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Auditing process of votes cast ends

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(Last Updated On: October 25, 2022)

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Afghan election votes cast was completed Friday, officials said, but the results will not be known for days as the contentious process of invalidating fraudulent ballots continues.

Both presidential candidates claim to have won the June 14 election, triggering a political stalemate and rising ethnic tension as US-led NATO combat troops withdraw after 13 years of fighting the Taliban.

The United Nations has said the audit results should be finalized by September 10, with the delayed inauguration of President Hamid Karzai’s successor scheduled to be held soon after.

But poll rivals Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah have failed to come to an agreement on a national unity government, which was negotiated under a deal to save the country from slipping back into the ethnic division of the 1990s civil war.

The IEC will now compile results from the audited ballot boxes and decide which of the disputed votes should be thrown out, before a 72-hour window for appeals against its rulings.

Outgoing President Hamid Karzai decided not to travel to the summit, and Afghanistan was instead represented by Defence Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi.

NATO members had wanted a new president to attend the summit to prove that the country was becoming a functioning state after receiving billions of dollars in military and civilian aid.

 

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US says it doesn’t support Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project going forward

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

The U.S. said on Tuesday it does not support a Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project from going forward and cautioned about the risk of sanctions in doing business with Tehran, Reuters reported.

The Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, known as the Peace Pipeline, opens new tab, is a long-term project between Tehran and Islamabad, and has faced delays and funding challenges for several years. The pipeline would transport natural gas from Iran to neighboring Pakistan.

Iran and Pakistan had signed a five-year trade plan in August 2023 and set a bilateral trade target at $5 billion.

Pakistan’s Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik said this week that his country was seeking a U.S. sanctions waiver for the gas pipeline from Iran, read the report.

“We always advise everyone that doing business with Iran runs the risk of touching upon and coming in contact with our sanctions, and would advise everyone to consider that very carefully,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters in a press briefing.

“We do not support this pipeline going forward,” the spokesperson added, saying that Donald Lu, the State Department’s top official for South and Central Asia, had said as much to a congressional panel last week.

A few weeks ago, Pakistan and Iran engaged, opens new tab in tit-for-tat strikes when they exchanged drone and missile strikes on militant bases on each other’s territory, Reuters reported.

Washington’s relations, opens new tab with Iran have been thorny for a long time and the U.S. has issued multiple rounds of sanctions on Iranian entities.

Officially allies in fighting extremism, Pakistan and the U.S. have had a complicated relationship, opens new tab over the years, bound by Washington’s dependence on Pakistan to supply its troops during its long war in Afghanistan but plagued by accusations Islamabad played a double game.

Some Pakistani politicians have also accused Washington of meddling in Pakistan’s domestic politics, charges that Washington denies, read the report.

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Kyrgyzstan urges citizens not to fly to Russia unless necessary

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry has urged its citizens to put off unnecessary travel to Russia after a deadly mass shooting at a concert hall near Moscow that was blamed on migrants from Central Asia, Reuters reported.

Last Friday’s attack by camouflague-clad gunmen has fanned anti-immigrant sentiment in Russia, especially towards labourers from the predominantly Muslim countries of Central Asia. Seven suspects originally from Tajikistan and one from Kyrgyzstan have been arrested and placed in pre-trial detention.

Islamic State has said it was responsible for the attack and has released video footage of the massacre, in which at least 139 people were killed and 182 wounded. Russia, without providing evidence, has said it suspects a Ukrainian link in the attack, something Kyiv strongly denies.

Videos and photographs circulated online appear to show the suspected gunmen in detention being tortured. The Kremlin declined to comment on the matter and many Russian politicians have praised the security officers involved in the detentions, read the report.

In an advisory issued this week, the Kyrgyz foreign ministry urged citizens to visit Russia only if necessary and, if they do, to make sure they have all the required documents on them at all times and comply with lawful orders of Russian police.

Authorities in neighbouring Uzbekistan issued similar advice to any Uzbek citizens currently in Russia or planning to go there, local media reported.

Hundreds of thousands of Central Asians work in Russia, and some have already said it has become tougher for them to do so. Some passengers, for example, refuse to board taxis with Tajik drivers.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that many passengers trying to fly to Moscow on Monday from the capital of Turkmenistan, another Central Asian state, were not allowed to board. It said they were told by immigration and law enforcement officials that this was connected to “the recent terrorist attack in Moscow”.

Any fall in the availability of migrant labour could cause problems for the Russian economy, which relies heavily on Central Asian workers in sectors such as construction, retail and delivery services.

Russia is suffering an overall labour shortage because of the demands of its war in Ukraine, which led it to call up 300,000 reservists to join the army in 2022 and prompted hundreds of thousands of others to flee the country, Reuters reported.

Alexandra Prokopenko, an economist and analyst at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said the inflow of migrants had “almost stopped” since the start of the war – partly because immigrants could face pressure to join the Russian army and partly because of competition from other countries to attract them.

“All these people from Central Asia can go and work in Gulf states, South Korea or Turkey – they can get jobs and there would be no problems with money transfers because of (Western) sanctions, there would be fewer problems in terms of safety and security, and probably local authorities would treat them better than in Russia,” she said.

The head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, suggested Friday’s attack was an attempt by those who wish Russia ill to stir up interreligious tensions.

“An attempt was made to pit two traditional religions (Christianity and Islam) against each other, an attempt was made to divide people according to religious principles and also pit one against the other. Of course, we cannot allow anything like this in Russia,” the RIA news agency quoted him as saying.

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Russia’s FSB chief says U.S., Britain, Ukraine behind Moscow attack

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(Last Updated On: March 27, 2024)

The director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, said on Tuesday that the United States, Britain and Ukraine were behind the Moscow concert hall attack that killed at least 139 people on Friday, state news agency TASS reported.

Ukraine has denied Russian accusations of involvement in the attack, for which the Daesh militant group claimed responsibility. Western countries have said their intelligence indicates that ISIS-K, Islamic State’s Afghan offshoot, was responsible, Reuters reported.

Russia said on Saturday it had arrested all four gunmen suspected of carrying out a shooting massacre in a concert hall near Moscow.

ISIS claimed responsibility for Friday’s rampage, but there were indications that Russia was pursuing a Ukrainian link, despite emphatic denials from Ukrainian officials that Kyiv had anything to do with it.

Moscow regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov said 133 bodies had been recovered from the rubble in 24 hours and doctors were “fighting for the lives of 107 people”. State TV editor Margarita Simonyan, without citing a source, had earlier given a toll of 143.

In a televised address, Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen. “They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” he said.

Russia’s FSB security service said the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border. It said they were being transferred to Moscow, Reuters reported.

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