OIC countries pledge fund to stave off Afghanistan ‘chaos’

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Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks during the extraordinary session of Organization of Islamic Cooperation Council of Foreign Ministers, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 19, 2021. (AP)
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Updated 20 December 2021
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OIC countries pledge fund to stave off Afghanistan ‘chaos’

  • The trust fund will be set up under the aegis of the Islamic Development Bank
  • “Unless action is taken immediately, Afghanistan is heading for chaos,” Imran Khan told an OIC meeting

ISLAMABAD: Muslim nations pledged on Sunday to set up a fund to help Afghanistan avert an imminent economic collapse they say would have a “horrendous” global impact.

At a special meeting in Pakistan of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), delegates also resolved to work with the United Nations to try to unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Afghan assets.

The promised fund will provide humanitarian aid through the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), which would provide a cover for countries to donate without dealing directly with the country’s Taliban rulers. 

An OIC resolution released after the meeting said the IDB would lead the effort to free up assistance by the first quarter of next year.

The meeting was the biggest conference on Afghanistan since the US-backed government fell in August and the Taliban returned to power.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan earlier warned of chaos if the worsening emergency was not urgently addressed.

“Unless action is taken immediately, Afghanistan is heading for chaos,” Khan told he meeting of OIC foreign ministers in Islamabad.

The crisis is causing mounting alarm but the international response has been muted, given Western reluctance to help the Taliban government, which seized power in August.

Billions of dollars in aid and assets have been frozen by the international community, and the nation is in the middle of a bitter winter.eKhan directed his remarks to the US, urging Washington to drop preconditions for releasing desperately needed funds and restarting Afghanistan’s banking systems.

“I speak to the United States specifically that they must delink the Afghanistan government from the 40 million Afghan citizens,” he said, “even if they have been in conflict with the Taliban for 20 years.”

He also urged caution in linking recognition of the new government to Western ideals of human rights.

“Every country is different... every society’s idea of human rights is different,” he said.

 

Engaging the Taliban

The OIC also resolved Sunday to arrange for a team of international Muslim scholars to engage with the Taliban on issues “such as, but not limited to, tolerance and moderation in Islam, equal access to education and women’s rights in Islam.”

No nation has yet formally recognized the Taliban government and diplomats face the delicate task of channelling aid to the stricken Afghan economy without propping up the hard-line Islamists.

It also urged Afghanistan’s rulers to abide by “obligations under international human rights covenants, especially with regards to the rights of women, children, youth, elderly and people with special needs.”

Pakistan Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the deepening crisis could bring mass hunger, a flood of refugees and a rise in extremism.

“We cannot ignore the danger of complete economic meltdown,” he told the gathering, which also included Taliban foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi alongside delegates from the United States, China, Russia, the European Union and UN.

Although the Taliban have promised a lighter version of the hard-line rule that characterized their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001, women are largely excluded from government employment, and secondary schools for girls have mostly remained shuttered.

Asked if the OIC had pressed the Taliban to be more inclusive on issues such as women’s rights, Qureshi said “obviously they feel they are moving in that direction.”

“They are saying ‘let us decide in our own time’,” he added.

The OIC meeting did not give the new Taliban government the formal international recognition it desperately craves and the new regime’s foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi was excluded from the official photograph taken during the event.

Muttaqi told reporters, however, that his government “has the right to be officially recognized.”

The 31-point OIC resolution was short on specifics and gave no figure for financial assistance.

“There are many who want to donate but do not want to donate directly, they want some mechanism that they are comfortable with,” said Qureshi.

“This mechanism has been devised, and pledges will now be made. Obviously, they are aware of the importance of time.”

The meeting was held under tight security, with Islamabad on lockdown, ring-fenced with barbed wire barriers and shipping-container roadblocks where police and soldiers are standing guard.

'Donations alone are not enough'

Martin Griffiths, the UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, warned that Afghanistan cannot survive on donations alone. He urged donor countries to show flexibility, allowing their money to pay salaries of public sector workers and support “basic services such as health, education, electricity, livelihoods, to allow the people of Afghanistan some chance to get through this winter and some encouragement to remain home with their families.”

Beyond that, Griffiths said, “we need constructive engagement with the de facto authorities to clarify what we expect from each other.”

Afghanistan’s teetering economy, he added, requires decisive and compassionate action, or “I fear that this fall will pull down the entire population.”

Griffiths said families simply do not have the cash for everyday purchases like food and fuel, as prices soar. The cost of fuel is up by around 40 percent, and most families spend 80 percent of their money just to buy food.

He rattled off a number of stark statistics.

“Universal poverty may reach 97 percent of the population of Afghanistan. That could be the next grim milestone,” he warned. “Within a year, 30 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP (gross domestic product) could be lost altogether, while male unemployment may double to 29 percent.”

Next year the UN would be asking for $4.5 billion in aid for Afghanistan — it’s single largest humanitarian aid request, he said.

In what appeared to be a message to the Taliban delegation, Qureshi and subsequent speakers, including Taha, emphasized the protection of human rights, particularly those of women and girls.

In an interview with The Associated Press last week, Muttaqi said that Afghanistan’s new rulers were committed to the education of girls and women in the workforce.

Yet four months into Taliban rule, girls are not allowed to attend high school in most provinces, and though women have returned to their jobs in much of the health care sector, many female civil servants have been barred from coming to work.

At the summit’s conclusion Qureshi said the OIC agreed to appoint a special representative on Afghanistan. The 20 foreign ministers and 10 deputy foreign ministers in attendance also agreed to establish a greater partnership with the United Nations to get help to desperate Afghans.

They participants also emphasized the critical need to open Afghanistan’s banking facilities, which have been largely closed since the Taliban takeover on Aug. 15. The Taliban has limited withdrawals from the country’s banks to $200 a month.

“We collectively feel that we have to unlock the financial and banking channels because the economy cannot function and people cannot be held without banking services,” Qureshi said.

(With agencies)


More than 20 civilians killed in Myanmar air strike on monastery: witnesses

Updated 9 sec ago
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More than 20 civilians killed in Myanmar air strike on monastery: witnesses

  • Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military ousted a democratic government in 2021
  • A local resident confirmed that the Buddhist monastery hall was ‘completely destroyed’
BANGKOK: More than 20 civilians, including children, were killed after a recent air strike on a monastery in central Myanmar, an anti-junta fighter and a resident said Saturday.
Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military ousted a democratic government in 2021, and central Sagaing region has been particularly hard-hit, with the junta pummeling villages with air strikes targeting armed groups.
The most recent occurred around 1:00 am Friday in Lin Ta Lu village when “the monastery hall where internally displaced people were staying” was hit with an air strike, said an anti-junta fighter, who requested anonymity for safety reasons.
He said that 22 people were killed, including three children, while two were wounded and remained in critical condition at the hospital.
“They had thought it was safe to stay at a Buddhist monastery,” the anti-junta fighter said. “But they were bombed anyway.”
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
A local resident confirmed that the monastery hall was “completely destroyed,” adding that he saw some bodies loaded into a car and transported to a cemetery at dawn on Friday after the air strike.
He said when he went to the cemetery to take photos to help with identifying the dead, he counted 22 bodies.
“Many of the bodies had head wounds or were torn apart. It was sad to see,” said the resident, who also asked to remain anonymous.
Sagaing region was the epicenter of a devastating magnitude-7.7 quake in March, which left nearly 3,800 people dead and tens of thousands homeless.
After the quake, there was a purported truce between the junta and armed groups, but air strikes and fighting have continued, according to conflict monitors.
In May, an air strike on a school in the village of Oe Htein Kwin in Sagaing killed 20 students and two teachers.

Russia’s drones and missile barrage targets Ukraine’s west, kills two

Updated 52 min 20 sec ago
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Russia’s drones and missile barrage targets Ukraine’s west, kills two

  • Western Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Lutsk, and Chernivtsi suffered the most due to the Russian attacks

KYIV: Russia launched a new barrage of drones and missiles in an overnight attack on Ukraine on Saturday, targeting the west of the country and killing at least two people in the city of Chernivtsi on the border with Romania.

Western Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Lutsk, and Chernivtsi suffered the most due to the Russian attacks, and other Ukrainian regions were also hit, Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said.

“Russia continues to escalate its terror, launching another barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles, damaging residential areas, killing and injuring civilians,” Sybiha said in a post on X, reiterating the call for stronger sanctions against Moscow.

“Russia’s war machine produces hundreds of means of terror per day.

Its scale poses a threat not only to Ukraine, but to the entire transatlantic community.” Ruslan Zaparaniuk, the governor of the Chernivetskyi region, said that two people were killed and 14 others wounded as Russian drones and a missile struck the city, located about 40 kilometers from Ukraine’s border with Romania.

Several fires broke out across the city, and residential houses and administrative buildings were damaged, regional officials said.

In the city of Lviv, on Ukraine’s border with Poland, 46 residential houses, a university building, the city’s courts, and about 20 buildings housing small and medium-sized businesses were damaged in the attack, mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.


Taiwan deploys advanced US HIMARS rockets in annual drills

Updated 12 July 2025
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Taiwan deploys advanced US HIMARS rockets in annual drills

  • Two armored trucks with HIMARS were seen maneuvering around the city of Taichung
  • Deployment of weapons on fourth of 10 days of Taiwan’s most comprehensive annual exercises yet

TAICHUNG, Taiwan: Taiwan’s military began deploying one of its newest and most precise strike weapons on Saturday, ahead of live-fire drills meant to showcase the island’s determination to resist any Chinese invasion.

Two armored trucks with HIMARS – High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems – were seen maneuvering around the city of Taichung near Taiwan’s central coast on the fourth of 10 days of its most comprehensive annual exercises yet.

The live-fire portion of the Han Kuang drills is expected next week.

In wartime, said Col. Chen Lian-jia, a military spokesperson, it would be vital to conceal HIMARS from enemy aerial reconnaissance, satellites “or even enemy operatives behind our lines” until the order to fire was given.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own and has intensified military pressure around the island over the last five years, staging a string of intense war games and daily naval and air force patrols around the territory.

Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims, with President Lai Ching-te saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

China’s defense ministry said this week the Han Kuang drills were “nothing but a bluff” while its foreign ministry said its opposition to US-Taiwan military ties was “consistent and very firm.”

Regional military attaches say the HIMARS deployment in a warlike exercise will be closely watched, given that they have been used extensively by Ukraine against Russian forces. Australia has also purchased the Lockheed Martin systems. Taiwan took delivery last year of the first 11 of 29 HIMARS units, testing them for the first time in May. With a range of about 300 kilometers, the weapons could strike coastal targets in China’s southern province of Fujian on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwanese military analysts say the weapon would be used with its locally developed Thunderbolt 2000 launchers so Chinese forces could be targeted as they left port or attempted to land on Taiwan’s coast. A Thunderbolt unit was also seen in a park near the HIMARS units.

Senior Taiwanese military officials say the Han Kuang drills are unscripted and designed to replicate full combat conditions, starting with simulated enemy attacks on communications and command systems, leading to a full-blown invasion scenario.

The drills aim to show China and the international community, including Taiwan’s key weapons supplier the US, that Taiwan is determined to defend itself against any Chinese attack or invasion, the officials say.


Cambodian sites of Khmer Rouge brutality added to UNESCO heritage list

Updated 12 July 2025
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Cambodian sites of Khmer Rouge brutality added to UNESCO heritage list

  • The three locations were inscribed to the list by the United Nations cultural agency on Friday
  • The UNESCO inscription was Cambodia’s first nomination for a modern and non-classical archaeological site

PHNOM PENH: Three locations used by Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime as torture and execution sites 50 years ago have been added by UNESCO to its World Heritage List.

The three locations were inscribed to the list by the United Nations cultural agency Friday during the 47th Session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris.

The inscription coincided with the 50th anniversary of the rise to power by the communist Khmer Rouge government, which caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians through starvation, torture and mass executions during a four-year reign from 1975 to 1979.

UNESCO’s World Heritage List lists sites considered important to humanity and includes the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India and Cambodia’s Angkor archaeological complex.

The three sites listed Friday include two notorious prisons and an execution site immortalized in a Hollywood film.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, located in the capital Phnom Penh, is the site of a former high school used by the Khmer Rouge as a notorious prison. Better known as S-21, about 15,000 people were imprisoned and tortured there.

The M-13 prison, located in rural Kampong Chhnang province in central Cambodia, also was regarded as one of the main prisons of the early Khmer Rouge.

Choeung Ek, located about 15 kilometers south of the capital, was used as an execution site and mass grave. The story of the atrocities committed there are the focus of the 1984 film “The Killing Fields,” based on the experiences of New York Times photojournalist Dith Pran and correspondent Sydney Schanberg.

The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, and immediately herded almost all the city’s residents into the countryside, where they were forced to toil in harsh conditions until 1979, when the regime was driven from power by an invasion from neighboring Vietnam.

In September 2022, the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, better known as the Khmer Rouge tribunal, concluded its work compiling cases against Khmer Rouge leaders. The tribunal cost $337 million over 16 years but convicted just three men.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet issued a message Friday directing people to beat drums simultaneously across the country Sunday morning to mark the UNESCO listing.

“May this inscription serve as a lasting reminder that peace must always be defended,” Hun Manet said in a video message posted online. “From the darkest chapters of history, we can draw strength to build a better future for humanity.”

Youk Chhang, executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, said the country is “still grappling with the painful legacies of genocide, torture, and mass atrocity.” But naming the three sites to the UNESCO list will play a role in educating younger generations of Cambodians and others worldwide.

“Though they were the landscape of violence, they too will and can contribute to heal the wounds inflicted during that era that have yet to heal,” he said.

The UNESCO inscription was Cambodia’s first nomination for a modern and non-classical archaeological site and is among the first in the world to be submitted as a site associated with recent conflict, Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts said in a statement Friday.

Four Cambodian archaeological sites were previously inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites including Angkor, Preah Vihear, Sambo Prei Kuk and Koh Ker, the ministry said.


Colombian authorities arrest alleged leader of Italian mafia in Latin America

Updated 12 July 2025
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Colombian authorities arrest alleged leader of Italian mafia in Latin America

  • Italian Giuseppe Palermo, also known as ‘Peppe,’ was wanted under an Interpol red notice, which called for his arrest in 196 countries
  • He was apprehended on the street in Colombia’s capital Bogota during a coordinated operation

BOGOTA: Colombian authorities said Friday they captured an alleged leader of the Italian ‘ndrangheta mafia in Latin America who is accused of overseeing cocaine shipments and managing illegal trafficking routes to Europe.

Police identified the suspect as Giuseppe Palermo, also known as “Peppe,” an Italian who was wanted under an Interpol red notice, which called for his arrest in 196 countries.

He was apprehended on the street in Colombia’s capital Bogota during a coordinated operation between Colombian, Italian and British authorities, as well as Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, according to an official report.

Palermo is believed to be part of “one of the most tightly knit cells” of the ‘ndrangheta mafia, said Carlos Fernando Triana, head of the Colombian police, in a message posted on X.

The ‘ndrangheta, one of Italy’s most powerful and secretive criminal organizations, has extended its influence abroad and is widely accused of importing cocaine into Europe.

The suspect “not only led the purchase of large shipments of cocaine in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, but also controlled the maritime and land routes used to transport the drugs to European markets,” Triana added.

Illegal cocaine production reached 3,708 tons in 2023, an increase of nearly 34 percent from the previous year, driven mainly by the expansion of coca leaf cultivation in Colombia, according to the United Nations.