Pakistan court grants bail to 10 MPs linked to jailed ex-PM Imran Khan

Pakistan court grants bail to 10 MPs linked to jailed ex-PM Imran Khan
Activists of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of former country’s prime minister Imran Khan, take part in a public rally on the outskirts of Islamabad on September 8, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 16 September 2024
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Pakistan court grants bail to 10 MPs linked to jailed ex-PM Imran Khan

Pakistan court grants bail to 10 MPs linked to jailed ex-PM Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan granted bail Monday to 10 lawmakers from jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party, an AFP journalist witnessed.
At least 30 people from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party — including the 10 MPs — were remanded in custody last Tuesday, two days after they led a major rally in the capital, Islamabad.
The anti-terrorism court granted them bail of 30,000 rupees ($100).
PTI has faced a sweeping crackdown since Khan was jailed in August last year on a series of charges he says are politically motivated and designed to keep him from power.
The 10 MPs, some detained at their offices in the National Assembly, were charged under a new protest law and the anti-terrorism act.
They were accused of violating the Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Act, passed just days before the rally was held, in a move rights groups say was an attempt to curb freedom of expression and peaceful protest.
PTI has sparred with the military since Khan was deposed two years ago.
The confrontation came to a head after the former cricket star’s first arrest on corruption charges in May 2023.
His supporters waged days of sometimes violent protests and attacked military installations, sparking a sweeping crackdown on PTI led by the army — Pakistan’s most powerful institution.
But the clampdown failed to diminish Khan’s popularity and candidates backed by the former premier won the most seats in 2024 polls — marred by allegations of widespread rigging.
Khan rose to power in 2018 with the help of the military, analysts say, but was ousted in 2022 after reportedly falling out with the generals.
A United Nations panel of experts found this month that his detention “had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him from running for political office.”
A number of convictions against him have been overturned by the courts.
Several members of the PTI’s social media and press team were rounded up last month and accused of “anti-state propaganda.”


Japan PM warns ‘today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia’

Japan PM warns ‘today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia’
Updated 11 sec ago
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Japan PM warns ‘today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia’

Japan PM warns ‘today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia’
  • Japan’s relations with China have deteriorated in recent years as Beijing asserts its military presence around disputed territories in the region and Tokyo boosts security ties with the United States
TOKYO: Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba warned in his first policy speech Friday that “today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia” while also dubbing the country’s low birth rate a “quiet emergency.”
“Many fear that today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia. Why did deterrence not work in Ukraine?” Ishiba told parliament.
“Combined with the situation in the Middle East, the international community is becoming increasingly divided and confrontational,” the 67-year-old former defense minister said.
Japan’s relations with China have deteriorated in recent years as Beijing asserts its military presence around disputed territories in the region and Tokyo boosts security ties with the United States and its allies.
In August, a Chinese military aircraft staged the first confirmed incursion by China into Japanese airspace, followed weeks later by a Japanese warship sailing through the Taiwan Strait for the first time.
Ishiba backs the creation of a regional military alliance along the lines of NATO, saying on Tuesday that the security environment in Asia was “the most severe since the end of World War II.”
Japan, like many developed countries, is facing a looming demographic crisis as its population ages and the birth rate stays stubbornly low.
The country has the world’s oldest population after tiny Monaco, according to the World Bank.
Last year its birth rate — the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her life — stood at 1.2, well below the 2.1 children needed to maintain the population.
On Friday, Ishiba called the birth rate situation a “quiet emergency,” adding that the government will promote measures to support families such as flexible working hours.
Kishida was unpopular with voters because of a string of scandals and inflation squeezing earnings in the world’s fourth-biggest economy.
Ishiba wants to boost incomes through a new monetary stimulus package as well as support for regional governments and low-income households.
Within this decade, he said Friday he wants to hike the average national minimum wage to 1,500 yen ($10.20) per hour, up nearly 43 percent from the current 1,050 yen.
The yen surged last Friday after the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) voted Ishiba leader, because he had broadly backed the Bank of Japan’s exit from its ultra-loose policies.
But Ishiba told reporters late Wednesday that he did not think the environment was right for further interest rate hikes, sending the Japanese currency south again.
On Friday morning, one dollar bought 146.42 yen, having slightly recovered from levels past 147 earlier this week.

Vietnam condemns China for assault on its fishermen in the disputed South China Sea

Vietnam condemns China for assault on its fishermen in the disputed South China Sea
Updated 2 min 9 sec ago
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Vietnam condemns China for assault on its fishermen in the disputed South China Sea

Vietnam condemns China for assault on its fishermen in the disputed South China Sea
  • Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs blamed Chinese law enforcement personnel on Thursday for the high-seas attack, saying it “seriously violated Vietnam’s sovereignty in the Paracel islands

HANOI: Vietnam condemned China on Thursday, saying Chinese law enforcement personnel assaulted 10 Vietnamese fishermen, damaged their fishing gear and seized about 4 tons of fish catch near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
The fishermen reported the assault near the Chinese-controlled islands by radio on Sunday but did not identify the attackers.
Three of the fishermen suffered broken limbs and the rest sustained other injuries, according to Vietnamese state media. Some were taken on stretchers to a hospital after they returned to Quang Ngai province late Monday.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs blamed Chinese law enforcement personnel on Thursday for the high-seas attack, saying they had “seriously violated Vietnam’s sovereignty in the Paracel Islands,” international law and an agreement by the leaders of the two countries to better manage their territorial disputes.
Chinese officials did not immediately issue a reaction.
Vietnam conveyed a protest and alarm over the attack to the Chinese ambassador in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.
Vietnam demanded that Beijing respect its sovereignty in the Paracel Islands, launch an investigation and provide it with information about the attack, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said in a statement.
China has become increasingly aggressive in asserting its claims in virtually the entire South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in global trade transits each year. The sea passage is also believed to be sitting atop vast undersea deposits of oil and gas.
Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the strategic waterway.
The United States has no claims in the disputed waters, but has deployed Navy ships and Air Force fighter jets to patrol the waterway and promote freedom of navigation and overflight. China has warned the US not to meddle in what it says is a purely Asian dispute.
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement Thursday on the social media platform X that the US “is deeply concerned by reports of dangerous actions by (Chinese) law enforcement vessels against Vietnamese fishing vessels around the Paracel Islands on September 29. We call on (China) to desist from dangerous and destabilizing conduct in the South China Sea.”
The Vietnamese newspaper Tien Phong cited one of the fishermen, Tran Tien Cong, as saying that two foreign boats approached them from the rear and that personnel from the vessels boarded their boat and started beating the fishermen with a meter-long (three-foot-long) pole, apparently made of iron.
The Vietnamese fishermen panicked and did not fight back because they were overwhelmed by an estimated 40 attackers, it said. Another fisherman, Nguyen Thuong, was cited as saying that the attackers, who spoke through a translator, ordered them to sail back to Vietnam. The assailants then seized their fishing gear and fish catch.
After being beaten, the Vietnamese fishermen were forced to kneel and were covered with plastic sheets before the attackers left.
The Paracel Islands lie about 400 kilometers (250 miles) off Vietnam’s eastern coast and about the same distance from China’s southernmost province of Hainan. Both countries, along with the self-governing island of Taiwan, claim the islands.
The islands have been under the de facto control of China since 1974, when Beijing seized them from Vietnam in a brief but violent naval conflict.
Last year, satellite photos showed that China appeared to be building an airstrip on Triton Island in the Paracel group. At the time, it appeared the airstrip would be big enough to accommodate turboprop aircraft and drones but not fighter jets or bombers.
China has also had a small harbor and buildings on the island for years, along with a helipad and radar arrays.
China has refused to provide details of its island construction work other than to say it is aimed at promoting global navigation safety.
It has rejected accusations, including by the US, that it is militarizing the sea passage.


Taiwan re-opens, mopping up after Typhoon Krathon

Taiwan re-opens, mopping up after Typhoon Krathon
Updated 16 min 59 sec ago
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Taiwan re-opens, mopping up after Typhoon Krathon

Taiwan re-opens, mopping up after Typhoon Krathon
  • Krathon, now downgraded to a tropical depression, hit land in the southwestern city of Kaohsiung
  • Nearly 100,000 households, almost all in Kaohsiung and Pingtung, still had no power on Friday

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan: Southern Taiwan worked on Friday to clear up damage from flooding and high winds after Typhoon Krathon slammed into a major port city, while most of the rest of the island resumed work and financial markets re-opened.
Krathon, now downgraded to a tropical depression, hit land in the southwestern city of Kaohsiung, inundating streets, blowing out the windows of some buildings and scattering debris amid record-breaking winds.
While the rest of Taiwan resumed work, the governments in Kaohsiung and neighboring Pingtung county declared a fourth successive day off work as they scrambled to pump away floodwaters, remove fallen trees, and clear roads.
“We hope as fast as possible to resume transport, water and electricity supplies, so work and life can get back to normal,” Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai told reporters.
The city government said it was tackling more than 2,000 trees that had fallen on roads, but reported only two injuries.
Workers used cranes to remove downed trees and traffic signs in Kaohsiung, a city and surrounds of 2.7 million people, with some roads blocked, forcing diversions of traffic and pedestrians.
“Sandbags didn’t work. The wind pressed the water in anyway,” said Clark Huang, 49. “Fortunately it lasted only a couple of hours and then we started cleaning up.”
Engineer Tsai Ming-an was cleaning up his home after floodwaters about 20 cm (7.8 inches) high washed through the entire ground floor.
“I have never seen winds like that,” said the 51-year-old. “It was so bad.”
Typhoons almost always hit Taiwan’s mountainous and sparsely populated east coast which faces the Pacific Ocean, but Krathon, unusually, struck its flat west coast.
Nearly 100,000 households, almost all in Kaohsiung and Pingtung, still had no power on Friday, while 129,000 households in Kaohsiung lacked water supply.
The fire department said the death toll remained at two, both men killed on the east coast before the typhoon made landfall, with one person missing and 667 injured.
Taiwan re-opened its north-south high speed rail line, as well as most ordinary rail routes except for two branch lines, but disruptions to air transport continued, with cancelations of 15 international and 88 domestic flights.
Workers at Kaohsiung port were clearing some freight containers blown off their stacks to make sure operations went unaffected, the transport ministry said.
Kaohsiung airport suffered damage to two air bridges, while the airport on the outlying Orchid Island had landing aids washed away, though both remained open, the ministry added.
The government also said it was investigating the cause of a Pingtung hospital fire that broke out as the typhoon was bearing down, killing nine people.


North Korea’s Kim Jong Un threatens to use nukes if attacked

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un threatens to use nukes if attacked
Updated 40 min 6 sec ago
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North Korea’s Kim Jong Un threatens to use nukes if attacked

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un threatens to use nukes if attacked
  • Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades
  • Washington periodically deploys nuclear assets to the Korean peninsula

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would use nuclear weapons “without hesitation” if attacked by the South and ally the United States, state media reported Friday.
Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades, with Seoul this week staging a military parade where it showcased its bunker-busting “monster” missile and President Yoon Suk Yeol warned Kim that using nukes would mean the end of his regime.
Pyongyang has also been bombarding the South with balloons carrying bags of trash, and a fresh flurry was seen floating over Seoul early Friday by AFP reporters. Seoul’s military confirmed it had detected the balloon launches overnight.
If an enemy’s forces were “encroaching upon the sovereignty” of the North, Pyongyang would “use without hesitation all the offensive forces it has possessed, including nuclear weapons,” Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
Images in state media showed Kim, clad in his customary leather jacket, speaking at a training event for special operations forces.
There, he slammed Yoon for his “end of regime” comments and “clamoring” about his country’s alliance with the United States.
Seoul, which does not have nuclear weapons of its own, is covered by the US nuclear umbrella, and Washington has stationed tens of thousands of troops in the country since the Korean war ended in 1953 without a peace treaty.
Kim said it was Seoul and Washington who were “destroying regional security and peace,” KCNA reported, while branding South Korea’s leader “an abnormal man.”
On Tuesday, fighter jets flew over downtown Seoul and tanks rolled through the streets, as South Korea displayed for the first time its largest ballistic missile, the Hyunmoo-5, which is capable of destroying underground bunkers.
An American B-1B heavy bomber also staged a flyover of the ceremony early Tuesday, flanked by F-15K jets.
Washington periodically deploys nuclear assets to the Korean peninsula, underscoring its protection of the South from Pyongyang’s growing threats.
At the event marking South Korea’s Armed Forces Day, Yoon said that if the North “attempts to use nuclear weapons, it will face the resolute and overwhelming response of our military and the US and Republic of Korea alliance.”
“That day will be the end of the North Korean regime,” he added.
North Korea is expected to scrap a landmark inter-Korean agreement signed in 1991 at a parliamentary meeting next week, Seoul’s unification ministry said Wednesday, as part of Kim’s drive to officially define the South as an enemy state.
Earlier this year, Kim called to remove unification-related clauses from the constitution, while abolishing agencies dedicated to improving ties with the South.
Last month, the North also disclosed images of a uranium enrichment facility for the first time, showing leader Kim touring the site as he called for more centrifuges to boost the country’s nuclear arsenal.
South Korea’s spy agency later said the unprecedented disclosure was “directed at the US” and that North Korea was believed capable of producing a double-digit number of nuclear weapons.
Last week, a lawmaker told reporters that the National Intelligence Service had warned the North might carry out another nuclear test — its seventh — after the US elections in November.


As search for Helene’s victims drags into second week, sheriff says rescuers ‘will not rest’

As search for Helene’s victims drags into second week, sheriff says rescuers ‘will not rest’
Updated 47 min 21 sec ago
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As search for Helene’s victims drags into second week, sheriff says rescuers ‘will not rest’

As search for Helene’s victims drags into second week, sheriff says rescuers ‘will not rest’
  • Exhausted rescue crews and volunteers continue to work long days — navigating past washed out roads
  • With at least 215 dead, lack of phone service and electricity continues to hinder efforts to contact the unaccounted for

PENSACOLA: The search for victims of Hurricane Helene dragged into its second week on Friday, as exhausted rescue crews and volunteers continued to work long days — navigating past washed out roads, downed power lines and mudslides — to reach the isolated and the missing.
“We know these are hard times, but please know we’re coming,” Sheriff Quentin Miller of Buncombe County, North Carolina, said at a Thursday evening press briefing. “We’re coming to get you. We’re coming to pick up our people.”
With at least 215 killed, Helene is already the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland US since Katrina in 2005, and dozens or possibly hundreds of people are still unaccounted for. Roughly half the victims were in North Carolina, while dozens more were killed in South Carolina and Georgia.
In Buncombe County alone, 72 people had been confirmed dead as of Thursday evening, Miller said. Buncombe includes the tourist hub of Asheville, the region’s most populous city. Still, the sheriff holds out hope that many of the missing are alive.
His message to them?
“Your safety and well-being are our highest priority. And we will not rest until you are secure and that you are being cared for.”
Rescuers face difficult terrain
Now more than a week since the storm roared onto Florida’s Gulf Coast, lack of phone service and electricity continues to hinder efforts to contact the missing. That means search crews must trudge through the mountains to learn whether residents are safe.
Along the Cane River in western North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department had to cut their way through trees at the top of a valley on Thursday, nearly a week after a wall of water swept through.
Pensacola, which sits a few miles from Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi River, lost an untold number of people, said Mark Harrison, chief medical officer for the department.
“We’re starting to do recovery,” he said. “We’ve got the most critical people out.”
Near the Tennessee state line, crews were finally starting to reach side roads after clearing the main roads, but that brought a new set of challenges. The smaller roads wind through switchbacks and cross small bridges that can be tricky to navigate even in the best weather.
“Everything is fine and then they come around a bend and the road is gone and it’s one big gully or the bridge is gone,” said Charlie Wallin, a Watauga County commissioner. “We can only get so far.”
Every day there are new requests to check on someone who hasn’t been heard from yet, Wallin said. When the search will end is hard to tell.
“You hope you’re getting closer, but it’s still hard to know,” he said.
Power slowly coming back
Electricity is being slowly restored, and the number of homes and businesses without power dipped below 1 million on Thursday for the first time since last weekend, according to poweroutage.us. Most of the outages are in the Carolinas and Georgia, where Helene struck after coming into Florida on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane.
President Joe Biden flew over the devastation in North and South Carolina on Wednesday. The administration announced a federal commitment to foot the bill for debris removal and emergency protective measures for six months in North Carolina and three months in Georgia. The money will address the impacts of landslides and flooding and cover costs of first responders, search and rescue teams, shelters and mass feeding.