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Opener KL Rahul hit an unbeaten 58 as India beat the West Indies by seven wickets in the second Test to sweep the series 2-0 on Tuesday.Chasing 121 for victory, India resumed on 63-1 and reached their target in the first session after losing two wickets on day five at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium.West Indies skipper Roston Chase struck twice with his off-spin to send back overnight batter Sai Sudharsan for 39 and skipper Shubman Gill for 13.Rahul hit the winning four and India celebrated victory over the visitors, who had launched a spirited fightback while following on.India’s left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav returned a match haul of eight wickets including 5-82 in the first West Indies innings.Kuldeep claimed 12 wickets in the series followed by pace bowler Mohammed Siraj, who took 10 to be India’s leading wicket-taker this year with 37 wickets in eight matches.India remain a team in transition under 26-year-old Gill, after the retirements of stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.Gill’s India won the opening Test by an innings and 140 runs, having secured a thrilling 2-2 draw in their five-Test series in England in June-August.With the West Indies missing pace bowlers Alzarri Joseph and Shamar Joseph, both injured, India’s batsmen flourished.Yashasvi Jaiswal top-scored with 175 in India’s mammoth first-innings 518-5 declared. Gill made an unbeaten 129.The West Indies have endured years of decline after the team ruled world cricket.This was a second successive Test whitewash, after they went down to Australia 3-0 at home.There were a few promising signs at least in the second Test.Left-handed opener John Campbell and Shai Hope made 115 and 103 as they put on 177 runs for the third wicket to thwart India’s attack on a slow pitch that had little for the bowlers.India had enforced the follow-on after they bowled out the West Indies for 248, a deficit of 270 from the hosts’ first innings. The visitors sprung into life in their second innings through Campbell and Hope, and then Justin Greaves and number 10 Jayden Seales.Greaves with an unbeaten 50 and Seales (32) put on 79 runs for the final wicket to frustrate India after the West Indies slipped to 311-9 in the second session on day four.That show of defiance forced the Test into the final day and gave the West Indies a glimpse of brighter days ahead.

They said they had smashed them. But fraud factories in Myanmar blamed for scamming Chinese and American victims out of billions of dollars are still in business and bigger than ever, an AFP investigation can reveal.Satellite images and AFP drone footage show frenetic building work in the heavily guarded compounds around Myawaddy on the Thailand-Myanmar border, which appear to be using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service on a huge scale.Experts say most of the centres, notorious for their romance scams and “pig butchering” investment cons, are run by Chinese-led crime syndicates working with Myanmar militias in the lawless badlands of the Golden Triangle.China, Thailand and Myanmar pressured the militias into vowing to “eradicate” the compounds in February, releasing around 7,000 people from a brutal call centre-like system that runs on greed, human trafficking and violence.Freed workers from Asia, Africa and elsewhere showed AFP journalists the scars and bruises of beatings they said were inflicted by their bosses.They said they had been forced to work around the clock, trawling for victims for a plethora of phone and internet scams.Sun, a Chinese national who was sold between several compounds, was able to give AFP a rare insider’s account after being freed with Beijing’s help.But a senior Thai police official said after the crackdown began that up to 100,000 people may still toil in the compounds — often mini cities surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed guards — that have sprung up on the border with Myanmar since the Covid pandemic.Satellite images show rapid construction work resuming at several compounds only weeks after the crackdown. Flocks of Starlink satellite dishes soon began to cover many scam centre roofs after Thailand cut their internet and power connections.Nearly 80 Starlink dishes are visible on one roof alone in AFP photographs of one of the biggest compounds, KK Park.Starlink — which is not licensed in Myanmar — did not have enough traffic to make it onto the list of the country’s internet providers before February.It is now consistently the biggest, topping the ranking every day from July 3 until October 1, according to data from the Asian regional internet registry, APNIC.It first appeared at number 56 in late April.California prosecutors officially warned Starlink in July 2024 that its satellite system was being used by the fraudsters, but received no response. Worried Thai and US politicians have also conveyed their alarm to Musk, with Senator Maggie Hassan calling on him to act.Now the powerful US Congress Joint Economic Committee, on which she is a leading member, has told AFP it has begun an investigation into Starlink’s involvement with the centres.SpaceX, which owns Starlink, did not reply to AFP requests for comment.Erin West, a longtime US cybercrime prosecutor who resigned last year to campaign full-time for action, said “it is abhorrent that an American company is enabling this to happen”.Americans are among the top targets of the Southeast Asian scam syndicates, the US Treasury Department said, losing an estimated $10 billion last year, up 66 percent in 12 months.- Buildings shooting up -The building boom since the crackdown is “breathtaking”, West said. Satellite images show what appear to be office and dormitory blocks shooting up in many of the estimated 27 scam centres in the Myawaddy cluster, strung out along a winding stretch of the Moei River, which forms the frontier with Thailand.A whole new section of KK Park has sprung up in seven months. The security checkpoint at its main entrance has also been hugely expanded, with a new access road and roundabout added.At least five new ferry crossings across the Moei have also appeared to supply the centres from the Thai side, satellite images show.They include one serving Shwe Kokko, which the US Treasury calls a “notorious hub for virtual currency investment scams” under the protection of the Karen National Army, a militia affiliated with Myanmar’s junta.Last month, the US sanctioned nine people and companies connected to Shwe Kokko and the Chinese criminal kingpin She Zhijiang, founder of the multistorey Yatai New City centre. Construction work in Shwe Kokko has also continued apace.The borderlands where Myanmar, Thailand, China and Laos meet — known as the Golden Triangle — has long been a hotbed of opium and amphetamine production, drug trafficking, smuggling, illegal gambling and money laundering.Corruption and the power vacuum created by civil war in Myanmar have allowed organised crime groups to dramatically expand their scam operations.Southeast Asian scam operations conned people in the wider region out of $37 billion in 2023, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which said the gangs ruled the centres with an iron fist.Many workers extracted from the compounds in February said they were trafficked through Thailand and beaten and tortured into working as scammers. Others said they were lured by false promises of well-paid jobs. However, experts and NGOs said some also go willingly.Beijing pushed authorities in Myanmar and Thailand to crack down in February after Chinese actor Wang Xing said he was lured to Thailand for a fake casting and trafficked into a scam centre in Myanmar.Last month, China sentenced to death 11 members of a scam syndicate that operated just over the border with Myanmar, with five more given suspended death penalties.AFP has been able to build up a picture of the murky world of the centres and the overlapping militias who guard them after months of investigation. It is a ruthless industry full of slippery characters willing to sell people into the compounds or broker their release — for the right price.- Inside the compounds: Sun’s story -Sun — a pseudonym AFP is using to protect his identity — is one of thousands of Chinese people swallowed up by the scam factories.The soft-spoken young villager from the mountains of southwestern Yunnan province told AFP how he and other workers were repeatedly beaten with electric rods and whips if they slacked or did not follow orders.”Almost everyone inside had been beaten at some point… either for refusing to work or trying to get out,” he said.But with high fences, watchtowers and armed guards, “there was no way to leave”, until he was released with 5,400 other Chinese nationals since the February crackdown.Sun’s testimony is a rare insight into the internal workings of the centres, as he was sold on between several when bosses realised that a slight physical disability limited his usefulness.AFP journalists managed to talk to him as he was being released and later on the phone, as well as back in his poor, isolated village.Sun said his trouble began in June 2024, when he left his home some 100 kilometres (60 miles) across the mountains from Myanmar.With one child already and another on the way, the 25-year-old wanted to provide for his family and had heard there was money to be made selling Chinese goods online through Thailand.”I heard it was very profitable,” he told AFP.The trip turned into a nightmare in the Thai border city of Mae Sot, where Sun said he was abducted and taken over the slow river that divides it from Myanmar’s Myawaddy and its infamous scam centres.He said he was “terrified. I kept begging them on my knees to let me go.”Once in Myawaddy, he said, his plight quickly worsened.Sun said he was brought to a militia camp where he was sold for 650,000 Thai baht ($20,000) to a scam centre — the first of several such transactions.There, he was ordered to do online exercises to speed up his typing. Sun, however, had a problem: a deformed finger that slowed him down and drew the ire of his overseers.The disability, verified by AFP, meant he was repeatedly sold on to other compounds and given menial tasks.But in the last facility — bristling with high fences and gun-toting guards — he got a taste of the real work, sending unsolicited messages to scam targets in the United States.Once the victims were on the hook, he said, he passed the target on to a more specialised scammer who would continue the conversation.Experts confirmed that many Chinese-run compounds split the workforce according to their scamming ability.The centres also provide workers with detailed scripts on how to bait their targets.One 25-page text seen by AFP suggested workers adopt the persona of “Abby”, a lovesick 35-year-old Japanese woman. It advised them to build a romantic rapport with the target.”I feel we are so destined,” the document suggests Abby could say.- Murky business -Much about the industry is opaque, mirroring China and Thailand’s complex relations with Myanmar’s military regime and various rebel and junta-allied groups, many of whom profit from the illegal mining, logging and drug manufacturing going on amid the war there.Scam centre staff run the “whole gamut”, from expendable grunts held in slave-like conditions to skilled programmers working for high salaries, said veteran Myanmar expert David Scott Mathieson, a former Human Rights Watch monitor.Chinese authorities are treating those like Sun who were brought out in February as “suspects” who may have ventured knowingly into war-torn Myanmar.AFP verified key pillars of his story, consulting several experts on the centres. But other portions were harder to confirm — with Thai authorities not providing information, and Chinese officials tailing our reporters and impeding efforts to talk further with him.AFP journalists were followed by multiple unmarked cars while travelling to see Sun in his mountain village, three hours from the nearest city, Lincang.Minutes after AFP met with him, a flurry of officials arrived to “check up” on his welfare. When Sun returned after half an hour, he declined to speak further.- The double sting -In the weeks before his extraction, Sun wondered if he would ever be able to escape the drudgery, threats and violence of the scam centres. “I thought about the possibility (of dying)… almost every day,” he told AFP.AFP obtained a copy of a “work contract” from one centre forbidding staff from chatting or leaving their posts, and giving managers the right to “educate” workers who violate the rules.China has warned its citizens for years about cyber fraud — from the scams themselves to jobs posted online that lure people into the compounds.But a steady stream of Chinese people still disappear into them, prompting desperate searches from loved ones — searches that expose them to another whole level of scams and fraudsters.Fang, a woman from northwestern China’s Gansu province, told AFP her 22-year-old brother, a school dropout, vanished in February in Yunnan, which borders Myanmar.He was likely under “financial pressure” and had travelled to Xishuangbanna, near the Golden Triangle border with Myanmar and Laos, for a job smuggling goods like watches and gold into China, Fang said.Fang said she is now convinced her brother was enticed there and trafficked into Myanmar, with phone records indicating his last known location in the Wa region, home to the country’s biggest and best-equipped ethnic armed group.Like other relatives, she said she felt anxious despite appealing to Chinese authorities for help.”He’s the youngest child in the family,” she said. “My grandmother, who is in the late stages of cancer… cries at home every day.”- ‘Snakeheads’ -Most Chinese scam workers cannot bank on Beijing’s efforts alone to get out.Instead, they may have to pay a ransom that can expose people to the same murky networks that supply the centres in the first place.Fang said she had joined several groups on the Chinese messaging app WeChat filled with dozens of people searching for relatives who disappeared near the Myanmar border.She said she had been approached on social media by self-styled private “rescuers” who claimed to be able to extract people trapped in the compounds.AFP contacted more than a dozen such rescuers advertising their services on Chinese social media platforms Xiaohongshu and Kuaishou.Many seemed to have worked in compounds themselves or touted links to smugglers.They said they could tap underground networks of compound staff, Chinese fugitives and “snakeheads” — smugglers with ties to multiple centres — to track the person and broker their release.Most quoted ransoms equivalent to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on which centre the worker was in and if they owed money to the scam syndicate.Some claimed to take no money for themselves. Others were open about their fees, saying a network of fixers would also get a cut.One self-styled fixer, Li Chao, said he earned thousands of yuan (hundreds of dollars) per month arranging rescues in Cambodia — another major fraud and money-laundering hub — scoping out compounds and whisking away escapees in rental cars.The job was lucrative, but “there are risks for me too”, he told AFP.- Rescuers ‘just another scam’ -Ling Li, a modern slavery researcher who operates an anti-trafficking NGO, said the shadowy private rescue sector made her work freeing workers more “complicated”.Her organisation helps families search for workers in Myanmar and Cambodia, contacting police and negotiating ransoms.She told AFP that many online “rescuers” were either scammers themselves or charged wild sums for extractions that often never materialised.Families “can easily be cheated by opportunists”, she said.Fang said some handed over thousands of yuan without success. The rescuers “claim to have connections… but in reality, it’s just (another) scam”, she said.Release came for Sun on February 12, after Thailand cut power to scam-ridden parts of Myanmar.That morning, as he was repairing phones, an armed group arrived, piled him and dozens of others into pickup trucks and drove them to a militia camp.Within hours, he was on a ferry back into Thailand. “I never imagined… that I would be rescued so suddenly,” he told AFP.Ten days later, he was put on a plane to the Chinese city of Nanjing — flanked by police officers.Sun was one of thousands rounded up in the joint operation between Beijing, Thailand and local Myanmar militias — the Border Guard Forces (BGF) and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), former ethnic-Karen rebel groups now allied with the Burmese army.They are two of several, often overlapping, militias operating around Myawaddy.The scammers operate in a “highly permissive environment… with permission from junta-affiliated Burmese militia”, concluded a report last month by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.The think tank, which is partly funded by Australia’s defence ministry, noted that while fighting between rival militia groups often rages near the centres, they are reportedly never hit, so as not to endanger the “pure profits available through the scamming industry”.AFP sought comment from the BGF, but they did not respond.The report’s author, Nathan Ruser, told AFP it was “shocking” that syndicates have been given “such a permanent, established infrastructure” for smuggling “construction materials, goods and the trafficking of people”.- ‘Like an enemy state’ -China has said its clampdowns show its “resolute” commitment to stamping out the scammers, but Ruser and other experts say they only temporarily disrupt the syndicates.”As long as the (military) junta (in Myanmar) enables and fuels this industry, I think it’s only ever going to be a game of cat and mouse,” Ruser said.New ones will simply “pop up elsewhere”, he added.Sun insisted he was forced into the compounds and never tricked anyone into handing over money.Traumatised, exhausted and still on bail, he said he found the “mental burden” of his ordeal hard to bear.Beijing has not said how it plans to deal with the freed workers. Experts said many of them try to play down their role to avoid punishment.But Chinese society has scant sympathy, regardless of whether they are brutalised victims of trafficking, said researcher Ling Li. “People will judge you for being greedy and stupid.”Governments, however, have been “insanely negligent” about the gravity of the problem, warned cybercrime expert Erin West.”A generation’s worth of wealth is being stolen from us,” she said.”I don’t know how we shut this down. It is way too big now, like an enemy state.”isk-mjw-sjc-nlc-fg/jhb

In Nepal’s capital, young would-be voters line up enthusiastically to register for the first elections since deadly anti-corruption protests toppled the government, the worst unrest in decades.For many, it will be their first time participating in an election, and they see it as a chance to shape the future of their country of 30 million people, burdened by deep economic woes.At least 73 people were killed in the September 8–9 protests that left parliament, courts and government buildings in flames.The unrest was triggered by a brief ban on social media but fuelled by long-standing frustration over economic hardship and corruption.Within days of the government’s collapse, 73-year-old former chief justice Sushila Karki was appointed interim prime minister to steer the Himalayan nation until elections on March 5, 2026.”The pillar of this new government is built on the dead bodies of students,” said student Niranjan Bhandari, 21, as he waited to provide biometric data to complete his registration.”That’s why, in the upcoming election, we want to uproot the old faces who have been clinging to power for too long,” he added.”I’m here to register for my new voter identity card for that very reason.”- ‘Growth to decline’ -Nepal’s political future hangs in the balance.The challenges ahead to ensure elections pass off smoothly are huge — including deep public distrust in Nepal’s established parties.It remains unclear whether protesters and youth will try to form their own party, or if old politicians will seek to return.The government has imposed a travel ban on KP Sharma Oli, the 73-year-old Marxist who served as prime minister four times before he was forced from power, as a commission investigates the unrest.But Oli remains outspoken, calling for the reinstatement of the parliament “that was unconstitutionally dissolved”, in an address to supporters earlier this month.The unrest also battered Nepal’s already fragile economy, where the World Bank estimates a “staggering” 82 percent of the workforce is in informal employment, with GDP per capita at just $1,447 in 2024.The bank this month updated its economic assessment for Nepal, warning that “recent unrest and heightened political and economic uncertainty are expected to cause growth to decline” to 2.1 percent.But at a district Election Commission office in Kathmandu, the excitement among the younger generation is clear.”I’m really excited,” 20-year-old student Sambriddhi Gautam told AFP. “This will be my first time participating in an election.”Gautam, who is studying to be a chartered accountant in neighbouring India, said she had returned to register to make sure she can take part.- ‘Good of the nation’ -Samiksha Adhikari, 32, a business consultant, waited to apply for her voter identity card.”We need to bring in new faces who can stop corruption and make the country better,” she said.”That’s why I’m here. I want to cast my vote for those who truly work for the good of the nation.”In Nepal’s last general elections, in 2022, nearly 18 million people were registered to vote.All Nepalis aged 18 and above are eligible to vote, with the deadline to register ending in November.Sirjana Rayamajhi, 38, spokesperson at the district election office in Kathmandu, said she had not seen such enthusiasm before.In her office, an average of nearly 400 people had been registering every day — four times higher than in past elections.”The turnout is very high,” she said.”Gen Z have come here to register their names with a lot of excitement. They want a new generation to bring change to the country. These days, the queue is only them.” 

Deforestation “has not meaningfully declined” despite a global pledge to halt forest destruction, but next month’s UN climate summit in the Amazon could mark a turning point, experts said Tuesday.Last year an area of the world’s forests larger than Scotland was cleared primarily to make way for agriculture, according to an annual deforestation assessment by a broad global coalition of researchers and activists.Tropical primary forests — particularly carbon rich and ecologically biodiverse environments — were the hardest hit, with 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres) lost in 2024.The report also highlighted persistent but overlooked levels of forest degradation, where land is damaged but not razed entirely, mostly owing to logging, road building and fires lit to clear land.Rates of deforestation remain stubbornly high despite a commitment made by more than 140 leaders at the UN COP summit in 2021 to stamp it out by the end of the decade.”Deforestation has not meaningfully declined since the beginning of the decade, and we’re already halfway through,” Erin Matson, an expert at the Climate Focus think tank and co-author of the latest assessment, told reporters.”Every year we are losing this level of forests.”Deforestation worldwide in 2024 was 3.1 million hectares above the maximum possible level to align with meeting the 2030 goal, the report said.Globally, deforestation is overwhelmingly driven by the expansion of permanent agriculture, which accounted for 85 percent of all forest loss over the past decade.”But another important and growing driver is mining and extractives for gold, for coal, and increasingly for the metals and minerals required for the renewable energy transition,” Matson said.- ‘Forest COP’ – Matson said she was cautiously optimistic the cause could be revived at next month’s COP30 summit in Brazil, the first time the annual UN climate conference has been held in the Amazon region. “This is the forest COP. I think there’s a lot of opportunity there,” she said.Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva chose to host the world’s most important climate talks in Belem, the gateway to the Amazon, to spotlight the role of forests in absorbing carbon dioxide.At COP30, Brazil will launch an innovative new fund that rewards countries with high tropical forest cover — mostly developing nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America — that protect trees rather than chopping them down.The Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF) aims to raise up to $25 billion from donor countries and another $100 billion from the private sector, which is invested on financial markets. Brazil has already thrown in $1 billion.”What is new about this initiative… it’s the scale, it’s the simplicity, it’s the long-term vision, and it’s the leadership of the Global South,” said Elisabeth Hoch, international portfolio lead from the Climate and Company, a think tank.”From a political point of view, the initiative has a lot of value but it has not yet reached a stage of maturity sufficient to be fully launched,” said a French government source on Friday.Matson said “political courage” was needed at COP30 to correct course and put the fight for forests back on the global agenda.”Looking at the global picture of deforestation, it is dark, but we may be in the darkness before the dawn,” she said.

Spinner Noman Ali grabbed four wickets to restrict South Africa to 216-6 at the close of play on day two of the first Test in Lahore on Monday, despite a fighting half century from Tony de Zorzi.Spinners dominated on a turning Gaddafi Stadium pitch as all the day’s 11 wickets went to slow bowlers, with South African left-armer Senuran Muthusamy taking a career-best 6-117 to dismiss Pakistan for 378.De Zorzi was holding the fort at the close with 81 not out and Muthusamy on six as South Africa trail by 162 runs in the first innings.De Zorzi batted with guts, knocking nine boundaries and a six, combating Noman who claimed 4-85.South Africa started off well with 45-0 on the board when Noman removed touring skipper Aiden Markram for 20 and Wiaan Mulder for 17 — both caught behind by wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan.Ryan Rickelton, who scored a punishing 71 with two sixes and nine boundaries, and De Zorzi added 94 for the third wicket, taking on the spinners with some aggressive shots.It was part-timer Salman Agha who broke the stand by forcing an edge from Rickelton with Babar Azam taking a smart low catch in the slips.Noman returned for his third spell to get Tristan Stubbs caught behind for eight and Kyle Verreynne leg-before for two while Sajid Khan removed Dewald Brevis for a golden duck.”We need to get them out as early as possible and a 120-run lead would help us win this Test,” said Noman.”This pitch will further help spinners in the coming days so it’s good for us.”Earlier, it was Noman’s like-for-like left-armer Muthusamy who destroyed Pakistan after they resumed on 313-5, losing their last five wickets for just 16 runs.Muthusamy, who bettered his previous Test best of 4-45 against Bangladesh in Chattogram last year, said: “It was really nice to add value to the team by getting wickets.”It was not ideal to have lost wicket close to stumps, but we will fight back tomorrow.”Agha hit five fours and three sixes in his 93 and was last man out, caught in the deep off spinner Prenelan Subrayen, who took 2-78.Agha added 49 with Rizwan to take their sixth-wicket stand to 163 before Muthusamy ripped out the middle order with three wickets in the 12th over of the day.Rizwan was the first to go, for 75, when he edged a sharply turning ball to wicketkeeper Verreynne after a knock containing two fours and two sixes.Two balls later Noman went without scoring, bowled when he played down the wrong line and then Sajid Khan followed first ball, caught in the slips.It became 378-9 when Muthusamy bowled Shaheen Shah Afridi, on seven, for his sixth wicket.

India closed in on a 2-0 series sweep in the second Test despite some spirited West Indies batting led by centuries from John Campbell and Shai Hope on Monday.Needing 121 for victory after bowling out the West Indies for 390, the hosts reached 63-1 at stumps on day four at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium.KL Rahul, on 25, and Sai Sudharsan, on 30, were batting in a stand of 54 at close of an absorbing day’s play.Yashasvi Jaiswal fell early for eight after left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican had the Indian opener caught at long-on while attempting an ambitious heave.Rahul and the left-handed Sudharsan steadied the ship and the pair kept up the scoring with singles and occasional boundaries against a persistent West Indies spin attack.Earlier, Justin Greaves with an unbeaten 50 and Jayden Seales (32) put on 79 runs for the final wicket to frustrate India after the West Indies slipped to 311-9 in the second session.Greaves and the left-handed number 10 defied the bowlers for 133 deliveries with straight-bat shots before Jasprit Bumrah dismissed Seales in the final session for his third wicket.Left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav also took three wickets to add to his five-wicket haul in the West Indies’ first innings.Campbell (115) and Hope (103) had steered the West Indies into the lead after the tourists resumed the day on 173-2 while following on.”I think it’s a big positive for us,” Campbell said of their fightback. “Having not gotten the best first innings, we came out second innings and batted over 100 overs, so that’s a big plus for us.”The left-right batting pair of Campbell and Hope put on 177 runs for the third wicket.- Kuldeep strikes -Opener Campbell reached his first Test ton with a six off Ravindra Jadeja before the left-arm spinner trapped him lbw in the morning session.Hope kept up the charge after lunch and reached his first Test hundred in eight years with a boundary off pace bowler Mohammed Siraj.Siraj had his revenge soon after when the batter dragged his delivery onto his stumps.Kuldeep then took over to send back wicketkeeper Tevin Imlach, trapped lbw for two.The left-arm wrist spinner then struck twice in three balls including skipper Roston Chase for 40 before Greaves and Seales put on a defiant partnership.India bowled more than 200 overs on a slow pitch that made life tough for bowlers.The visitors had waged a fightback after being reduced to 35-2 in their second innings on day three, but the batters made sure the game will go the distance to day five.”Good to be bowling long spells and heartening to have taken 20 West Indies wickets,” Indian spinner Washington Sundar told reporters.”We got to be really fit and on top of our game. In Test cricket you honestly expect most of the Test matches to go till the fith day and challenge you in every way possible,”the off-spinner said.India enforced the follow-on after they bowled out the West Indies for 248, a deficit of 270 from the hosts’ first-innings 518-5 declared.The hosts won the first Test, in Ahmedabad, by an innings and 140 runs.

Pakistani police said Monday they launched a clearance operation against a hardline Islamist party after failed negotiations to call off an anti-Israel protest, with five killed in the violence, including one policeman.The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) began its protests in Lahore on Thursday and planned to march to the US embassy in Islamabad, leading authorities to block roads between the two cities and shut down the internet.After negotiations between TLP and the government collapsed on Sunday, authorities launched a “dispersal operation” in Muridke, a town north of Lahore, where more than 7,000 supporters had reached in their march to the capital.Police said workers of TLP “resorted to stone pelting, spiked batons, and petrol bombs” and opened “indiscriminate fire, resulting in casualties among civilians and law enforcement personnel”.TLP has been behind some of Pakistan’s most violent protests, and frequently calls on the government to expel Western ambassadors.”One police officer and four civilians died,” the police statement said, adding that several rioters had been arrested while 48 law enforcement personnel and eight civilians were injured.The TLP had originally said the protests were organised to voice its opposition to the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, backed by Pakistan, after two years of war in Gaza.It later said the protest was in solidarity with Palestinians.”There were police personnel besieging us. They were firing bullets and tear gas. They kept shooting continuously for three to four hours,” said Abou Sufian, a TLP protester.After the operation, charred cars, including the TLP leader’s main truck, were left in the street.”There were no real negotiations. The government just used the word ‘negotiation’ to give the impression to the general public that they were holding a dialogue,” Allama Irfan, a senior member of TLP told AFP. Shipping containers were being placed as barriers across major roads in the capital in anticipation of the protesters’ arrival.As many as 50 police officers were injured in Friday’s clashes, a senior police official told AFP, while TLP claims that some of its members had been killed could not be verified independently.Israel declared a ceasefire and began pulling back its troops at around noon on Friday, as tens of thousands of Palestinians began walking back towards their devastated homes.The operation came at a time when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif reached Egypt to attend the signing ceremony of the Gaza peace plan. “Today’s ceremony marks the closing of a genocidal chapter, one that the international community must ensure is never repeated anywhere again,” Sharif wrote on X. Pakistan has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel.

South Africa recovered from spinner Noman Ali’s double strike to reach 112-2 at tea on the second day of the first Test in Lahore on Monday in reply to Pakistan’s 378 all out.Noman removed skipper Aiden Markram for 20 and Wiaan Mulder for 17 — both caught behind by wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan — in extracting spin from the Gaddafi Stadium pitch after Senuran Muthusamy took a career-best 6-117 in the morning.At the break Ryan Rickelton and Tony de Zorzi were unbeaten on 45 and 23 respectively, with the tourists still trailing by 266 runs in the first innings.Noman has figures of 2-47.It was Noman’s like-for-like left-armer Muthusamy who destroyed Pakistan after they resumed on 313-5, losing their last five wickets for just 16 runs.Salman Agha hit five fours and three sixes in his 93 and was last man out, caught in the deep off spinner Prenelan Subrayen, who took 2-78.Agha added 49 with Rizwan to take their sixth-wicket stand to 163 before Muthusamy ripped out the middle order with three wickets in the 12th over of the day.Rizwan was the first to go, for 75, when he edged a sharply turning ball to wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne after a knock containing two fours and two sixes.Two balls later Noman went without scoring, bowled when he played down the wrong line and then Sajid Khan followed first ball, caught in the slips.It became 378-9 when Muthusamy bowled Shaheen Shah Afridi, on seven, for his sixth wicket.His previous Test best was 4-45 against Bangladesh in Chattogram last year.

South Africa left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy took 6-117 on Monday, including three wickets in four balls, as Pakistan collapsed from 362-5 to 378 all out on day two of the first Test in Lahore.The 31-year-old’s maiden five-wicket Test haul helped the visitors restrict Pakistan, who began the day on 313-5, on a Gaddafi Stadium pitch beginning to take more turn.South Africa’s openers negotiated four overs to reach lunch at 10-0. Aiden Markram was on five and Ryan Rickelton on four.Earlier Salman Agha hit five fours and three sixes in his 93 and was the last man out, caught in the deep off spinner Prenelan Subrayen who took 2-78.Agha added 49 with Mohammad Rizwan to take their sixth-wicket stand to 163 before Muthusamy ripped out the middle order with three wickets in the 12th over of the day.Rizwan, on 75, was the first to go when he edged a sharply turning ball to wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne after a knock containing two fours and two sixes.Two balls later Noman Ali went without scoring, bowled when he played down the wrong line and then Sajid Khan followed first ball, caught in the slips.It became 378-9 when Muthusamy bowled Shaheen Shah Afridi, on seven, for his sixth wicket that improved on his previous Test best of 4-45 against Bangladesh in Chattogram last year.

From the age of 10, Amina has been scrubbing, sweeping and cooking in a middle-class home in Pakistan’s megacity of Karachi. Like millions of Pakistani children, she is a household helper, an illegal but common practice that brings grief to families often too poor to seek justice. “Alongside my mother, I cut vegetables, wash dishes, sweep the floor and mop. I hate working for this family,” said the 13-year-old, who leaves her slum neighbourhood in Karachi at 7 am and often returns after dark.”Sometimes we work on Sundays even though it’s supposed to be our only day off, and that’s really unfair.” One in four households in a country of 255 million people employs a child as a domestic worker, mostly girls aged 10 to 14, according to a 2022 report by the International Labour Organization (ILO).Sania, 13, earns $15 a month helping her mother maintain a sprawling luxury home in the city, where she has been explicitly forbidden to speak to her employer’s children or touch their toys. AFP is not publishing the full names of children and parents interviewed to protect their identities.Sania gets half the salary of her mother for the same hours, together earning $46 — far below the minimum wage of 40,000 rupees ($140).”I dreamed of finishing school and becoming a doctor,” said the eldest of five siblings who, according to the law, should be in school until the age of 16.- ‘I know it’s immoral’ – A university professor who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity employs a 10-year-old boy because children are “cheaper and more docile”.”I know it’s immoral and illegal to employ a child, but at least he has a roof and is well fed here,” he said. Hamza was sent by his parents to live with the professor in Karachi — a 450-kilometre (280-mile) journey from his impoverished village, to which he returns only a few times a year.His monthly salary of $35 is paid directly to his father.”In the village, his poor parents would likely have sent him to the fields without even being able to feed him,” the professor said, while also acknowledging that he feels “uneasy” when his own children go to school and Hamza stays behind to clean.There is no unified definition of a child or child labour in Pakistan, although a federal law prohibits children under the age of 14 from working in unsafe and hazardous environments, such as factories.In Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, employing a child as a domestic maid can lead to a maximum of one year in jail or a fine of up to 50,000 rupees ($177). However, few are prosecuted.Kashif Mirza from the NGO Sparc, one of the leading child rights organisations, described it as a form of “modern slavery widely accepted in Pakistani society that makes them particularly vulnerable”.”Society prefers to hire child domestic labour because they are cheap and more obedient, and employers make the argument that they are also safeguarding them, which is not true and illegal,” he told AFP.- ‘I had no choice’ -Iqra, a 13-year-old child worker, died in February from blows by her wealthy employers in Rawalpindi, Islamabad’s twin city, because chocolate had disappeared from their kitchen. Her father, Sana, who said after her death that he would seek to prosecute the employers, instead told AFP that he forgave them.Under Islamic law, which operates alongside common law in Pakistan, the family of a killed relative can accept financial compensation from the perpetrators in exchange for forgiveness, leaving them free from prosecution.”I had no choice. Where would I have found the money to pay legal fees? I already have more than 600,000 rupees ($2,120) in debt,” he said.”There was also some pressure from the family’s relatives to pardon them, and I eventually agreed,” he said.He told AFP that he had not taken any money from the family, highly unusual under Islamic law.He brought home his other two daughters and two sons after Iqra’s death. “I stopped sending them because I cannot bear the thought of losing another child,” he said.- Burned with an iron -“The penalties are not strict enough,” for both employers and parents, said Mir Tariq Ali Talpur, the social affairs minister for rural and impoverished Sindh. He told AFP that authorities regularly conduct checks and take charge of young children employed illegally, but the courts often return them to their parents after a small fine of around $3.50.”That’s why these incidents keep happening again and again,” he said.A Karachi couple accused of burning a 13-year-old domestic worker named Zainab with an iron was given bail for a fee of around $105 each in September.”I don’t understand how they could be free. Doesn’t anyone see Zainab’s injuries?” said the teen’s mother Asia, pointing to severe burns on her daughter’s arms, legs, back and stomach.Asia, who is pursuing the offenders legally, acknowledges that they are “rich and think they’re untouchable”.”The poor like us have no power,” she said.