting or campaigning. His Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party was blocked from using its iconic cricket bat symbol on ballot papers in a country where symbols are important to help illiterate voters, in particular, identify which party to vote for. Despite the crackdown, legal setbacks and alleged military-plotted vote rigging by election authorities, independent candidates backed by Khan’s PTI won the most seats in the 342-seat National Assembly but were short of a simple majority. That enabled rival Pakistan Muslim League-N, or PML-N, and the Pakistan Peoples Party, or PPP, to form a coalition government with the backing of the military. The PML-N leader, Shehbaz Sharif, became the prime minister. Khan has since been forcefully raising the electoral fraud issue in statements from his prison cell. PTI leaders at news conferences have persistently stated their party was on the way to sweeping the elections but its mandate was stolen. “Washington already had been uneasy for months, frustrated, since brazen electoral fraud in Pakistan, and it looked like the regime in Pakistan mistook their silence as approval,” the PTI stated in its response to Tuesday’s U.S. congressional resolution. The victory of PTI-linked candidates surprised observers and was seen as a landmark upset in Pakistan, where political success has long been tied to the military's backing. Khan, a cricket star turned prime minister, was removed from power in a vote of no confidence in April 2022. The 71-year-old politician dismissed the move as illegal and plotted by the military. Pakistan’s military has ousted democratically elected governments through several coups and has ruled the country for more than three decades since it gained independence in 1947.

TUCSON, Arizona — Arrests for illegal border crossings have dropped more than 40% during the three weeks that asylum processing has been suspended, the Homeland Security Department said Wednesday.  The announcement comes just one day before President Joe Biden is set to debate former President and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in what is expected to be a crucial moment in the election campaign.  Biden is considered especially vulnerable with voters when it comes to immigration. Trump has hammered him repeatedly on border security by painting a picture of the border as out of control and migrants as a threat to the nation's security and economy.  Biden has both sought to crack down on new arrivals at the border and to offer new immigration pathways.  The restrictions he announced at the beginning of June cut off asylum access when arrivals at the border reached a certain number, infuriating immigration advocates who say the policy differs little from what Trump attempted. Then a few weeks later Biden announced a new program aimed at undocumented spouses of American citizens who had been in the country for a decade or more that could ultimately provide them a pathway to citizenship.  The figures announced Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security show that the Border Patrol's average daily arrests over a seven-day period have fallen below 2,400, down more than 40% from before Biden's proclamation took effect June 5. That's still above the 1,500 mark needed to resume asylum processing, but Homeland Security says it marks the lowest number since Jan. 17, 2021, just before Biden took office. Last week, Customs and Border Protection said in its monthly release of statistics that border arrests had fallen 25% since Biden's order took effect, indicating they have decreased much more since then.  The monthly data releases are a closely watched metric of border security and how many people are coming to the southern border of the U.S. The numbers reached a record high last December before falling roughly in half in January and staying in that range throughout the spring. A large part of that decrease was believed to be due to Mexican enforcement on its side of the border.  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was to address reporters Wednesday in Tucson, Arizona, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings during much of the last year. U.S. authorities say the seven-day daily average of arrests in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector was just under 600 on Tuesday, down from just under 1,200 on June 2.  Speaking to MSNBC/Morning Joe on Wednesday, Mayorkas said the numbers were moving in the right direction and lauded the agency's staff. But he also noted that opponents have sued to stop the restrictions.  "We are conducting more removal flights than ever before. We are moving people through the system and those who do not qualify are being removed or returned more rapidly. It's a remarkable feat that our personnel have accomplished in just such a short period of time. It's really important to remember though that the president's executive action is being challenged in the court," Mayorkas said.  Under the asylum suspension, which takes effect when daily arrests are above 2,500, anyone who expresses fear or an intention to seek asylum is screened by a U.S. asylum officer but at a higher standard than currently used. If they pass the screening, they can pursue more limited forms of humanitarian protection than asylum, including the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

BAMAKO, Mali — Opposition politicians who were arrested in Mali were sent to prisons across the country this week, their families said, in a move rights groups decried as another step back for the country where the ruling junta has suspended all political activities. Mali, a landlocked nation in the semiarid region of the Sahel, has been embroiled in political instability that swept across West and Central Africa over the last decade. The nation has seen two military coups since 2020 as an insurgency by jihadi groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group worsened. The junta has ruled the country with an iron fist, and earlier this year it suspended all political activities. The 11 opposition politicians were arrested earlier this month during a meeting in a private residence, the Malian National Human Rights Commission, a government agency, said in a statement. The commission denounced what it called "arbitrary arrests" and "violations of private homes." A family member of one the detainees said Wednesday that they were divided into two groups, one sent to Koulikoro prison, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Bamako, and the other to a new prison 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Bamako. The family member spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions from authorities. The dissidents are held on charges of attacks and conspiracy against the government, opposition to legitimate authority and breach of public order, but they haven't been tried yet, a judicial official said. Ousmane Diallo, Dakar-based researcher on the Sahel region at rights group Amnesty International, said the arrests demonstrated "the pattern of abuse of civil and political rights" in Mali since February. "We denounce the crackdown on the opposition politicians in Mali, the dissolution of political parties and suspension of all political activities," Diallo said. "We denounce how the security and intelligence services and sheer force have been used to clamp down on any possibility for Malian citizens to share their political views." In April, the junta issued a decree suspending all activities by political parties and "associations of political nature" in the name of maintaining public order. The political parties appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, but it is not clear when the appeal would be considered. It's becoming increasingly perilous to express dissatisfaction with the Malian authorities, experts said, with those who dare to speak out risking arrest. Journalists and activists have also disappeared, only to return later, while many media correspondents have left Mali because they were not allowed to work. The junta is driving the country toward "a political impasse," said Alioune Tine, the founder of research organization AfrikaJom Center and a U.N. expert on human rights in Mali. "The complex security crisis can be resolved by bringing Malians together, respecting political and democratic pluralism, but not by the dogmatic use of repression against all political dissent." Earlier this month, a coalition of political parties opposed to the junta, Appel du 31 Mars, called on citizens to demonstrate against the shortage of electricity in Bamako and the high living costs, and to demand a return of constitutional order. Only one person showed up to cover the event — Yeri Bocoum, a young social media activist. The next day, Bocoum wrote on Facebook that he was being followed by unidentified men and threatened. A day later, on June 8, as he was leaving his house in the city of Kati, the junta's stronghold, he was kidnapped. "He left his house at 2 p.m. on June 8, and a few hundred meters away, armed men arrested him and asked local people watching the scene to go back into their homes and close their doors," his sister, Kadidia Bocoum, told The Associated Press. "The men who kidnapped him took him and his car away." The family reached out to the authorities but has not heard from him since, Bocoum said.

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.

New Delhi — Mushrat Parveen, a resident of a low-income neighborhood in the Indian capital, New Delhi, perches atop a tanker truck delivering water to her neighborhood to escape the chaos that ensues. “Everyone keeps fighting for water, so I climb on top and use a pipe to make sure I fill two or three buckets. Then I help others,” says Parveen, who in recent weeks has been spending about two hours daily first waiting for the truck, then filling containers and lugging them home. As taps in urban slums and working-class areas in Delhi run virtually dry, millions have been depending on water ferried by government tankers. It is not the only Indian megacity running low on water. Two months ago, a similar crisis afflicted India’s information technology hub, Bengaluru. Water shortages are not new in urban India — the scramble for water in low-income areas has been a familiar scene during summer months for many years. But they have been worsening. Amid a weekslong, searing heat wave that gripped Delhi, the city became so parched this season that police were deployed to guard water pipes. New Delhi’s water minister, Atishi, recently staged a hunger strike for four days, alleging that the neighboring Haryana state was not providing the city its share of water from the Yamuna river that runs through both places, resulting in acute scarcity. "There are 2.8 million people in the city who are aching for just a drop of water,” she said. Her worsening health forced her to call off the protest on Tuesday. Political disputes over sharing of water from common rivers have often erupted when shortages intensify. Experts say rapid urbanization is exacerbating a problem that has been building in recent years. “What’s happened is that most Indian cities have grown so fast that the water supply networks have not kept up with the rate of growth. Its unprecedented crazy growth,” said Veena Srinivasan, executive director with non-profit WELL Labs. The populations of Delhi and Bengaluru have more than tripled in about three decades. Delhi is now home to nearly 20 million people while Bengaluru’s population is estimated at 14 million. These cities have become home to upscale commercial hubs and industries as India’s economy booms, requiring more quality, fresh water. As a result, lakes and rivers harnessed to provide water have been shrinking and ground water levels plummeting. A 2018 government report said that nearly 600 million people in the country are facing high to extreme “water stress.” That adds more than 40% of the country’s population. While upscale neighborhoods in Delhi face virtually no scarcity of clean water, experts say slums are the most parched areas in the city. “In some places especially the lower socioeconomic areas, we find that water availability is as low as 35 to 40 liters per capita per day. So, the distribution of water is iniquitous. On top, climate change comes as a force multiplier,” said Anjal Prakash, research director at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy. He says lack of investment in infrastructure such as water pipes and storage tanks has made the problem worse. “We have done some patchwork, but we have not done an integrated analysis of how this should be running. Delhi, for example, the leakage from the water infrastructure is about 58%.” While India is a water-stressed country, the severe shortages cannot just be blamed on a shortfall of water, according to experts. Pointing to poor water management, they say authorities have not paid enough attention to strategies such as recycling wastewater or rainwater harvesting that would help conserve monsoon rains. Experts say low water tariffs charged in India have also discouraged sufficient investment in schemes that could augment supplies. “If water is free most of the time, the incentive to invest in good technology to really treat water, the incentive to harvest every last drop of rainwater, simply is not there, because it is not seen as a precious resource that is scarce. That remains a problem we have to grapple with in urban India,” points out Srinivasan. For many Delhi residents, lives are upended by the water crisis every summer. Elderly residents like 82-year-old Kamlesh Devi say they cannot cope with the elbowing and shoving that ensues when tankers arrive. “Four to six people come from one household and corner many buckets. Some of us keep standing. If we object, a scuffle ensues,” she says as she carries back two small containers that she will keep aside for drinking. Ayesha Khatun, a diabetes patient relies on her family members to fetch water for cooking and cleaning because she cannot carry the buckets. “Our work gets affected. My husband sometimes loses a day’s work. My daughter has to skip school,” says Khatun. “And it is common for people to get hurt during the scuffles while filling water.” With heat waves and water shortages likely to worsen, the situation in urban India could become grimmer, experts warn.

As Tehran ramps up attacks on the diaspora news outlet Iran International, lawyers are working with U.S. officials to push back. From Washington, VOA’s Liam Scott has the story. Videographer: Adam Greenbaum.

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.

Washington — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.  By a 6-3 vote, the justices threw out lower-court rulings that favored Louisiana, Missouri and other parties in their claims that officials in the Democratic administration leaned on the social media platforms to unconstitutionally squelch conservative points of view.  Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court that the states and other parties did not have the legal right, or standing, to sue.  Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented.  The case is among several before the court this term that affect social media companies in the context of free speech. In February, the court heard arguments over Republican-passed laws in Florida and Texas that prohibit large social media companies from taking down posts because of the views they express. In March, the court laid out standards for when public officials can block their social media followers.  The cases over state laws and the one that was decided Wednesday are variations on the same theme, complaints that the platforms are censoring conservative viewpoints.  The states had argued that White House communications staffers, the surgeon general, the FBI and the U.S. cybersecurity agency are among those who applied "unrelenting pressure" to coerce changes in online content on social media platforms.  But the justices appeared broadly skeptical of those claims during arguments in March and several worried that common interactions between government officials and the platforms could be affected by a ruling for the states.  The Biden administration underscored those concerns when it noted that the government would lose its ability to communicate with the social media companies about antisemitic and anti-Muslim posts, as well as on issues of national security, public health and election integrity.  The Supreme Court had earlier acted to keep the lower-court rulings on hold. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas would have allowed the restrictions on government contacts with the platforms to go into effect.  Free speech advocates had urged the court to use the case to draw an appropriate line between the government's acceptable use of the bully pulpit and coercive threats to free speech.  A panel of three judges on the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled earlier that the Biden administration had probably brought unconstitutional pressure on the media platforms. The appellate panel said officials cannot attempt to "coerce or significantly encourage" changes in online content. The panel had previously narrowed a more sweeping order from a federal judge, who wanted to include even more government officials and prohibit mere encouragement of content changes.  The case is Murthy v. Missouri, 23-411. 

After more than three decades, Egypt has increased the fixed price of subsidized bread from 0.05 Egyptian pounds ($0.0010) a loaf to 0.20 Egyptian pounds ($0.0042). With record levels of inflation already straining the Egyptian people — the majority of whom rely upon the discounted dietary staple — Cairo-based photojournalist Hamada Elrasam turns his lens on bakeries and their customers amid the 300% price hike. Captions by Elle Kurancid.

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.

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.

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.