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South Asia must continue to reduce inequality to improve access to opportunity: World Bank
South Asia has suffered an unprecedented combination of shocks over the past three years, and moving from recovery to growth requires ensuring economic development is inclusive, according to the World Bank's latest regional economic update.
Over the past two decades, sustained economic growth in South Asia has lifted some 250 million people out of extreme poverty and improved living standards, the report said.
The report is the subject of a two-day conference on ‘Expanding Opportunities: Toward Inclusive Growth’ that opened on Tuesday, organized by BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) and the World Bank.
The conference provides academics and researchers a platform to discuss South Asia’s economic outlook, and how socio-economic disparities prevent the region from achieving its development goals.
However, economic growth has not benefited all groups equally, and social progress remains elusive. South Asia has among the world’s highest inequality of opportunity.
Between 40 and 60 percent of total inequality in the region is driven by circumstances out of an individual’s control such as place of birth, family background, caste, ethnicity, and gender. Intergenerational mobility is also among the world’s lowest - less than 9 percent of individuals whose parents have low levels of education reach education levels of the upper 25 percent.
Inequality of opportunity is not only unfair, but it is also inefficient. It prevents an optimal allocation of talent and reduces incentives to accumulate human capital, and derails long-term economic growth, the report said.
“Bangladesh has made significant progress in bridging gaps between low and high opportunity groups, particularly in the education sector. However, much remains to be done,” said Abdoulaye Seck, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh and Bhutan.
“South Asian countries must continue to reduce socio-economic disparities as they lead to differences in access to jobs, earnings, consumption, and welfare, and impact overall growth,” he said.
While the region as a whole experiences inequality, there is considerable variation between countries. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan have somewhat better mobility and equality of opportunity than their regional neighbors.
Within countries, there is an urban premium. This means that being born in a city translates into higher chances to move further ahead than one’s own parents (in terms of education) and, more generally, other circumstances do not constrain achievement as tightly as in rural areas.
Despite the high gender gaps in South Asia, girls benefit more than boys from being in a city.
“Reducing inequality of opportunity and increasing economic mobility in South Asia is important because it is an essential part of broadening the tax base,” said Hans Timmer, World Bank Chief Economist for South Asia.
“Therefore, eliminating obstacles to mobility is not merely a long-term agenda, but should be a central part of current reform programs that aim to make the fiscal outlook more sustainable, and help South Asia achieve its full potential,” he said.
To this end, the report recommends continuing to improve the quality of primary education and expanding access to secondary and higher education, evaluate and strengthen affirmative action policies targeted to “low opportunity” groups, and policies to improve the business climate for small and medium enterprises, who account for the bulk of job opportunities for the less well-off.
In addition, reducing barriers to labor mobility can have a powerful equalizing impact as urban areas tend to offer more opportunities for social mobility.
‘Ready to die than live under these duffers’: Imran Khan’s video message
"I am ready to die than live under these duffers, the question is are you ready? There is no case for me. They want to put me in jail, I am ready for it," former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan said in a video message that was recorded by Khan while he was making his way to the Islamabad High Court on Tuesday — just moments before his arrest.
In a dramatic escalation, Khan was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau as he appeared in a court in Islamabad.
Moments before his arrest, Khan posted a video on his twitter account accusing the government and the military of attempting to arrest him for two reasons.
"My reply to ISPR [Inter Services Public Relations] and attempts by PDM (Pakistan Democratic Movement) and their handlers to arrest me for two reasons: one, to prevent me from campaigning because Insha Allah when elections are announced I will be doing jalsas; two, to prevent me from mobilising the masses for street movement in support of Constitution if PDM government and their handlers refuse to obey the SC and violate Constitution on holding of elections," he said.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday released an old video of Imran Khan, the party's chairman, where Khan warned his supporters that he might be detained in an "illegal and baseless case," demonstrating that "fundamental rights and democracy in Pakistan have been buried."
In the video recorded in 2022, Khan said: “Maybe it is possible that I won’t get a chance to talk to you again. That’s why I want to talk about two-three things.
“Pakistan’s public has known me for 50 years; I’ve been in the eyes of the public for 50 years, I have never gone against Pakistan’s Constitution and I’ve never broken the law. Since I’ve been in politics, I have always tried that [all] my struggle would be peaceful and within the ambits of the Constitution,” he said addressing his supporters.
“What is being done today is not because I have broken any law but it is being done so that I accept this corrupt cabal of crooks that have been imposed on us. They want me to accept them.”
“I appeal today to everyone that you all have to come out. Freedom is not given on a plate — you have to work hard and struggle for it.”
Protests errupt after Pakistan's ex-PM Imran Khan's arrest
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested Tuesday as he appeared in court to face charges in multiple graft cases, a dramatic escalation of political tensions in the country that sparked demonstrations by his supporters in at least three cities.
Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the leading opposition figure, was dragged from the Islamabad High Court by security agents from the National Accountability Bureau, said Fawad Chaudhry, a senior official with his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party. Khan was shoved into an armored car and whisked away.
Chaudhry denounced the arrest of the 71-year-old former cricket star as “an abduction.” Pakistan’s independent GEO TV broadcast video of Khan being hauled away.
Also Read: Imran Khan arrested in court in Islamabad
Afterward, a scuffle broke out between Khan’s supporters and police outside the court. Some of Khan’s lawyers and supporters were injured in the melee, as were several police, Chaudhry said. Khan’s party complained to the court, which requested a police report explaining the charges for Khan’s arrest.
Khan was taken to the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, for questioning at the offices of the National Accountability Bureau, according to police and government officials. He also was to undergo a routine medical checkup, police said.
Khan had arrived at the Islamabad High Court from nearby Lahore, where he lives, to face charges in the graft cases.
He has denounced the cases against him, which include terrorism charges, as a politically motivated plot by his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, saying his ouster was illegal and a Western conspiracy. Khan has campaigned against Sharif and demanded early elections.
Tuesday's arrest was based on a a new warrant from the National Accountability Bureau obtained last week in a separate graft case for which Khan had not obtained bail, making him vulnerable to arrest. He is scheduled to appear before an anti-graft tribunal on Wednesday, officials said.
“Imran Khan has been arrested because he was being sought in a graft case,” Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan told a news conference. He alleged Pakistan’s treasury had lost millions of dollars while Khan was in office due to illegal purchases of lands from a business tycoon.
As the news of the arrest spread, about 4,000 of Khan’s supporters stormed the official residence of the top regional commander in Lahore, smashing windows and doors, damaging furniture and staging a sit-in as troops there retreated to avoid violence. The protesters also burned police vehicles and blocked key roads..
Protesters also smashed the main gate of the army’s headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where troops exercised restraint. Hundreds of demonstrators shouted pro-Khan slogans as they moved toward the sprawling building.
In the port city of Karachi, police swung batons and fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Khan supporters who had gathered on a key road.
Raoof Hasan, another leader from Khan’s party, told Al Jazeera English television that the arrest is “blatant interference in the judicial affairs by the powers-that-be." Hasan added that Khan "was virtually abducted from the court of law.”
Khan's arrest came hours after he issued a video message before heading to Islamabad, saying he was “mentally prepared” for arrest there.
Khan was wounded by a gunman at a rally in November, an attack that killed one of his supporters and wounded 13. He has insisted, without offering any evidence, that there is a plot to assassinate him, alleging that Pakistan's spy agency was behind the conspiracy. The gunman was immediately arrested and police later released a video of him in custody, allegedly saying he had acted alone.
In a strongly worded statement Monday, the military accused Khan of “fabricated and malicious allegations” of its involvement in the November shooting, saying they are “extremely unfortunate, deplorable and unacceptable.”
The military has directly ruled Pakistan for more than half of the 75 years since the country gained independence from British colonial rule, and wields considerable power over civilian governments.
Sharif, whose government faces spiraling economic woes and is struggling to recover from last year’s devastating floods that killed hundreds and caused $30 billion in damage, slammed Khan for assailing the military.
“Let this be abundantly clear that you, as former prime minister, currently on trial for corruption, are claiming legitimacy to overturn the legal and political system," Sharif tweeted after Khan's arrest.
Khan is the seventh former prime minister to be arrested in Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was arrested and hanged in 1979. The current prime minister’s brother, Nawaz Sharif, who also served as prime minister, was arrested several times on corruption allegations.
In March, police stormed Khan’s Lahore residence, seeking to arrest him based on a court order in a different case. Dozens of people, including police, were injured in ensuing clashes. Khan was not arrested at the time and later obtained bail in the case.
Khan came to power in 2018 after winning parliamentary elections and had initially good relations with the military which gradually soured.
HRW accuses Myanmar of using fuel-air explosive on a crowd
Myanmar’s military used an "enhanced blast" munition known as a fuel-air explosive in an airstrike that killed more than 160 people, including many children, at a ceremony held last month by opponents of army rule, a human rights monitoring group charged in a report Tuesday.
Human Rights Watch accused the military of dropping the weapon, also known as a thermobaric or vacuum bomb, on a crowd that had gathered for the opening of a local office of the country’s resistance movement outside Pazigyi village in Myanmar’s central Sagaing region on the morning of April 11. The area is about 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.
The attack caused “indiscriminate and disproportionate civilian casualties in violation of international humanitarian law, and was an apparent war crime,” the New York-based group said.
Thermobaric weapons consist of a fuel container and two separate explosive charges, with the first detonating to disperse the fuel particles and the second igniting the dispersed fuel and oxygen in the air, creating a blast wave of extreme pressure and heat that creates a partial vacuum in an enclosed space. That makes the weapon particularly deadly for people in an enclosed space, such as the office that was being opened.
Also Read: Alarm over Myanmar, sea feud under ASEAN summit spotlight
Myanmar is wracked by violence that began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and brutally suppressed nonviolent protests. That triggered armed resistance and combat in many parts of the country, with the military increasingly using airstrikes to counter the opposition and secure territory.
Human Rights Watch said it based its conclusion that a thermobaric weapon had been used on a review of 59 photos of the victims’ bodies and a video of the site following the attacks.
It said it also analyzed eight photographs and two videos of the remnants of the weapons posted online by the National Unity Government, an underground group that calls itself the country’s legitimate government. It presented them during a news conference three days after the bombing of the building that was supposed to be a local office for the organization.
The attack killed 168 civilians, including 40 children under 18 years old, it said. A 6-month-old girl was the youngest victim and a 76-year-old man was the oldest, the statement said. Its tally could not be independently confirmed by The Associated Press.
A witness told the AP on the day of the attack that a fighter jet dropped bombs directly onto a crowd of people and a helicopter appeared about half an hour later, firing at the site. The witness, who asked not to be identified because he feared punishment by the authorities, said those killed also included leaders of local anti-government armed groups and other opposition organizations.
Myanmar’s army acknowledged the attack but defended its actions, accusing anti-government forces in the area of carrying out a violent campaign of terror. It said the People’s Defense Forces — the armed wing of the National Unity Government -- had terrorized residents into supporting them, killing Buddhist monks, teachers and others.
The military government’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told state television MRTV there was evidence the attack had set off secondary blasts of explosives hidden by the People’s Defense Forces around the site.
Human Rights Watch said that according to a witness, the People’s Defense Forces stored goods, funds, medicines and also some ammunition in the office building, which was intended for civilian uses such as filing taxes, township meetings and judicial processes.
“The presence of opposition combatants and ammunition would make the building a legitimate military objective subject to attack,” said Human Rights Watch.
“Even so, the use of an enhanced-blast weapon for the attack was unlawfully indiscriminate because its use in a crowded civilian area could not minimize the loss of civilian life. In addition, the initial strike and ensuing attacks on hundreds of fleeing civilians was almost certainly an unlawfully disproportionate attack, and possibly a deliberate attack on civilians.”
The use of thermobaric weapons is rarely publicly acknowledged because of the indiscriminate destruction they can cause.
The United States has used varieties of fuel-air explosives in conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force dropped what it described as its “largest non-nuclear conventional weapon,” the 9,840-kilogram (21,693-pound) Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb.
Russia, which acknowledges producing fuel-air munitions, has been accused of using them in several conflicts, including in Ukraine. The weapons have also been reported to have been used by Azerbaijan in fighting against neighboring Armenia, and by government forces in Syria’s civil war.
Arrested over protesting King Charles’ coronation: Group says will take legal action
An anti-monarchy group says it plans to take legal action against London’s Metropolitan Police after several of its members were arrested as they prepared to protest the coronation of King Charles III.
Civil liberties groups are accusing the police, and Britain’s Conservative government, of stifling the right to protest with new powers to clamp down on peaceful but disruptive demonstrations.
The police force expressed “regret” late Monday that the activists were prevented from protesting, but defended its handling of the coronation, which drew hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of London — hundreds of protesters among them.
Police arrested 64 people around Saturday’s coronation, most for allegedly planning to disrupt the ceremonies. Four have been charged, most have been released on bail, and six members of anti-monarchist group Republic have been freed and told they will not face any charges.
Republic chief executive Graham Smith said three senior police officers had come to his house and apologized in person for the arrest that saw him held in custody for 16 hours.
“I said for the record I won’t accept the apology,” Smith said, adding that the group “will be taking action.”
The U.K.’s recently passed Public Order Act, introduced in response to civil disobedience by environmental groups, allows police to search demonstrators for items including locks and glue and imposes penalties of up to 12 months in prison for protesters who block roads or interfere with “national infrastructure.”
Police said the Republic members had items that could be used to “lock on” to infrastructure. Republic said the items were ties for their placards and police acknowledged its “investigation has been unable to prove intent to use them to lock on and disrupt the event.”
“We regret that those six people arrested were unable to join the wider group of protesters in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere on the procession route,” police said.
The Conservative government defended police handling of the protests, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a member of the Labour Party, requested “further clarity” from the force. He said the right to peaceful protest is an integral part of democracy.
Conservative lawmaker David Davis said the new powers of arrest were too broad.
“No-one wants a day ruined, but the right to put up placards is virtually absolute in British democracy,” he told the BBC on Tuesday.
The Metropolitan Police force is already under intense pressure after a series of scandals involving its treatment of women and minorities. Confidence in the force plummeted after a serving officer raped and killed a young woman in London in 2020.
An independent review commissioned after the murder said the force was riddled with racism, misogyny and homophobia.
End/UNB/AP/MB
Mental illness in 20s-30s may increase risk of heart attack, stroke: Study
According to a new study, adults in their 20s and 30s with mental illnesses have a greater risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.
The study, published Monday in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, examined the health data of almost 6.5 million people from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database, reports CNN.
The participants in the research varied in age from 20 to 39 and were examined for health between 2009 and 2012. Their health was evaluated for new onset heart attacks and strokes until December 2018, it said.
According to the study, around 13% of individuals had some sort of mental disease, which included insomnia, anxiety, depression, somatoform disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, drug use disorder, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or a personality disorder.
The study found that those under the age of 40 who have a mental illness are 58% more likely to have a heart attack and 42% more likely to have a stroke than those who do not have a mental disorder.
“We have known for some time that mental health and physical health are linked, but what I find surprising about these findings is that these links were observable at such a young age,” said Dr Katherine Ehrlich, an associate professor of behavioral and brain sciences at the University of Georgia. Ehrlich was not involved in the research.
Coronary artery disease and heart attacks are uncommon in persons under the age of 40, therefore, a major research like this one was required to investigate the link between mental health and such an unusual occurrence in young people, she explained.
Mental health and lifestyle
Ehrlich stated that she would like to learn more about the participants' physical activity and diets in order to better understand the association between mental health disorders and heart attack and stroke.
“For example, if you are chronically depressed, you may struggle to maintain a healthy diet and get adequate physical activity, which might in turn increase your risk for cardiac events over time,” she said.
The study said, the higher risk could not be attributable to lifestyle variations alone because the investigators accounted for age, gender, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, metabolic syndrome, chronic renal disease, smoking, alcohol, physical activity, and income, the report added.
However, according to research author Dr Eue-Keun Choi, a professor of internal medicine at Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea, lifestyle should not be overlooked.“While lifestyle behaviours did not explain the excess cardiovascular risk, this does not mean that healthier habits would not improve prognosis,” Choi said in a statement. “Lifestyle modification should therefore be recommended to young adults with mental disorders to boost heart health.”
Changes and checkups
According author Dr Chan Soon Park, a researcher at Seoul National University Hospital in South Korea, one in every eight adults between the ages of 20 and 39 evaluated had some type of mental disorder, implying that a significant number of people may be prone to heart attack and stroke, the report said further.
According to Park, this might indicate a higher need for controlling psychiatric disorders and monitoring heart health in people at risk.
“If we can reduce the number of people living with chronic mental illness, we may find secondary benefits in future years regarding the number of people managing cardiac-related conditions,” Ehrlich said.
She went on to say that the data do not prove that mental disorder causes heart attacks or strokes. However, the findings do point to a risk factor to be aware of.
Preventive strategies to reduce risks such as keeping a balanced diet and adding physical activity, may be beneficial, according to Ehrlich.
Choi suggested that patients with mental health issues get frequent examinations as well.
She said that these findings may highlight the importance of addressing loneliness.
“Many individuals with mental illness suffer from social isolation and loneliness, and for years researchers have been sounding the alarm that loneliness is detrimental for physical health,” Ehrlich said.
“Efforts to improve social connectedness among young people may be critical to addressing the rising rates of cardio metabolic conditions in adulthood,” she added.
1 pregnant woman or newborn dies every 7 seconds: WHO report
Due to declining spending in maternal and newborn health, global progress in lowering the early mortality of pregnant women, mothers, and babies has stagnated for eight years, said a new UN World Health Organization (WHO) report.
The report, titled "Improving maternal and newborn health and survival and reducing stillbirth," analyzes the most recent statistics, which share similar risk factors and causes, and tracks the provision of critical health services.
The new publication was launched at a major global conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
Overall, the analysis demonstrates that improvements in survival have stalled since 2015, as evidenced by the annual average of 290,000 maternal fatalities, 1.9 million stillbirths (babies who die after 28 weeks of pregnancy), and a startling 2.3 million infant deaths during the first month of life.
The report shows that over 4.5 million women and babies die every year during pregnancy, childbirth or the first weeks after birth, equivalent to one death happening every seven seconds. Most of the deaths were from preventable or treatable causes if proper care was available.
The COVID-19 pandemic, rising poverty, and worsening humanitarian crises have intensified pressures on stretched health systems. Just one in 10 countries (of more than 100 surveyed) report having sufficient funds to implement their current plans.
According to the latest WHO survey on the pandemic’s impacts on essential health services, around 25 per cent of countries still report ongoing disruptions to vital pregnancy and postnatal care and services for sick children.
“Pregnant women and newborns continue to die at unacceptably high rates worldwide, and the COVID-19 pandemic has created further setbacks to providing them with the healthcare they need,” said Dr. Anshu Banerjee, Director of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing at the World Health Organization (WHO).
“If we wish to see different results, we must do things differently. More and smarter investments in primary healthcare are needed now so that every woman and baby -- no matter where they live -- has the best chance of health and survival.”
In the worst-affected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia, the regions with the greatest burden of newborn and maternal deaths, fewer than 60 per cent of women receive even four, of WHO’s recommended eight, antenatal checks.
"The death of any woman or young girl during pregnancy or childbirth is a serious violation of their human rights,” said Dr Julitta Onabanjo, Director of the Technical Division at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
“It also reflects the urgent need to scale-up access to quality sexual and reproductive health services as part of universal health coverage and primary health care, especially in communities where maternal mortality rates have stagnated or even risen during recent years. We must take a human rights and gender transformative approach to address maternal and newborn mortality, and it is vital that we stamp out the underlying factors which give rise to poor maternal health outcomes like socio-economic inequalities, discrimination, poverty, and injustice".
Based on current trends, more than 60 countries are not set to meet the maternal, newborn, and stillborn mortality reduction targets in the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Imran Khan arrested in court in Islamabad
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested Tuesday as he appeared in court to face charges in multiple graft cases, a dramatic escalation of political tensions in the country that sparked demonstrations by his supporters in at least three cities.
Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the leading opposition figure, was dragged from the Islamabad High Court by security agents from the National Accountability Bureau, said Fawad Chaudhry, a senior official with his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party. Khan was shoved into an armored car and whisked away.
Chaudhry denounced the arrest of the 71-year-old former cricket star as “an abduction.” Pakistan’s independent GEO TV broadcast video of Khan being hauled away.
Afterward, a scuffle broke out between Khan’s supporters and police outside the court. Some of Khan’s lawyers and supporters were injured in the melee, as were several police, Chaudhry said. Khan’s party complained to the court, which requested a police report explaining the charges for Khan’s arrest.
Also Read: Pakistan: Police storm Imran Khan home in Lahore, arrest 61
Khan was taken to the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, for questioning at the offices of the National Accountability Bureau, according to police and government officials. He also was to undergo a routine medical checkup, police said.
Khan had arrived at the Islamabad High Court from nearby Lahore, where he lives, to face charges in the graft cases.
He has denounced the cases against him, which include terrorism charges, as a politically motivated plot by his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, saying his ouster was illegal and a Western conspiracy. Khan has campaigned against Sharif and demanded early elections.
Tuesday’s arrest was based on a a new warrant from the National Accountability Bureau obtained last week in a separate graft case for which Khan had not obtained bail, making him vulnerable to arrest. He is scheduled to appear before an anti-graft tribunal on Wednesday, officials said.
“Imran Khan has been arrested because he was being sought in a graft case,” Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan told a news conference. He alleged Pakistan’s treasury had lost millions of dollars while Khan was in office due to illegal purchases of lands from a business tycoon.
As the news of the arrest spread, about 4,000 of Khan’s supporters stormed the official residence of the top regional commander in Lahore, smashing windows and doors, damaging furniture and staging a sit-in as troops there retreated to avoid violence. The protesters also burned police vehicles and blocked key roads..
Protesters also smashed the main gate of the army’s headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where troops exercised restraint. Hundreds of demonstrators shouted pro-Khan slogans as they moved toward the sprawling building.
In the port city of Karachi, police swung batons and fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Khan supporters who had gathered on a key road.
Raoof Hasan, another leader from Khan’s party, told Al Jazeera English television that the arrest is “blatant interference in the judicial affairs by the powers-that-be.” Hasan added that Khan “was virtually abducted from the court of law.”
Khan’s arrest came hours after he issued a video message before heading to Islamabad, saying he was “mentally prepared” for arrest there.
Also Read: Pakistan's ex-PM Imran Khan no-show in court, avoids arrest
Khan was wounded by a gunman at a rally in November, an attack that killed one of his supporters and wounded 13. He has insisted, without offering any evidence, that there is a plot to assassinate him, alleging that Pakistan’s spy agency was behind the conspiracy. The gunman was immediately arrested and police later released a video of him in custody, allegedly saying he had acted alone.
In a strongly worded statement Monday, the military accused Khan of “fabricated and malicious allegations” of its involvement in the November shooting, saying they are “extremely unfortunate, deplorable and unacceptable.”
Also Read: More clashes in Pakistan as police try to arrest Imran Khan
The military has directly ruled Pakistan for more than half of the 75 years since the country gained independence from British colonial rule, and wields considerable power over civilian governments.
Sharif, whose government faces spiraling economic woes and is struggling to recover from last year’s devastating floods that killed hundreds and caused $30 billion in damage, slammed Khan for assailing the military.
“Let this be abundantly clear that you, as former prime minister, currently on trial for corruption, are claiming legitimacy to overturn the legal and political system,” Sharif tweeted after Khan’s arrest.
Khan is the seventh former prime minister to be arrested in Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was arrested and hanged in 1979. The current prime minister’s brother, Nawaz Sharif, who also served as prime minister, was arrested several times on corruption allegations.
In March, police stormed Khan’s Lahore residence, seeking to arrest him based on a court order in a different case. Dozens of people, including police, were injured in ensuing clashes. Khan was not arrested at the time and later obtained bail in the case.
Khan came to power in 2018 after winning parliamentary elections and had initially good relations with the military which gradually soured.
Alarm over Myanmar, sea feud under ASEAN summit spotlight
Alarm over Myanmar’s still-unfolding deadly civil strife, including an armed attack on an aid convoy, and China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea are expected to be put under the spotlight this week when Southeast Asian leaders meet in Indonesia.
Top diplomats of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations convened Tuesday in the resort town of Labuan Bajo to finalize the agenda ahead of the two-day summit of the 10-nation bloc’s heads of state.
The United States and China are not part of the twice-yearly summit, but their escalating rivalry looms large over the high-profile Asian gathering. Beijing has warned that U.S. efforts to strengthen security alliances and intensify combat-readiness drills with Asian allies would endanger regional stability.
Also Read: US urged to create “safe protection zone” in Myanmar to facilitate Rohingya repatriation
Founded in 1967 in the Cold-War era, ASEAN has struggled to avoid getting entangled in the major-power competition as a bloc. But that often seemed futile given the regional group’s diverse membership — from authoritarian Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, which are closely geopolitically aligned with Beijing, to liberal democracies like the Philippines, which is Washington’s oldest treaty ally in Asia and recently allowed an expansion of American military presence in the country, to China’s outrage.
The rest — Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — have heavy economic and security engagements with the U.S. and China.
“ASEAN wants to remain open, to cooperate with anyone,” said Indonesian President Joko Widodo, this year’s ASEAN chair. “We also don’t want ASEAN to be anyone’s proxy.”
Bedrock principles of non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs and deciding by consensus have held the unwieldy club of tyrants, monarchs and democracies together for decades. But that approach has also constrained it from rapidly dealing with crises that spill beyond borders.
Those principles were being tested after Myanmar’s army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and plunged the country into deadly chaos. It's become one of ASEAN’s gravest crises since its establishment.
Myanmar military airstrikes in April killed as many as 100 people, including many children, who were attending a ceremony by opponents of army rule, according to witnesses.
Lina Alexandra of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta said ASEAN’s inability to persuasively and rapidly address a potential political conflagration like the Myanmar crisis should prompt it to take a second look at its founding principles.
“ASEAN can no longer hide under the principles of non-interference and consensus,” she told the AP. “All of that can work in a non-urgent situation that does not require speed and immediate decision-making to control a crisis.”
Over the weekend, around the time Widodo was frantically calling for an end to such violence, a convoy delivering aid to displaced villagers and carrying Indonesian and Singaporean diplomats came under fire by unidentified men armed with pistols in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state. A security team with the convoy returned fire and a vehicle was damaged, but no one in the convoy was injured, state-run television MRTV reported.
Indonesia had arranged for the delivery of the aid after a long-delayed assessment “but it was very unfortunate that in the middle of the trip there was a shootout,” Widodo said Monday.
“This will not dampen the level of ASEAN and Indonesia to call again to stop violence,” Widodo told reporters Monday, renewing his call for dialogue among contending parties in Myanmar. “This condition will not make anyone win.”
More than 3,450 civilians have been killed by security forces since Myanmar’s military forcibly took power, and thousands more remain imprisoned, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which keeps tallies of casualties and arrests linked to the repression by the military government.
As ASEAN’s current leader, Indonesia has considerably eased its fierce criticism of Myanmar’s military and took “a non-megaphone diplomacy approach” to encourage dialogue and an immediate halt to the violence, which are part of a five-point peace plan Southeast Asian leaders forged with Myanmar’s top general in 2021, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said.
Under international pressure to do more to address the violence, ASEAN leaders stopped inviting Myanmar’s top general to their summits, instead allowing only non-political representatives. Myanmar’s military-led rulers have protested the move as a violation of the bloc’s non-interference policy.
"To put it mildly, the organization is now facing nothing short of an existential crisis,” said Richard Heydarian, a lecturer on international affairs at the state-run University of the Philippines.
Even regional diplomats who were involved in ASEAN work before have either been guardedly optimistic of the bloc or harshly critical of it. When asked by The Associated Press to give one word that best describes the bloc’s current status, a Southeast Asian diplomat replied, “Beleaguered.” Another said, “Opprobium.”
They spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of clearance to comment publicly on the issue.
In a post-summit communique to be issued by Widodo on behalf of the ASEAN leaders, they plan to renew a call for self-restraint in the disputed South China Sea, where China has set off alarms from time to time due to its increasingly assertive actions to fortify its expansive claims.
"Concerns were expressed by some ASEAN member states on the land reclamations, activities, and serious incidents in the area, including damage to the marine environment, which has eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions, and may undermine peace, security, and stability in the region,” said a draft of the communique, which was obtained by the AP, without naming China.
In a closed-door session of the summit, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. plans to raise a Feb. 6 encounter in which a Chinese coast guard ship used a military-grade laser that temporarily blinded at least two crewmembers of a Philippine patrol vessel off a disputed shoal, a Filipino official told the AP on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to discuss the matter publicly.
Early this year, Marcos granted American forces access to four more Philippine military camps under a 2014 defense pact. Beijing was infuriated by that agreement, which it feared would provide American forces staging grounds to interfere in territorial disputes in the South China Sea and Taiwan. Beijing claims Taiwan as its own territory to be brought under its control by force if necessary.
EU, Ukraine together on Europe Day, but Kyiv remains outside
For the first time, Ukraine and the European Union are marking Europe Day, that celebration of “peace and unity,” together. Don’t let anyone be fooled too much, though.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU's executive branch, made a special trip to Kyiv on Tuesday to deliver the warm words of common destiny after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his nation would from now on “celebrate Europe Day together with all of free Europe."
More than a year into the war with invading Russia, Ukraine wants to badly join the bloc as an essential part to anchor its future in the Western world. “Europe Day,” when the 27 current members celebrate their bond as one, also shows how far that moment is still off.
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Next month, it will be one year already since the EU nations granted Ukraine candidate status, lavished the nation with praise, boosted it with aid and military support and sanctioned Kyiv’s enemy Russia with ever more sanctions. Some leaders often dress in the blue and yellow of Ukraine’s national flag and “Slava Ukraini,” which means Glory to Ukraine, ends all so many EU speeches.
Yet, frustration on the Ukraine side is evident, because the beginning of membership negotiations is still out of sight. Weary and hoarse, dressed in army olive-drab, Zelenskyy visited the Netherlands last week with a heartfelt plea for a “positive assessment” to start the talks.
“We do all our best during the war. We do all the reforms what we have to do,” he told the host, one of the original six EU members dating back to 1958.
Time, however, is an extremely flexible concept in the EU, and patience an essential one.
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“I am absolutely impressed by what the president’s team is doing,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, with Zelenskyy standing beside him. “Fighting a war against Russia and at the same time making concrete steps in terms of clearing the way in terms of this whole process towards EU accession.”
Then he fell back on the time-set mechanics of the EU, which foresees the next assessment in about a half-year, in October. All this to a leader who is counting in weeks and months when his nation might be on the road to victory — or ruin.
The best advice, though, is for Ukraine to stay the course.
“A promise has been made and in essence it is now in the hands of Ukraine. The EU cannot postpone things forever,” said Ghent University Professor Hendrik Vos, an expert on EU decision making.
But unexpected things can happen, as suddenly overflowing cereal silos in several eastern EU nations proved early this spring. To help Ukraine export its grain, sunflower and other farm produce after Russia closed off the Black Sea route, the EU lifted trade restrictions to give a free passage through the bloc and hopefully on to needy world markets.
Yet in neighboring nations like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, stocks built up, prices plummeted and that extremely vocal and influential group of voters — the EU’s 10 million farmers — started grumbling, indicating that membership promises are about much more than just sentimental shows of support.
“Of course we have solidarity with Ukraine,” said Christine Lambert, the president of the COPA EU farmers union, “but there are also significant economic aspects to this,” adding that “it’s sort of creating a hole in our budget. It will result in problems and farmers can’t bear these problems alone.”
Apart from making sure that France and Germany never go to war again, the founding principles of the EU also included avoiding hunger in the bloc in the wake of World War II. It allowed farming to take on an exceptionally important role in EU policies and even now it takes up almost a third of the EU’s designated budget.
The war and climate change have put EU farmers increasingly in a squeeze and taking in — and on — a nation like Ukraine, which is historically seen as the breadbasket of Europe, would be especially challenging.
Before the war, Ukraine still had a major stake in the global market of wheat, barley, corn and sunflower oil. Farming accounted for more than 40% of exports.
Opening up to such competition strikes fear in the hearts of many farmers, especially if it comes within a few years. Lambert pointed out how EU farmers need to meet tough environmental and social rules, which Ukrainians so far don't have to comply with.
Once Ukraine joins, it will in principle have the whole market of the current 27 nations at its disposal, but it will also need to abide by EU rules. And Vos said that goes right down to the size of chicken battery cages to meet animal welfare standards.
“Farmers will be saying they don’t want unfair competition from big Ukraine chicken farms that don’t have to play by the rules,” Vos said.
And Ukraine will only be able to join if it gets major financial aid from the current members to rebuild its nation and upgrade to EU standards. It will turn many of the EU nations that now get money from EU coffers into net contributors. Little wonder many in the EU push any membership date into the unspecified future yonder.
“Many years. We’ll need that time to see that obligations are satisfied,” Lambert said.
Such considerations from a small group of stakeholders won’t stop the groundswell of history though. In the EU’s successive sweeps of expansion, short-term financial losses never stood in the way in the end.
When the Iberian Peninsula wrested itself free from dictatorship during the 1970s, poor and needy Spain and Portugal were embraced in the EU a decade later despite the cost.
When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, the EU took in eight eastern nations in 2004, also at a major cost to the existing members.
Each time, talks on nitty gritty issues went on deep into countless nights but eventually compromises were found — more money was given to grumbling members, sometimes long transition times imposed.
Russia's war in Ukraine could well be an equal watershed in EU history.
“At a certain point there is no way back. The groundbreaking decision has been taken. There can be incremental talks about money until the end. But they won’t stop it,” Vos said.