Deputy governor of northern Afghan province killed in car bomb attack

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KABUL: The deputy governor of Afghanistan's northern Badakhshan province was killed by a car bomb on Tuesday, the provincial spokesperson said.

"Nissar Ahmad Ahmadi, with his driver, has been killed and six civilians were injured," said Mahzudeen Ahmadi, the head of the information office of Badakshan, a province in the far north of the country that shares a border with China and Tajikistan.

It was not clear who was behind the bombing, which was the first known major blast or attack on a Taliban official in Afghanistan in several weeks.

The Taliban administration has been carrying out raids against members of the Islamic State, which had claimed several major attacks in urban centers.

The Islamic State has also targeted Taliban administration officials, including claiming the killing of the governor of northern Balkh province in an attack on his office in March.

LONDON: Britain announced Thursday new sanctions against Belarus, its latest punishment for the eastern European country's support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and suppression of anti-government activists. London said the new curbs would hit Belarus exports that have been funding the administration of authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russia's President Vladimir Putin, and "crack down on Russia's efforts to circumvent sanctions." Western countries have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow, and its neighbor to the west Minsk, following the launch of the Russian war in Ukraine in February last year. The UK is now banning imports of gold, cement, wood and rubber from Belarus, and blocking exports of banknotes and machinery, alongside goods, technologies and materials that could be used to produce chemical and biological weapons. The measures also give Britain grounds to prevent designated Belarusian media organizations from spreading propaganda and disinformation in the UK, including over the Internet. Social media companies and Internet service providers will be required to restrict access to the websites of sanctioned Belarusian media organizations, as occurs with sanctioned Russian outlets. The new legislation also expands sanctions criteria, giving the UK government the basis to target a broader range of Belarusians, such as Lukashenko's aides, advisers and ministers. "This new package ratchets up the economic pressure on Lukashenko and his regime which actively facilitates the Russian war effort and ignores Ukraine's territorial integrity," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement. "Our support for Ukraine will remain resolute for as long as it takes and the UK will not hesitate to introduce further measures against those who prop up Putin's war." Belarus has been ruled by Lukashenko since 1994. The UK was among a number of Western countries that imposed sanctions on Lukashenko's government for its suppression of mass anti-government protests in 2020. Western countries then imposed various new sanctions last year over its role in Russia's ongoing war on Ukraine. Lukashenko has allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory and airspace to conduct missile and drone strikes against Ukraine, as well as providing training and logistical support to Moscow's forces.

NAIROBI: The US Agency for International Development (USAID) said on Thursday it was suspending food aid to Ethiopia because its donations were being diverted from people in need. A spokesperson said in a statement that USAID had determined, in coordination with the Ethiopian government, that a "widespread and coordinated campaign is diverting food assistance from the people of Ethiopia." The statement did not say who was behind the campaign. The United States is by far the largest humanitarian donor to Ethiopia, where more than 20 million people need food aid, most of them due to drought and a recently-concluded war in the northern Tigray region. According to an internal briefing by a group of foreign donors to Ethiopia seen by Reuters, USAID believes the food has been diverted to Ethiopian military units. "The scheme appears to be orchestrated by federal and regional government entities, with military units across the country benefiting from humanitarian assistance," said the document from the Humanitarian and Resilience Donor Group (HRDG), which includes USAID. Spokespeople for the Ethiopian government and military did not immediately respond to requests for comment. USAID declined to comment on the report. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the issue on Thursday with Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen on the margins of a conference in Saudi Arabia. The State Department said afterwards that Blinken welcomed a commitment by Ethiopia's government to work with the United States to conduct a full investigation. The USAID spokesperson said the agency intended to resume food assistance as soon as it was confident in the integrity of the system. USAID and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) had already suspended food aid to the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray last month in response to information that large amounts of aid there were being diverted. A two-year war in Tigray between the federal government and forces led by the region's dominant political party ended in a truce in November after killing tens of thousands of people and creating famine-like conditions for hundreds of thousands. In the 2022 fiscal year, USAID disbursed nearly $1.5 billion in humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia, most of it food aid. The HRDG briefing document, which was circulated among donors on Wednesday, recommended that Ethiopia's government allow donors to deliver aid through "alternative modalities" like cash transfers. It also urged donors to call on Ethiopia's government to make a public statement condemning the diversion and demanding that aid workers not be harassed. Ethiopia's food crisis has deepened in recent years as a result of the war in Tigray and the Horn of Africa's worst drought in decades. WFP is also investigating "systemic" food diversion across Ethiopia, according to an email sent last week by the agency's deputy director to staff in Ethiopia. A WFP spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

DHAKA: Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh protested on Thursday, demanding to be repatriated to Myanmar, so they can leave behind the squalid camps that they have lived in since fleeing a brutal military crackdown in their homeland in 2017. More than a million Rohingya are crammed in the camps in southeastern Bangladesh, which have become the world's largest refugee settlement. During Thursday's demonstrations across the sprawling camps, refugees, young and old, waved placards and chanted slogans. "No more refugee life. No verification. No security. No interview. We want quick repatriation through UNHCR data card. We want to go back to our motherland," the placards read. "Let's go back to Myanmar. Don't try to stop repatriation." Rohingya community leader Mohammad Jashim said he was keen to return to Myanmar but wanted citizenship rights guaranteed. "We are the citizens of Myanmar by birth. We want to go back home with all our rights, including citizenship, free movement, livelihood, safety, and security," he said. "We want the United Nations to help us to go back to our motherland. We want the world community to help us to save our rights in Myanmar," he added. Attempts to begin repatriation in 2018 and 2019 failed as the refugees, fearing prosecution, refused to go back. And a group of 20 Rohingya Muslims said they would not return to Myanmar to "be confined in camps" after visiting their homeland as part of pilot scheme aimed at encouraging voluntary repatriation. A Bangladesh official said the pilot scheme envisaged about 1,100 refugees returning to Myanmar, but no date had been set. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said every refugee had "an inalienable right" to return to their home country, but that returns also had to be voluntary. Myanmar's military had until recently shown little inclination to take back any Rohingya, who have for years been regarded as foreign interlopers in Myanmar and denied citizenship and subjected to abuse. Densely populated Bangladesh says that the refugees’ repatriation to Myanmar is the only solution to the crisis. Local communities have been increasingly hostile toward the Rohingya as international aid agencies funding for the refugees has been drying up. The World Food Programme recently cut the monthly food allocation to $8 per person from $10 earlier. "Our situation is only deteriorating. What future do we have here?" asked refugee Mohammed Taher, as he stood with other protesters.

PARIS: A Syrian national wounded four children and an adult in a knife attack in a French park on Thursday, police said, leaving some of the victims critically ill in hospital. The attack, which happened in the French alpine town of Annecy, was carried out by a Syrian national with legal refugee status in France, a police official told Reuters. "Children and one adult are between life and death. The nation is in shock," French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement on Twitter, calling the attack "an act of absolute cowardice".

Attaque d’une lâcheté absolue ce matin dans un parc à Annecy. Des enfants et un adulte sont entre la vie et la mort. La Nation est sous le choc. Nos pensées les accompagnent ainsi que leurs familles et les secours mobilisés.

French Interior minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter that attacker had been arrested. A local lawmaker, Antoine Armand, said the children were attacked on a playground. Speaking to BFMTV from the National Assembly building in Paris, he said the victims included "very young" children and that they were "savagely attacked." The attack took place close to a primary school, he said. National police and an Interior Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak about the developing situation both said that four children were among the wounded. Police said two of the children suffered life-threatening injuries and that the other two were lightly injured. Police said one adult also suffered life-threatening wounds. Both police and the Interior Ministry official cautioned that cautioned that the number of wounded could evolve because the full details weren't yet clear. "Nothing more abominable than to attack children," French national assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet said on Twitter. The French parliament observed a minute of silence to mark the incident.

BRUSSELS: European Union interior ministers on Thursday made a fresh attempt to overcome one of the bloc's most intractable political problems as they weighed new measures for sharing out responsibility for migrants entering Europe without authorization. Europe's asylum system collapsed eight years ago after well over a million people entered — most of them fleeing conflict in Syria — and overwhelmed reception capacities in Greece and Italy, in the process sparking one of the EU's biggest political crises. The 27 EU nations have bickered ever since over which countries should take responsibility for people arriving without authorization, and whether other members should be obliged to help them cope. Arriving for the meeting in Luxembourg, the EU's top migration official, Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said it was an "extremely important day" to resolve what has "been a marathon" issue for Europe. "Of this marathon, we have maybe 100 meters left. So, we are so close to actually find an agreement today," Johansson said. "I expect the member states to be able to do the final extra meters to reach the agreement." "If we are not united, we are all losers," she said. Under the existing rules, countries where migrants first arrive must interview and screen them and process the applications of those who might want to apply for asylum. But Greece, Italy and Malta maintain that the burden of managing the numbers of people coming in is too onerous. Later attempts to impose quota systems on countries to share out the migrants were challenged in court and finally abandoned. EU countries now seem to agree that the assistance they provide must be mandatory but can take the form of financial and other help rather than migration sharing schemes. The EU's presidency, currently held by Sweden, has proposed a system under which countries who do not want to take migrants in could pay money instead. Figures of around 20,000 euros ($21,400) per migrant have circulated in the runup to the meeting. It remains unclear if the idea will be accepted. Diplomats said ahead of the meeting that an agreement is only likely if big member countries France, Germany and Italy back the plan. A deal requires the support of a "qualified majority" — roughly two thirds of the 27 members but crucially also making up about two thirds of the EU population. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the compromise on the table "is very difficult for us." She said that "I am fighting for us to have a Europe of open borders," and warned that "should we fail today ... that would be the wrong signal." French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters that he had come with compromise proposals and that plenty of work remains to be done on what is a "very difficult" issue. "What we want to do is completely change the situation on migration," Darmanin said. His Spanish counterpart, Fernando Grande-Marlaska — whose country has struggled to deal with an influx of people trying to enter from North Africa through Spanish islands in the Atlantic — warned that "if we don't reach that agreement, I think that all of us will be losers." Even if a political agreement is reached Thursday, the member countries must still negotiate a full deal with the European Parliament, which has a different view of solidarity — one that requires countries to draw up detailed "annual migrant support plans" in case of emergency. Lawmakers have warned that this is a last chance to solve the conundrum before EU-wide elections in a year, when migration is likely once again to be a hot-button issue. Should the EU fail, the project might have to be abandoned or completely overhauled as it's taken up by the next European Commission — the bloc's executive branch — and the new members of parliament after next June's polls. "If we miss this chance to make it right, I don't think we will have another," Spanish Socialist lawmaker Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a leader on migration policy, said in April. "The kind of a message would be: ‘Hey, listen, it's not going to happen. Not this time. Ever.’ The long-festering dispute has led to the collapse of Europe's asylum system. Unable to agree, the EU has tried to outsource its migrant challenge, making legally and morally questionable deals with countries like Turkiye or Libya, which many people transit through on their way to Europe.