Month: June 2022

Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban arranged Thursday a men-only conference of about 3,500 mostly clerics and tribal elders from across the country in an apparent bid to demonstrate their hold on power and domestic legitimacy. 

  

The three-day, closed-door conference began in Kabul amid tight security in the wake of a recent spike in Islamic State-claimed terrorist attacks in the Afghan capital and elsewhere in the war-torn South Asian nation. 

  

The insurgent-turned-ruling group seized power last August, when the United States and NATO partners withdrew their final troops from Afghanistan after almost two decades of military intervention, but the world has not yet recognized the interim Taliban government. 

  

Acting Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, while addressing Thursday’s inaugural session, urged participants to share their advice and suggestions to help strengthen the government so it can deal with foreign policy issues. 

“You can see that even after completing almost one year, no country — be it Muslim, non-Muslim, neighboring or regional — has formally recognized this regime,” Yaqoob said. 

  

“My fundamental demand from you all is to courageously formulate a fatwa (decree) for us that helps us end our shakiness in terms of resolving our external problems and bridge any differences that, God forbid, may arise in future between us and the (Afghan) nation,” the defense minister said without elaborating. 

  

The Taliban’s harsh treatment of women and girls and a lack of political inclusivity in governance have kept the global community from granting diplomatic recognition to the new Afghan rulers.  

  

The Islamist group has suspended secondary education for most teenage female students, ordered women to wear face coverings in public and barred them from traveling beyond 70 kilometers without a close male relative. 

  

The U.S. and the world at large have been urging the hardline group to reverse some of its curbs on women and ensure inclusive governance if it wants them to consider the Taliban’s demand for diplomatic recognition. 

Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, later in the day, briefed reporters about the opening proceedings, saying women were not invited to the meeting because it was organized on the request of independent participating scholars and the government had nothing to do with attendees nor the agenda of the event. 

  

Mujahid said Hibatullah Akhundzada, the reclusive Taliban chief, “may” also attend the ongoing Kabul gathering, but he shared no further details.  

  

Taliban leaders have rejected calls for removing the restrictions on women, insisting they are in accordance with Afghan culture and Islamic Shariah law. 

  

Acting Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi argued on Wednesday that women’s participation in the huddle was taking place as their male family members would attend. 

  

Critics questioned the effectiveness and legitimacy of the grand scholars’ meeting in the absence of women, almost 50% of the country’s estimated 40 million population. 

“Durable peace and reconciliation also requires inclusive administration represented by all political, religious and ethnic groups,” said Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan. 

  

“It is vital that national ethnic religious and linguistic minorities, including minority women in Afghanistan, are included in all decision-making processes,” Bennett remarked at an online seminar Tuesday. 

Rina Amiri, the U.S. special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights, while addressing the seminar, suggested rights-related issues would require engagement with the new rulers in Kabul. 

  

“We try to identify very specific measures that the international community can consider and can try to move forward and also how we can press the Taliban to do more because they are right now the reality in the country,” Amiri said. 

  

Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan official and political commentator, is skeptical about the outcome of the meeting.  

  

“An allegiance from 3,000 selected guests by (the) Taliban in a meeting will not help fix any of the problems (facing the country), nor confer any internal or external legitimacy to (the) Taliban,” Farhadi told VOA. 

  

“The book of God in Islam is gifted to women and men equally. Depriving women to have a voice in society is going against the precepts of Islam.” 

  

The Taliban takeover and their subsequent installation of an all-male interim government prompted Washington and other Western countries to immediately halt financial assistance to largely aid-dependent Afghanistan, seize its foreign assets worth more than $9 billion, mostly held by the U.S., and isolate the Afghan banking system. 

  

The action and long-running terrorism-related sanctions on senior Taliban leaders have thrown cash-strapped Afghanistan into a severe economic upheaval, worsening an already bad humanitarian crisis blamed on years of war and persistent drought. 

A day after indirect talks between the United States and Iran on a return to the 2015 nuclear deal ended unsuccessfully, diplomats said Thursday that Tehran has brought new demands to the table.

“We understand that not only has Iran not taken up the offer on the table, but that it also added yet more issues which fall outside the JCPOA, with maximalist and unrealistic demands,” France’s U.N. envoy, Nicolas de Riviere, told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

He, and other diplomats, did not detail what those new demands were.   

The Security Council meets twice each year to review implementation of the nuclear deal, which it endorsed in a resolution. The 2015 landmark agreement provided Iran with sanctions relief in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons.   

Under the Trump administration, the United States pulled out of the JCPOA in 2018 and reimposed sanctions. In 2019, Tehran resumed advancing its nuclear program, enriching uranium beyond permitted thresholds, among other steps.

In addition to Iran, the remaining parties to the deal are Britain, China, France and Russia, plus Germany.

Doha talks

The European Union holds a coordinator position. It served as the intermediary in the indirect talks in the Qatari capital of Doha earlier this week between U.S. special envoy Robert Malley and Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani.

EU Ambassador Olof Skoog told the council that from the coordinator’s perspective, they believe there is a good deal on the table, arrived at after more than a year of multilateral negotiations, and “the space for further significant changes has been exhausted.”     

That deal has been sitting on the table since March.    

“This is not a bilateral deal between Iran and the United States,” Skoog emphasized. “Very tough political choices had to be made by all JCPOA participants and the United States to reach the current delicate balance in the text.”  

He expressed concern negotiations could ultimately fall apart.    

“My message is seize this opportunity to conclude the deal, based on the text that is on the table. The time to overcome the last outstanding issues, conclude the deal and fully restore the JCPOA is now,” Skoog said. 

Iran’s envoy said its team has negotiated in good faith and been flexible, and blamed Washington’s “unrealistic and rigid approach” for the current impasse.  

“Our negotiating team is ready to engage constructively again to conclude and reach a deal,” Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi told council members. “The ball is in the United States’ court, and if the U.S. acts realistically and shows serious intention to implement its obligations, the agreement is not out of reach.”

No ‘real urgency’ seen from Iran 

Washington’s envoy expressed frustration with Iran following Doha and a visit to Tehran by the European Union’s foreign policy chief last week.  

“In light of these efforts, we were all the more disappointed that, in High Representative [Josep] Borrell’s visit to Tehran on Saturday, and in the indirect discussions the EEAS [the European Union’s diplomatic corps] conducted in Doha this week, Iran continued to make demands that go well beyond the JCPOA,” Deputy U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills said. “Iran has yet to demonstrate any real urgency to conclude a deal, end the current nuclear crisis and achieve important sanctions lifting.” 

Mills said a deal could be finalized only if Iran drops its additional demands that go beyond the scope of the JCPOA. 

“The ball is in Iran’s court and the choice to move back towards full implementation of the JCPOA rests with Iran,” he said. 

With each party urging the other to move first, it remains unclear whether the 2015 deal can be revived.

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 U.S. Supreme Court, in the aftermath of its decision last week to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, on Thursday threw out lower court rulings that invalidated three abortion laws at the state level.

All three laws – from Arizona, Arkansas and Indiana – were blocked by lower courts based on Roe and the subsequent 1992 ruling that reaffirmed it. That decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, also was overturned as part of the court’s June 24 ruling that upheld a law in Mississippi that bans abortion after 15 weeks.

In one case, the court on Thursday threw out a ruling that blocked an Arizona law that bans abortions performed because of fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome.

The court did the same with a similar law in Arkansas that bans abortions performed because of fetal evidence of Down syndrome and with an appeal brought by Indiana seeking to expand the scope of a state law that requires parents of minors seeking abortions to be notified.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Thursday announced a $1 billion plan to reconnect U.S. communities that are cut off from economic opportunities by transportation infrastructure.

In a release, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said there are countless cases around the country where a piece of infrastructure such as a highway or railroad tracks cuts off a neighborhood or a community because of how it was built.

Such structures often isolate and marginalize low-income communities by making it more difficult to reach jobs, schools or health care.

Buttigieg said the Reconnecting Communities pilot program can remedy such situations with simple solutions like a pedestrian walkway over or under an existing highway, or better means of access such as crosswalks and redesigned intersections.

As an example of the kind of projects the program can fund, Buttigieg is scheduled to be in Birmingham, Alabama, late Thursday to announce a new rapid transit bus service. The DOT release says the Birmingham Xpress project will connect Alabamians in 25 communities to jobs, schools and health care.

The DOT said Reconnecting Communities is now accepting grant applications from states, local and tribal governments, metropolitan planning and nonprofit organizations, and other transportation facility owners.

The department said preference will be given to applications from economically disadvantaged communities.

The pilot program is funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Congress approved last year.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, and Reuters.  

When Ahmad, his wife and three children traveled to Pakistan in November last year, they were hoping to stay there for a short period before migrating to the U.S. through the Special Immigration Visa (SIV) program for Afghans.

The chaos that followed the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August made the family’s trip to the neighboring country extremely expensive, including hefty fees and bribes to get visas and plane tickets to Islamabad.

Six months later, the family’s hopes were dashed when they were informed that their SIV application had been denied.

Ahmad told VOA that a recommendation letter included in his application had failed authentication, causing the denial.

From October to December 2021, more than 1,300 Afghan SIV applicants were denied, according to quarterly data from the U.S. State Department. In the preceding quarter, July to September, 1,462 Afghan principal SIV applicants were denied.

Denials are issued for various reasons, such as lack of sufficient documentation, failure to prove valuable service to the U.S. government, and the presence of derogatory information associated with the principal applicant.

“I’ve secured a very strong recommendation letter from our chief of mission, which I will submit in my appeal,” said Ahmad, who did not want to use his full name because of security concerns. “But I’m losing hope because I see too many people are being rejected.”

Approvals make up less than 10% of SIV applications.

From July through September last year, 1,292 principal SIV visas were issued.

But only 117 principal applicants received visas in the last three months of the year.

Travel for migration

Since the closure of most embassies in Kabul last year, Afghan applicants must travel to a third country to pursue their immigration cases, whether they’re applying to the U.S., Canada, the European Union or Australia.

Many Afghans have traveled to neighboring Pakistan to process their visa applications. And more than 14,000 Afghans have migrated to Germany via Pakistan over the past nine months, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said last week.

Canada, which has pledged to admit 40,000 Afghans, has also used its High Commission in Islamabad to process Afghan immigration applications.

“The lack of a physical presence in Afghanistan has presented challenges in how we collect and verify the information of applicants still in the country. In some cases, this had led to completing elements of the screening process, such as collecting biographic information, while Afghans are transiting through third countries,” a spokesperson for Canada’s immigration agency told VOA.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad is also a major hub for Afghans who seek to come to the U.S. as refugees, visitors or students.

In addition to the SIV, considered a priority program, the U.S. government has offered a Priority-2 refugee admissions program for Afghans who were affiliated with U.S. projects in Afghanistan until August 2021.

“Once an individual with a complete referral arrives in a third country, they are eligible to begin processing their refugee case. We do not publicly disclose the number of refugee cases the United States is processing in specific third countries,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.

With more than 2.6 million refugees, mostly in neighboring Iran and Pakistan, Afghans already make up the third-largest refugee group in the world, according to the United Nations.

Rising unemployment and poverty, and the prospects of migration to the West, have significantly increased the number of Afghans who leave their country.

Applicants vs. visas

Since 2015, more than 17,800 Afghans have received SIV visas, excluding visas issued to the dependents of the principal applicants.

Approximately 50,000 SIV applications are currently being evaluated. Out of the total 34,500 visas Congress has allocated for the Afghan SIV program, 16,515 principal visas remain available.

This means nearly two-thirds of the applications in the pipeline will be unsuccessful, if not rejected, unless Congress approves additional visas for the program.

Estimated processing time, even for the prioritized SIV applications, takes about two years. Priority-2, as the name suggests, is deemed less urgent and requires more wait time.

From October 2021 to May 2022, 583 Afghan refugees were resettled in the U.S.

Last month, a group of Afghans protested in Islamabad against denials of or uncertainty about their immigration applications.

“I worked as governance specialist for a U.S. project in Afghanistan and have two recommendation letters from my previous employer, but I’ve got no response to my application for six months,” said Ghulam Sakhi, a protester.

U.S. officials say the National Visa Center has received “hundreds of thousands” of inquiries from potential SIV applicants since August.

“We are working diligently to process this enormous surge in applications,” said the State Department spokesperson.

Until their immigration applications are settled, the tens of thousands of Afghans who were once affiliated with or worked for the U.S. government either live in hiding from the Taliban in Afghanistan or as refugees in third countries.

Nearly all applicants, 94%, have reported facing economic hardship because of unemployment, according to a survey by the Association of War Time Allies, a nongovernmental organization that advocates for individuals who support U.S. military engagement in their countries.

From a landmark Supreme Court decision on abortion to the investigation into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, how is America dealing with divisive issues and seismic events on The Inside Story-Democracy in America.

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 United States will strengthen its forces in Europe as NATO faces up to the threat from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. President Joe Biden announced the deployments at the NATO summit in Madrid — from where Henry Ridgwell reports.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell

A Kentucky judge on Thursday blocked the state from enforcing a ban on abortion enacted in 2019 that was triggered after the U.S. Supreme Court last week overturned the constitutional right to it nationwide. 

Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry issued a temporary restraining order at the request of two abortion clinics, including a Planned Parenthood affiliate, which challenged that law and another that bars abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — that can come before a woman realizes she is pregnant. 

Abortion services had halted in the state since Friday, when the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had guaranteed the right of women to obtain abortions, clearing the way for states to enact bans. 

Florida

In Florida, meanwhile, Circuit Court Judge John Cooper was expected to rule later on Thursday on whether to block a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy from taking effect on Friday, following a hearing in Tallahassee. 

Several groups, including Planned Parenthood affiliates and Florida abortion clinics, filed a lawsuit arguing the state constitution protects women’s right to an abortion for up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The 15-week limit, which mirrors the Mississippi law at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court case that reversed Roe, was signed into law in April by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. 

With a federal right to abortion no longer guaranteed, abortion rights groups and clinics have rushed to state courts seeking to slow or halt Republican-backed restrictions on the ability of women to terminate pregnancies that are now taking effect or are poised to do so in 22 states.  

Elsewhere

State courts in Texas, Louisiana and Utah have temporarily blocked bans in those states since last week. There are 13 states that, like Kentucky, enacted so-called “trigger” laws designed to take effect if Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy research group. 

Kentucky’s trigger ban has only limited medical exceptions permitting abortion only to prevent the death or serious, permanent injury to a woman. 

The decision is temporary, though, and a further hearing is scheduled on Wednesday on the clinics’ request for an injunction to further block enforcement of the laws. 

“We’re glad the court recognized the devastation happening in Kentucky and decided to block the commonwealth’s cruel abortion bans,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement. 

State Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican, said in a statement that Perry had no basis under Kentucky’s constitution to allow the clinics to resume performing abortions. 

“We cannot let the same mistake that happened in Roe v. Wade, nearly 50 years ago, to be made again in Kentucky,” he said. “We will be seeking relief from this order.” 

With Roe no longer law, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday also threw out lower federal court rulings that had invalidated abortion limits in Arizona, Arkansas and Indiana.