AFP Asia

The local government in a resource-rich Philippine province has unanimously voted in favour of a 50-year ban on new mining permits, a decision its supporters said cannot be overridden by Manila.Palawan province, a UNESCO “biosphere reserve” known for its diverse flora and fauna, has become a hotbed for mining as the national government seeks to widen its market share for minerals like nickel, a key component of electric vehicle batteries.But locals have increasingly pushed back against new mine proposals, with environmental groups and activists pointing to effects ranging from deforestation and flooding to the displacement of Indigenous peoples.There are currently 11 mines operated in Palawan, but scores of applications are pending.Environmental lawyer Grizelda Anda, who worked in support of Wednesday’s vote, said Manila would not be able to legally overrule the local government’s decision, which now awaits the governor’s signature.”The (Philippine Mining Act of 1995) provides that you have to get the endorsement of the LGU (local government unit),” she said.The new permit ban also imposes a 25-year pause on applications to renew or expand mining licenses.Existing mines can continue “as long as they do not increase their production” or move into new areas, Anda added.- ‘A really big win’ -“This is a really big win not just for the people but for the environment, especially Palawan, which is our last frontier here in the Philippines,” said Jonila Castro, a spokesperson for the Manila-based Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment.”We hope that many other provinces will have the same moratorium.”Palawan resident Jade Cabasag, 23, whose church advocated for the ban, told AFP she was one of about 100,000 people who had signed a petition in favour of it.”We are more than just a sector that values our faith, but we also value our environment,” she said, adding she was proud she could help in her “own little way”.But the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines criticised the vote, saying in a statement on Thursday that the environmental concerns were overblown given laws it said provided “stringent” safeguards.The decision would also limit “the country’s ability to plan and strategise about its mineral wealth at a time when the global demand for critical minerals is rising”, it said.”The Philippine government has a responsibility to the people to develop its mineral resources responsibly for the good of the many. Palawan cannot and should not limit the national government’s ability to do so.”But mid-term elections in May, when 10 of the Palawan board’s 11 members are up for re-election, could see the new ban undone if there is a dramatic shift in the body’s makeup.

Hundreds of Chinese nationals freed from Myanmar online scam centres flew home through Thailand on Thursday, as the kingdom said it aimed to repatriate 1,500 such workers a week.Thailand, Myanmar and China have been making efforts in recent weeks to clear out illegal cyberscam compounds on the Thai-Myanmar border where thousands of foreigners — mostly Chinese nationals — have been working.Under pressure from key ally Beijing, Myanmar has cracked down on some of the compounds, freeing around 7,000 workers from more than two dozen countries.Around 600 Chinese nationals were returned from Myanmar through Thailand two weeks ago, and last week the three countries held talks in Bangkok to arrange further transferrals.Thai media broadcast footage on Thursday of coaches bringing hundreds of Chinese workers from Myanmar and offloading them on to planes destined for China at Mae Sot airport.The Thai border force later said that 456 Chinese nationals were sent back on six China Southern chartered aircraft.Thai foreign ministry spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura told reporters that the government plans to repatriate 1,500 people per week, or 300 each weekday, with “regular repatriations of Chinese nationals every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.”Mondays and Tuesdays would see other foreign nationals including Africans repatriated, he said, with the ministry coordinating with foreign embassies to help with “immediate” repatriations.The remaining freed workers have been languishing for weeks in sometimes squalid conditions in holding camps near the Thai border while officials organise their repatriation.Many workers say they were lured or tricked into taking the work — defrauding strangers online with investment, romance and gambling scams — and suffered beatings and abuse.A Rwandan scam centre worker who asked to remain anonymous told AFP on Wednesday that he had been trafficked into one of the compounds where he was tortured and had his money taken from him.”It’s a big challenge. If I get home I will have a big challenge also,” he said.Unsanitary conditions at the overcrowded makeshift encampments have raised concerns about possible disease outbreaks.”There are sick people… they need be repatriated onto the Thai side as early as possible,” Nikorndej said.burs-sjc/pdw/dhw

New Zealand have vowed to “find little ways to win moments” against India after making Champions Trophy history to power into Sunday’s final.The Black Caps posted a Champions Trophy record 362-6 before restricting South Africa to 312-9 in Wednesday’s semi-final in Lahore. They now face India in Dubai to decide the winners of the eight-nation 50-over tournament.Rohit Sharma’s India are playing all their games in Dubai after they refused to tour hosts Pakistan because of political tensions.India beat New Zealand by 44 runs in the group stage but batting all-rounder Daryl Mitchell said that would have no bearing on Sunday’s result.”Final is a new day,” Mitchell said after scoring 49 against South Africa.”Really excited to be stuck into that challenge and will adapt to whatever surface and conditions we get on the day, and will find little ways to win moments throughout that game.”The tournament’s tangled schedule, with teams flying in and out of the United Arab Emirates from Pakistan while India have stayed put, has been hugely controversial.The pitches have been vastly different in the two countries.Pakistan tracks produced big totals, in contrast to the slow and turning decks of Dubai’s international cricket stadium.”We don’t quite know how the Dubai pitch is like,” said Rachin Ravindra, one of the heroes of New Zealand’s semi-final win with a 101-ball 108.”We know our game against India it did turn and Aussie v India (semi-final) didn’t turn so much, so I think we pride ourselves in adapting and playing the situation in front of us.”India unleashed four spinners against New Zealand in the group phase and Varun Chakravarthy returned figures of 5-42 to bowl the Black Caps out for 205 in their chase of 250.Rohit’s side were unchanged in their four-wicket win over Australia as the spin-heavy selection came up trumps again, albeit on a pitch that turned a little less this time around.”They are all pretty good,” Mitchell said of India’s slow bowlers.”But we have got some pretty good spinners ourselves.”

Rations will be halved for around one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from next month due to a lack of funds, the United Nations food agency has said.Huge numbers of the persecuted and stateless Rohingya community live in squalid relief camps in Bangladesh, most arriving after having fled from a 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar.Successive aid cuts have already caused severe hardship among Rohingya in the overcrowded settlements, who are reliant on aid and suffer from rampant malnutrition.The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in a letter on Wednesday that “severe funding shortfalls” had forced a cut in monthly food vouchers from $12.50 to $6.00 per person.”Unfortunately, we have still not received sufficient funding, and cost-saving measures alone are not enough,” the letter said.Md. Shamsud Douza of Bangladesh’s refugee agency told AFP that his office would meet community leaders next week to discuss the cuts.A decision by US President Donald Trump’s administration to make drastic cuts to foreign aid has sent shockwaves through humanitarian initiatives worldwide.But WFP’s Kun Li said that the United States remained a donor for Rohingya aid and the ration cuts reflected a “funding gap across multiple sources”.Funds raised were only half the $852 million sought by foreign aid agencies, she told AFP.Wednesday’s letter comes days before a visit by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is slated to meet Rohingya refugees to mark the annual Muslim Ramadan fast. The 2017 crackdown in Myanmar — now the subject of a UN genocide investigation — sent around 750,000 Rohingya fleeing into neighbouring Bangladesh with harrowing stories of murder, rape and arson.Bangladesh has struggled to support its refugee population. The prospects of a wholesale return to Myanmar or resettlement elsewhere are remote.Rohingya living in the camps around Cox’s Bazar are not allowed to seek employment and are almost entirely dependent on limited humanitarian aid to survive.Large numbers of refugees have attempted hazardous sea crossings in an effort to find a better life away from the camps, including more than 250 Rohingya who arrived in Indonesia in January.

An Islamic State operative who allegedly helped carry out the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport during the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan appeared in a Virginia court Wednesday.Mohammad Sharifullah has confessed to scouting out the route to the airport, where the suicide bomber later detonated his device among packed crowds trying to flee days after the Taliban seized control of Kabul, the Justice Department said.The blast at the Abbey Gate killed at least 170 Afghans as well as 13 US troops who were securing the airport’s perimeter.Sharifullah appeared in a court in Alexandria, near the US capital Washington, wearing light blue prison garb and a black face mask. He was officially appointed a public defender and provided with an interpreter.He did not enter a plea. His next appearance will be in the same courthouse on Monday, and he will stay in custody until then, the judge said.Sharifullah — who the US says also goes by the name Jafar and is a member of the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan — was detained by Pakistani authorities and brought to the United States.President Donald Trump triumphantly announced his arrest Tuesday in an address to Congress, calling him “the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.”ISK militants gave Sharifullah a cellphone and a SIM card and told him to check the route to the airport, according to the Justice Department’s affidavit in the case.When he gave it the all-clear, they told him to leave the area, it said.”Later that same day, Sharifullah learned of the attack at HKIA described above and recognized the alleged bomber as an ISIS-K operative he had known while incarcerated,” the affidavit said, using an alternative acronym for the group.Sharifullah is charged with “providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death.”- Moscow attack link -Trump thanked Islamabad “for helping arrest this monster.””This evil ISIS-K terrorist orchestrated the brutal murder of 13 heroic Marines,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.Sharifullah also admitted to involvement in several other attacks, the Justice Department said, including the March 2024 Moscow Crocus City Hall attack, in which he said “he had shared instructions on how to use AK-style rifles and other weapons to would-be attackers” by video.The United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a chaotic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans who had rushed to Kabul’s airport in the hope of boarding a flight out of the country.Images of crowds storming the airport, climbing onto aircraft as they took off — and some clinging to a departing US military cargo plane as it rolled down the runway — aired on news bulletins around the world.In 2023, the White House announced that an Islamic State official involved in plotting the airport attack had been killed in an operation by Afghanistan’s new Taliban government.- ‘Leverage US concerns’ -Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump for acknowledging his country’s role in counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan, and promised to “continue to partner closely with the United States” in a post on X.Pakistan’s strategic importance has waned since the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has seen violence rebound in the border regions.Tensions between the neighboring countries have soared, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil who launch attacks on Pakistan.The Taliban government denies the charges and in a statement said Sharifullah’s arrest “is proof” that ISK hideouts are on Pakistani soil.ISK, which has claimed several recent attacks in Afghanistan, has staged a growing number of bloody international assaults, including killing more than 90 people in an Iranian bombing last year.Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at the Wilson Center, said on X that Pakistan was trying to “leverage US concerns about terror in Afghanistan and pitch a renewed security partnership.”

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai returned to her Pakistan home village on Wednesday, 13 years after surviving an assassination attempt by militants.Yousafzai was a 15-year-old schoolgirl when Pakistan Taliban militants boarded a bus and shot her in the head in the remote Swat Valley near the Afghanistan border.She has made rare visits to the valley since, but it was the first time she returned to her childhood home in Shangla since being evacuated to the United Kingdom after the attack. “As a child, I spent every holiday in Shangla, Pakistan, playing by the river and sharing meals with my extended family,” she said on X. “It was such a joy for me to return there today — after 13 long years — to be surrounded by the mountains, dip my hands in the cold river and laugh with my beloved cousins. This place is very dear to my heart and I hope to return again and again.”Yousafzai was accompanied by her father, husband and brother for the high-security visit by helicopter which lasted just three hours.Authorities have been cautious in allowing her to return to Shangla district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where militancy has soared following the return of the Afghan Taliban in Kabul in 2021. The area was sealed off for several hours to provide security for her visit on Wednesday, which included a stop at local education projects backed by her Malala Fund.”Her visit was kept highly secret to avoid any untoward incidents,” a senior administration official told AFP on  condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.”Even the locals were unaware of her plans to visit.”The Pakistan Taliban is a separate but closely linked group to the Afghan Taliban and controlled swaths of the border regions at the time Yousafzai was shot. Militants had ordered girls to stay home, but she continued to secretly go to school and wrote a blog about her experience. She went on to become an education activist and the world’s youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner at age 17. In January, she addressed Muslim world leaders at an education conference in Islamabad where she called for action against the Afghan Taliban, who have banned teenage girls from going to school.Her hometown visit comes in a week marred by violence in Pakistan, with 18 civilians and soldiers killed in an overnight suicide attack on a military compound in the same province. “I pray for peace in every corner of our beautiful country. The recent attacks, including in Bannu yesterday, are heartbreaking,” Yousafzai said of the attack.

An Islamic State operative who allegedly helped carry out the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport during the chaotic US military withdrawal was to appear in a Virginia court Wednesday, the Justice Department said.The bomber detonated a device among packed crowds as they tried to flee Afghanistan, killing 170 Afghans and 13 US troops securing the perimeter, days after the Taliban seized control of the capital.The Department of Justice (DOJ) said a member of the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan who had admitted to “helping prepare” for the attack would appear in court near the US capital Wednesday.The man, named Mohammad Sharifullah, had told FBI agents that his help included “scouting a route near the airport for an attacker,” the DOJ said.ISK militants gave Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, a cellphone and a SIM card and told him to check the route, according to the affidavit in the case.When he gave it the all clear they told him to leave the area, it said.”Later that same day, Sharifullah learned of the attack at HKIA described above and recognized the alleged bomber as an ISIS-K operative he had known while incarcerated,” the affidavit said, using an alternative acronym for the group.Sharifullah has been charged with “providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death.”In his first address to Congress since returning to the White House, Trump announced on Tuesday that Pakistan had assisted in the arrest of “the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.”He thanked Islamabad “for helping arrest this monster.””This evil ISIS-K terrorist orchestrated the brutal murder of 13 heroic Marines,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.Sharifullah also admitted to involvement in several other attacks, the DOJ said, including the March 2024 Moscow Crocus City Hall attack in which he said “he had shared instructions on how to use AK-style rifles and other weapons to would-be attackers” by video.The United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a chaotic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans who had rushed to Kabul’s airport in the hope of boarding a flight out of the country.Images of crowds storming the airport, climbing atop aircraft — and some clinging to a departing US military cargo plane as it rolled down the runway — aired on news bulletins around the world.In April 2023, the White House announced that an Islamic State official involved in plotting the attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate had been killed in an operation by Afghanistan’s new Taliban government.- ‘Leverage US concerns’ -Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump for acknowledging his country’s role in counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan.He promised to “continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability,” in a post on X.Pakistan’s strategic importance has waned since the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has seen violence rebound in the border regions.Tensions between the neighboring countries have soared, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil who launch attacks on Pakistan.The Taliban government denies the charges and in a statement said Sharifullah’s arrest “is proof” that ISK hideouts are on Pakistani soil.ISK, which has claimed several recent attacks in Afghanistan, has staged a growing number of bloody international assaults, including killing more than 90 in an Iranian bombing last year.Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at The Wilson Center, said on X that Pakistan was trying to “leverage US concerns about terror in Afghanistan and pitch a renewed security partnership.”

Thirteen civilians and five soldiers were killed when suicide bombers drove two explosive-laden cars into an army compound in northwestern Pakistan, the military said on Wednesday. Four children were among those killed in Tuesday’s attack, which involved four suicide bombers, with fighting raging into the early hours of Wednesday. The attack took place in Bannu, a district in the turbulent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province close to Afghanistan and adjacent to the formerly self-governed tribal areas, once a hotbed for militancy.”The terrorists entered Bannu Cantt from two different directions and, after an intense operation lasting several hours until this morning, all attackers were eliminated,” provincial minister Pakhtoon Yar Khan told AFP, adding that four children and three women were killed.Plumes of grey smoke rose into the air after the two explosions, with gunfire heard throughout the night.”In this intense exchange of fire, five brave soldiers, after putting up a heroic resistance, embraced martyrdom in the line of duty,” the military said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that 13 civilians were also killed.The statement said 16 “terrorists”, including four suicide bombers, were killed, while a nearby mosque and residential area were severely damaged.Thousands of people, including security officials, attended funerals for 12 of the civilians held at a sports complex in Bannu on Wednesday afternoon.Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced the attackers as “cowardly terrorists who target innocent civilians during the holy month of Ramadan” and said they “deserve no mercy”.- ‘Apocalyptic devastation’ -The attack was claimed by a faction of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, which actively supported the Afghan Taliban in its war against the US-led NATO coalition between 2001 and 2021.”The force of the explosion threw me several feet away… The explosion was so intense that it caused significant damage to the neighbourhood,” Nadir Ali Shah, 40, told AFP from hospital as he received treatment for head and leg wounds.”It was a scene of apocalyptic devastation.”A police official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media, told AFP on Tuesday that “the blasts created two four-foot craters”.The attack came days after a suicide bomber killed six people at an Islamic religious school in Pakistan attended by key Taliban leaders in the same province.Meanwhile four people were killed and five others wounded on Wednesday in Khuzdar city in southwestern Balochistan province, which is facing a separatist insurgency, when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded, targeting a local pro-government tribal elder, police told AFP.Violence has increased in Pakistan since the Taliban authorities returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.Islamabad accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil as they prepare to stage assaults on Pakistan, a charge the Taliban government denies.The military said it has “unequivocally confirmed the physical involvement of Afghan nationals” in the attack, which they said was “orchestrated and directed” by militant leaders operating from Afghanistan.”Pakistan expects the Interim Afghan Government to uphold its responsibilities and deny its soil for terrorist activities against Pakistan,” the statement said.Hafiz Gul Bahadur carried out another attack on the same compound last July, detonating a car bomb against the boundary wall, killing eight Pakistani soldiers.Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, home to 250 million people, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies.The violence is largely limited to Pakistan’s border regions with Afghanistan.

An Islamic State operative who allegedly planned the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport during the chaotic US military withdrawal has been arrested, President Donald Trump has said.The bomber detonated a device among packed crowds as they tried to flee Afghanistan, killing 170 Afghans and 13 US troops securing the perimeter, days after the Taliban seized control of the capital.In his first address to Congress since returning to the White House, Trump announced on Tuesday that Pakistan had assisted in the arrest of “the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.”The Justice Department named the man as Mohammad Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, and said he is expected to appear in a Virginia court on Wednesday.Sharifullah, who is a leader of the Islamic State Khorasan branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been charged with “providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death.”The Justice Department said Wednesday the operative admitted to FBI Special Agents “to helping prepare” for the attack, “including scouting a route near the airport for an attacker.””This evil ISIS-K terrorist orchestrated the brutal murder of 13 heroic Marines,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.Sharifullah also admitted to involvement in several other attacks, the Justice Department said, including the March 2024 Moscow Crocus City Hall attack in which he said “he had shared instructions on how to use AK-style rifles and other weapons to would-be attackers.”In Tuesday’s speech, Trump took a swipe at his predecessor Joe Biden’s oversight of the “disastrous and incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan” and thanked Pakistan “for helping arrest this monster.”The United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a chaotic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans who had rushed to Kabul’s airport in the hope of boarding a flight out of the country.Images of crowds storming the airport, climbing atop aircraft — and some clinging to a departing US military cargo plane as it rolled down the runway — aired on news bulletins around the world.In April 2023, the White House announced that an Islamic State official involved in plotting the attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate had been killed in an operation by Afghanistan’s new Taliban government.- ‘Leverage US concerns’ -Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump for “acknowledging and appreciating Pakistan’s role and support” in counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan.”We will continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability,” he wrote on social media platform X.Pakistan’s strategic importance has waned since the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has seen violence rebound in the border regions.Tensions between the neighboring countries have soared, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil who launch attacks on Pakistan.The Taliban government denies the charges and in a statement said the arrest of the ISK operative Sharifullah “is proof” that the group’s hideouts are on Pakistani soil.ISK, which has claimed several recent attacks in Afghanistan, has staged a growing number of bloody international assaults, including killing more than 90 in an Iranian bombing last year.Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at The Wilson Center, said on X that Pakistan was trying to “leverage US concerns about terror in Afghanistan and pitch a renewed security partnership.””Pakistan’s help catching the Abbey Gate attack plotter should be seen in this context,” he added.

Sri Lanka will launch a nationwide census of nuisance wildlife, including monkeys and peacocks, as part of an effort to tackle the increasing threat to agriculture, the government said Wednesday.Thousands of officials and volunteers have been mobilised to count wild boar, lorises, peacocks, and monkeys near farms and homes on March 15, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.”The high price of fruit and vegetables is due to these pests,” the ministry said, adding that they hope to develop ways to deal with the animals raiding farms and home gardens.Official estimates suggest that about a third of all crops in Sri Lanka are eaten or destroyed by wild animals, including elephants, which are protected by law as they are considered sacred.The ministry said the census would be conducted in a way to avoid double counting.”The census will help provide a sustainable solution to the problem of wild animals raiding and destroying crops,” the ministry said, adding that it was seeking public support for the count.In 2023, the then agricultural minister proposed exporting some 100,000 toque macaques to Chinese zoos, but the monkey business was abandoned following protests from environmentalists.Sri Lanka removed several species from its protected list in 2023, including all three of its monkey species as well as peacocks and wild boars, allowing farmers to kill them.Elephants are also major raiders of rice farms and fruit plantations, leading to violent clashes with villagers.Official figures show that 1,200 people and more than 3,500 elephants were killed in a decade due to the worsening human-elephant conflict.The government has pledged to increase electric fences to keep elephants from raiding villages but efforts so far have failed to reduce conflicts.