Author: admin

Owing to the illness of Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund, Taliban’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada on Wednesday appointed Maulvi Abdul Kabir as the acting prime minister of Afghanistan

Maulvi Kabir — who was the deputy prime minister for Political Affairs — will now serve as the head of the Taliban government until Akhund recovers.

It should be noted that Akhund has served as the prime minister of the Taliban government since the group’s return to power in 2021.

Although the Taliban authorities have not revealed any details about Akhund ‘s illness, the news outlet citing sources said that he was suffering from heart disease.

Maulvi Kabir is from the eastern Paktika province and it is said he belongs to the Zadran tribe. He served as the governor of Nangarhar province during the former regime of the Taliban from 1996-2001.

He is one of the senior members among the Taliban who has played a significant role in the negotiations with the US in Qatar, which resulted in the signing of the Doha Agreement between the US and the Taliban.

After the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, Maulvi Kabir was initially appointed as the assistant to the economic deputy of Akhund and later as the political deputy of the Taliban’s prime minister.

Mocha made landfall on Sunday with winds of up to 195 kilometres per hour, downing power pylons and smashing wooden fishing boats to splinters.

At least 46 people died in the Rakhine state villages of Bu Ma and nearby Khaung Doke Kar, inhabited by the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, local leaders said reporters at the scene.

Thirteen people were killed when a monastery collapsed in a village in Rathedaung township north of Rakhine’s capital Sittwe, and a woman died when a building collapsed in a neighbouring village, according to Myanmar state broadcaster MRTV.

“There will be more deaths, as more than a hundred people are missing,” said Karlo, the head of Bu Ma village near Sittwe.

Nearby, Aa Bul Hu Son, 66, said prayers at the grave of his daughter, whose body was recovered on Tuesday morning. “I wasn’t in good health before the cyclone, so we were delayed in moving to another place,” he said.

“While we were thinking about moving, the waves came immediately and took us.” “I just found her body in the lake in the village and buried her right away. I can’t find any words to express my loss.”

Other residents walked the seashore searching for family members swept away by a storm surge that accompanied the cyclone, agency correspondents said.

Nine people died in Dapaing camp for displaced Rohingya near Sittwe, its leader said, adding the camp was cut off and lacked supplies.

“People cannot come to our camp because bridges are broken… we need help,” he said. One person was killed in Ohn Taw Chay village and six in Ohn Taw Gyi, local leaders and officials said.

State media had reported five deaths on Monday, without offering details.

Mocha was the most powerful cyclone to hit the area in more than a decade, churning up villages, uprooting trees and knocking out communications across much of Rakhine state.

China said it was “willing to provide emergency disaster relief assistance”, according to a statement on its embassy in Myanmar’s Facebook page.

‘No one has come to ask’

The United Nations refugee office said it was investigating reports that Rohingya living in displacement camps had been killed in the storm.

It was “working to start rapid needs assessments in hard-hit areas” of Rakhine state, it added.

Widely viewed as interlopers in Myanmar, the Rohingya are deni­ed citizenship and healthcare, and require permission to travel outside their villages in western Rakhine state. Many others live in camps after being displaced by decades of ethnic conflict in the state.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, officials said that no one had died in the cyclone, which passed close to sprawling refugee camps that house almost one million Rohingya who fled a Myanmar military crackdown in 2017.

“Although the impact of the cyclone could have been much worse, the refugee camps have been severely affected, leaving thousands desperately needing help,” the UN said as it made an urgent appeal for aid late Monday.

The Biden administration wants the Indian government to condemn acts of violence based on religion and hold the perpetrators accountable, a senior official said Monday, just a month before a state visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The State Department released an annual report on religious freedom which listed attacks against religious minorities including Muslims and Christians in the Narendra Modi-led nation.

Briefing reporters on the report on the condition of anonymity, a senior US official spoke of India’s “vast potential”, expressing his sadness over the persistent religious violence.

“Regarding these concerns, we’re continuing to encourage the government to condemn violence and hold accountable (those) who engage in rhetoric that’s dehumanising towards religious minorities,” the official said.

Promising to speak “directly” with Indian officials, the official said: “We’ll continue to work very closely with our civil society colleagues on the ground (and) with courageous journalists that are working every day to document some of these abuses.”

The report issued by the State Department was based on direct research, and accounts by media and advocacy groups. It pointed to the concerns surrounding the demolitions of houses against Muslims and their public flogging by police accused of injuring Hindus in Gujarat.

The autonomous US Commission on International Religious Freedom has once again recommended to the State Department put India on a blacklist over its record on religious freedom.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will list “countries of particular concern” on religious freedom later this year. However, it is expected that he would spare India.

While voicing alarm regarding the actions by authorities in China, Iran, Myanmar and Nicaragua, Blinken did not mention India.

“We defend the right to believe — or to not believe — not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because of the extraordinary good that people of faith can do in our societies and around the world,” he said.

But in a kingdom where coups and court orders have often trumped the ballot box, fears persist the military could seek to cling on, raising the prospect of fresh instability.

The election campaign played out as a clash between a young generation yearning for change and the conservative, royalist establishment embodied by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, the ex-army chief who seized power in a 2014 coup.

With ballots counted from three quarters of polling stations, the reformist Move Forward Party (MFP) was on nearly 8.4 million votes followed by Pheu Thai on 6.9m.

Prayut’s United Thai Nation party lay third on 2.8m, though it is not yet clear how the popular vote will translate into parliamentary seats.

MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat said his party could take 160 of the 500 lower house seats, declaring that the result “closed the door” on any chance of army-backed parties forming a minority government.

MFP will seek talks with Pheu Thai and a coalition deal is “definitely on the cards”, Pita told reporters.

Pheu Thai leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra congratulated MFP on their success and said “we can work together”.

“We are ready to talk to Move Forward, but we are waiting for the official result,” she said.

Pheu Thai, the party of billionaire former premier Thaksin Shinawatra now fronted by his daughter, Paetongtarn, had urged voters to deliver them a landslide to see off the threat of military interference.

The Election Commission is not expected to officially confirm the final number of seats won by each party for several weeks.

But without an overwhelming majority, MFP and Pheu Thai may still face a battle to secure power, thanks to the junta-scripted 2017 constitution.

The new premier will be chosen jointly by the 500 elected MPs and 250 senate members appointed by Prayut’s junta — stacking the deck in the army’s favour.

In the controversial last election in 2019, Prayut rode senate support to become prime minister at the head of a complex multi-party coalition.

Adding to the uncertainty, rumours are already swirling that MFP could be dissolved by court order — the same fate that befell its predecessor Future Forward Party after it performed unexpectedly well at the 2019 poll.

Protest legacy

The election was the first since major youth-led pro-democracy protests erupted across Bangkok in 2020 with demands to curb the power and spending of Thailand’s king — breaching a long-held taboo on questioning the monarchy.

The demonstrations petered out as Covid-19 curbs were imposed and dozens of leaders were arrested, but their energy fuelled growing support for the more radical opposition MFP.

As he arrived to vote in Bangkok, Pita, 42, said he expected a “historic turnout”.

“Younger generations these days care about their rights and they will come out to vote,” he told reporters.

While MFP sought support from millennial and Gen Z voters — who make up nearly half the 52 million-strong electorate — Pheu Thai drew on its traditional base in the rural northeast where voters are still grateful for the welfare policies implemented by Thaksin in the early 2000s.

As results came in, a glum-looking Prayut thanked voters for their support as he left his party HQ.

“I’ll continue to do my best regardless of the result,” he told reporters.

The former general made an unashamedly nationalist pitch to older voters, painting himself as the only candidate capable of saving Thailand from chaos and ruin.

But he struggled badly in the polls, blamed for a sputtering economy and feeble recovery from the pandemic, which battered the kingdom’s crucial tourism industry.