AFP Asia

India and Japan will “shape the Asian Century”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Friday, on a visit expected to secure billions of dollars in Japanese investment and an upgrade to security ties.”India and Japan’s partnership is strategic and smart. Powered by economic logic, we have turned shared interests into shared prosperity,” Modi told a business forum in Tokyo.”India is the springboard for Japanese businesses to the Global South.  We will shape the Asian Century for stability, growth, and prosperity,” Modi said.Modi’s two-day visit — a stopover before going to China — will see Japan unveil 10 trillion yen ($68 billion) in investments over the next 10 years, according to media reports.Bilateral trade is currently worth over $20 billion annually, heavily weighted in Japan’s favour.”Japan and India are strategic partners who share common values such as freedom, democracy, rule of law, having cherished friendship and trust over many years,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Isbiba said.”Our economic relationship is expanding rapidly as Japan’s technology and India’s talented human resources and its huge market are complementing each other,” Ishiba told the forum.Both countries have been hit by tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump, with levies of 50 percent on many Indian imports into the United States taking effect this week.Japan’s vital auto sector still faces 25 percent tariffs as a July trade deal cutting them — as well as additional “reciprocal” levies — is yet to come into force. Modi and Ishiba were expected to announce that the number of Indians with specialised skills working or studying in Japan — which is beset by labour shortages — will double to 50,000 over the next five years, reports said.The investments will target fields including artificial intelligence, semiconductors and securing access to critical minerals, with Modi and Ishiba set to tour a chip facility on Saturday.They will also visit a factory making “shinkansen” bullet trains with a view to Japan assisting in a planned 7,000-kilometre (4,350-mile) high-speed rail network by the centenary of Indian independence in 2047.A joint project aimed at building a first high-speed link between the western Indian cities of Mumbai and Ahmedabad has been plagued for years with delays and cost overruns.India and Japan, members of the Quad alliance with the United States and Australia seen as a bulwark against China, were also expected to upgrade their 2008 declaration on security cooperation.After Japan, Modi was due at a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China on Sunday and Monday hosted by President Xi Jinping and also attended by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.Modi’s visit is his first to China since 2018.The two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for influence across South Asia and fought a deadly border clash in 2020.A thaw began last October when Modi met with Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia.

A Sri Lankan ex-government minister surrendered himself to a court on Friday after two months on the run, the latest high profile detention in a sweeping anti-corruption crackdown.Anti-graft units have ramped up their investigations since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake came to power in September on a promise to fight corruption.Former fisheries minister Rajitha Senaratne, who served in the cabinet of then-president Mahinda Rajapaksa, is accused of illegally awarding a 2012 contract to a foreign firm, allegedly causing a loss to the state of $83,000.Senaratne had repeatedly dodged questioning, the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption said.High Court judge Lanka Jayaratne ordered him transferred to a lower court to face multiple cases.Several politicians from the Rajapaksa administration, as well as family members, are either in jail or on bail pending corruption investigations.Former president Ranil Wickremesinghe was arrested last week on a charge of misusing $55,000 of government funds for a private stopover in Britain.Wickremesinghe, 76, who was granted bail on Tuesday, insisted the stopover was part of his official duties.Under Dissanayake, two former senior ministers have been jailed for up to 25 years for corruption.The police chief has been impeached, after he was accused of running a criminal network that supported politicians, and the prisons chief was jailed for corruption.The head of immigration — arrested just before Dissanayake took power — remains in detention on a charge of contempt of court.

Far above Kabul, the cash-strapped Taliban government has located a potentially lucrative revenue stream: Afghanistan’s airspace. As Israel and Iran’s exchange of missiles threw flight paths into disarray this year, the skies above Afghanistan offered carriers a less turbulent and faster route to ply — for a flat $700 overflight fee, according to industry insiders.The US aviation authority eased restrictions on the country’s airspace and paved the way for commercial flyovers in 2023, two years after the Taliban takeover. Airspace that had long been avoided — as the country endured four decades of war and shifting powerbrokers — suddenly became a viable option, allowing carriers to abbreviate routes and save on fuel costs.But it was not until the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June that the route really gained traction, allowing the Taliban government to potentially rake in millions.  Faced with shuttered airspace over Iran and Iraq, and unpredictable openings and closures across the Middle East, airlines saw reason to divert course and found refuge over Afghanistan. While missiles clogged the neighbouring airspace, “the risk of flying over Afghanistan (was) virtually zero”, said France-based aerospace and defence consultant Xavier Tytelman. “It’s like flying over the sea.” May’s average of 50 planes cutting through Afghanistan each day skyrocketed to around 280 after June 13, when the Iran-Israel war erupted, data from tracking website Flightradar24 showed. Since then, in any given day, more than 200 planes often traverse Afghanistan — equivalent to roughly $4.2 million a month, though this figure is difficult to verify as the authorities do not publish budgets and have declined to comment.- Opaque transactions -While not a princely sum in terms of government revenue, the overflight fees offer a much-needed boost to Afghanistan’s coffers as it contends with a massive humanitarian crisis and a war-battered economy. Around 85 percent of Afghanistan’s population live on less than one dollar a day, according to the UN, and nearly one in four Afghans aged 15 to 29 are unemployed.The World Bank says overflight fees contributed to modest growth in Afghanistan’s economy in 2024, before the route began attracting carriers needing to bypass Iran.International airlines returned to Afghanistan starting in 2023, with Turkish Airlines, flydubai and Air Arabia making almost daily flights from Afghan airports.Others, such as Singapore Airlines, Air France, Aeroflot, Air Canada and Swiss Air, fly over Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif or Kandahar — as practicality outweighs the risks, which remain.Consultant Tytelman warned that Afghanistan is still a less than ideal place to land in case of technical or medical emergencies, with potential complications due to a lack of spare parts and dilapidated health care services. Yet he noted, “planes are landing in Kabul every day”. Airlines were loath to discuss the mechanics of paying the Taliban government, which remains isolated by many countries in part over its restrictions on women.Multiple companies contacted by AFP said they do not provide overflight payment information.  Afghanistan’s aviation officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and would not confirm the overflight fees or the process by which they are paid.”Companies are not formally prohibited from trading with Afghanistan, as US sanctions target only certain Taliban officials,” a World Bank expert told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. However, “some abstain out of fear of being associated with the ruling power”, he added.  Industry insiders speaking on condition of anonymity said the $700 overflight fees are paid to third-party intermediaries, such as the United Arab Emirates-based GAAC Holding, which manages airports in Afghanistan, or overflight brokers.Some airlines may now even pay directly, as more countries develop diplomatic ties with the Taliban government. – Reinforcing authority -Only Russia has officially recognised the Taliban authorities, who are hamstrung by frozen assets, sanctions on individuals and a lack of trust in the banking sector. Against such economic headwinds, the airspace revenue stream “is helpful for the cash-strapped current administration”, said Sulaiman Bin Shah, former deputy minister of industry and commerce in the ousted government and founder of the Catalysts Afghanistan consultancy. But Bin Shah emphasised the overflight traffic offers more than just financial benefits, as it increases normalisation of the Taliban authorities. “It reinforces their grip on state functions and supports the image of a functioning government, even without formal international recognition,” he said. “So while the income itself is not transformative, it plays a meaningful role in the administration’s economic narrative and political positioning.”

India once united US policymakers like few issues. For nearly three decades, US presidents of both parties courted New Delhi as an emerging ally, politely overlooking disagreements for the sake of larger goals.Donald Trump has abruptly changed that.The US administration on Wednesday slapped 50 percent tariffs on many Indian products as Trump seeks to punish India for buying oil from Russia.India was a Cold War partner of Moscow but since the 1990s US leaders have hoped for a joint front with fellow democracy India in the face of the rise of China, seen by Washington as its top long-term adversary.In striking timing, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to China this weekend, the latest meeting between the world’s two most populous nations as they explore areas of common ground.Trump has accused India of fueling Moscow’s deadly attacks on Ukraine by purchasing Russian oil. Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro even called Ukraine “Modi’s war” in a Bloomberg TV interview Wednesday.Yet Trump has refrained from tougher US sanctions on Russia itself, saying he still hopes for a negotiated settlement despite wide pessimism.”This is not just about tariffs, not just about Russia, not just about oil,” said Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution.”There seems to be something broader going on here — personal on Trump’s side, piqued as he may be at India,” she said.”And then on the Indian side, for Modi, it becomes a political issue.”- Faltering bromance -Trump and Modi, both right-wing populists, appeared to forge a strong bond during Trump’s first term.In 2020, Trump rejoiced as Modi invited him to inaugurate the world’s largest cricket stadium in front more than 120,000 people.But Trump has since appeared irritated as he seeks credit for what he said was Nobel Prize-worthy diplomacy between Pakistan and India, which struck its neighbor in May in response to a massacre of Indian civilians in divided Kashmir.India, which adamantly rejects any third-party mediation on Kashmir, has since given the cold shoulder to Trump as he muses of brokering between New Delhi and Islamabad.Pakistan by contrast has embraced Trump’s attention, with its powerful army chief meeting him at the White House.US policymakers have long skirted around India’s sensitivities on Kashmir and sought to contain fallout from disagreements on other issues.Jake Sullivan, national security advisor under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, said that Trump had broken a bipartisan consensus with his “massive trade offensive” against India.India is now thinking “I guess maybe we have to go show up in Beijing and sit with the Chinese because we’ve got to hedge against America,” Sullivan told news and opinion site The Bulwark.Madan said that for the Indian establishment, the tariffs contradicted US assurances that unlike China, Washington would not use “economic ties to coerce India.””If you’re India, even if you sort this particular issue out, you’re now saying, we used to see this increasing interaction with the US across many domains as an opportunity,” she said.”And now Trump has made us realize that we should also see that integration or dependence as a vulnerability.”- Chance for China -For China, Modi’s trip is an opportunity “to drive a wedge between India and the US,” said William Yang, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.”Beijing won’t miss the opportunity to present itself as a ‘reliable partner’ that is interested in deepening relations with New Delhi,” he said.But he noted that India and China still had fundamental differences, despite recent efforts to resolve a longstanding border dispute.China is the key partner and military supplier of Pakistan and has sought to ramp up influence in the Indian Ocean.Kriti Upadhyaya, a visiting fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, played down long-term consequences of the tariff rift, noting how much the US-India relationship has developed in recent years.”When you really like somebody, a friend who’s close to you, you’re always going to have more grievances with them,” she said.

Orange-vested rescue teams rowed through streets transformed into muddy rivers in Pakistan’s Punjab province on Thursday, helping to pluck people and their livestock from flooded villages.Water has gushed into the eastern province, Pakistan’s breadbasket and home to about half of its 255 million people, with three transboundary rivers swelling beyond their banks.The latest monsoon downpour has killed at least 13 people, according to the National Disaster Management Authority.More than 1.4 million people living near the rivers have been affected by the floods, with over 265,000 evacuated, said Azma Bukhari, the provincial information minister.In the city of Wazirabad, the receding fetid tide left behind mud, buzzing insects and the threat of disease.Mother-of-four Nazia Nasir told AFP the army evacuated her family, who found their house collapsed upon their return.”Everything we owned is lying in ruins,” the 40-year-old said, clearing the mud away with her bare hands.”My son has nothing to wear, he walks around in just a T-shirt. The crops we relied on for our livelihood are gone.” Nasima Bibi was not yet able to return to her submerged home, camping on higher ground on the roadside.”I don’t know what I will find but I have no other place to go. The sun has burnt my skin but I cannot leave,” she said. People living in the washed out area around an ancient Sikh temple in Kartarpur said no officials came to assist them, with the relief effort sporadic and some stranded in their homes as the waterline rose.”Many homes were washed away and many people lost their cattle, roads were also ruined,” Muhammad Asad Imam told AFP.”People were given no boat in the area and confined to their houses.”Villager Rana Mubashir told AFP authorities rescued people in the Kartarpur temple complex, while the surrounding villagers begged for help.”It’s been three days since our area was flooded, but no official team has reached this area,” he said. “Our children had no milk or anything to eat or drink.”Nearby, men waded through waist-high stagnant brown water that filled the sprawling Kartarpur temple complex, where founder of the Sikh faith Guru Nanak is said to have died in 1539.This year, landslides and floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed more than 800 people countrywide since June.While South Asia’s seasonal monsoon brings rainfall that farmers depend on, climate change is making the phenomenon more erratic, unpredictable and deadly across the region.Touring the flood-affected areas on Thursday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif emphasised the country’s vulnerability to climate change-fuelled disasters.Pakistani authorities have said spillover released from dams in neighbouring India increased the flow of water rushing downstream to Punjab.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government accused Pakistan on Thursday of carrying out air and drone strikes in two border provinces overnight that killed three children, summoning Islamabad’s ambassador to complain.Hostilities in the frontier area between Afghanistan and Pakistan have escalated since the Taliban seized power in 2021, with Islamabad battling a resurgence of militant violence in its western regions.Kabul “strongly condemns the violation of Afghanistan’s airspace”, a foreign ministry statement said.It accused Pakistan’s army of targeting civilians in Khost and Nangarhar provinces and called the strikes “a provocative action”.”It was clearly communicated to the Pakistan side that the protection of Afghanistan’s sovereignty is a red line for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and such irresponsible actions will surely have consequences,” the statement said. Two Pakistani security officials, contacted by AFP, denied Islamabad’s role in drone strikes inside Afghanistan.  AFP has also contacted Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry for official comment.In Khost, provincial government spokesman Mustaghfar Gurbaz said “Pakistani jets bombed the house of a local” at around 10:30 pm (1800 GMT) near the border with Pakistan, which is disputed by Kabul.He said three children were killed in the strike.In Nangarhar, deputy governor Azizullah Mustafa said “a Pakistani drone fired two missiles at the house of one of our compatriots” at around 11 pm, adding that “the reason of this attack is unclear”.At least seven people were also wounded in the strikes on the two provinces, officials said.In December last year, Kabul said Pakistan air strikes in an eastern border region killed 46 civilians. Pakistani officials said the bombardment had targeted “terrorist hideouts”. There had been a recent warming of ties through trilateral meetings between the neighbouring countries and China, one of which led to Islamabad upgrading its diplomatic relations with Kabul. However, Islamabad has regularly accused the Taliban authorities of harbouring militant fighters, including from Pakistan’s homegrown Taliban group, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who share a common ideology with their Afghan counterparts.Islamabad says the Taliban government in Kabul allows militants to carry out attacks on Pakistani soil with impunity and has sworn to continue strikes on Afghan territory as long as necessary.strs-sw/ecl/pbt

After a four-year suspension, the Taliban government has announced it would resume pension payments for Afghanistan’s nearly 150,000 retired military and civil servants.They will be the last public sector workers to receive any payments, after the cash-strapped authorities announced an end to the public pension scheme last year.”When you’re jobless sitting at home and have nothing, you’re worried about food,” said 71-year-old Abdul Sabir outside the pension department in the capital Kabul.He was among those scheduled to receive his pension again in a gradual rollout across government institutions.Retired public sector employees have for the past few years increasingly demonstrated outside government buildings, demanding payments that ended after the return of Taliban authorities in 2021.”All the pending amounts will be distributed to the retirees,” pension fund director Mohammad Rahmani told AFP this week. Government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat told local media eventually the years of unpaid pensions would be disbursed.The Taliban authorities have slashed salaries, which are paid erratically, while replacing many civil servants with loyalists.They do not publish budgets and their revenue streams are opaque.Observers say security spending has consumed much of the budget at other ministries’ expense, while slashed foreign aid that previously bolstered the public sector has made pension payments unsustainable. – Abolished system -Most people AFP spoke to expected to receive 40,000-50,000 Afghanis ($580-720) a year from their pension, a relatively small sum that entire families nonetheless will rely on for survival. Abdul Wasse Kargar said he was currently owed 31,000 Afghanis in debt to friends and shopkeepers, after a 45-year career at the education ministry.”If they give us our pension, it will solve 50 percent of our problems. We can make ends meet with that and we will be free of some of this poverty and helplessness,” said the 74-year-old, tired of going door-to-door begging for loans. Nearly half of the Afghan population lives in poverty and the unemployment rate is more than 13 percent, according to the World Bank.Shah Rasool Omari had tried to get a job during the four years waiting for his pension but said his age dogged his chances.Potential employers told him that they “want a young boy who can work and who we can order around”.”I have six sons and then their children, all of them need to be supported from my pension payment,” said Rasool, who worked in the Air Force for 30 years.Public sector pensions support around 150,000 families, or almost a million people, the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) said in a 2024 report. The system had been in crisis long before the Taliban takeover, and the economic crunch that followed the disappearance of foreign aid that funded the pension system sounded the death knell, the AAN report said. “There was simply not enough domestic revenue coming in for the government to both run the country and meet its obligation to retirees,” it said.  Nabiullah Attai now regrets his career with the police.”I gave 38 years — the best years of my life — to this country,” he told AFP.”But today, I have nothing to show for it.”

Pakistan authorities blew up an embankment next to a monsoon-engorged dam on Wednesday as flooding submerged one of the world’s holiest Sikh sites.Three transboundary rivers in the east of the country have swollen to exceptionally high levels as a result of heavy rains across the border in India.It has triggered flood alerts throughout Punjab province, home to nearly half of Pakistan’s 255 million people. The army was also deployed to help evacuate people and livestock near the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers.Around 210,000 people had moved to another location, according to the disaster authorities.At the Qadirabad dam on the Chenab River, authorities carried out a controlled explosion of an embankment on Wednesday as the water levels rose. “To save the structure, we have breached the right marginal embankment so that the flow of the water reduces,” said Mazhar Hussain, a spokesperson for Punjab’s disaster management agency.The Kartarpur temple, which marks where the founder of the Sikh faith Guru Nanak is said to have died in 1539, was submerged by floodwater.Five boats were sent to the sprawling site to rescue around 100 stranded people.Pakistan authorities said neighbouring India had released water from upstream dams on its side of the border, further increasing the flow headed towards Pakistan.Islamabad’s foreign ministry said New Delhi gave advanced notice through diplomatic channels ahead of opening the spillways.Indian government officials have not commented.The flood surge “is expected to pass through Lahore tonight and tomorrow morning”, provincial disaster chief Irfan Ali said of the Punjab capital.Pakistan has been battered by a brutal monsoon season this year, with landslides and floods triggered by torrential rain killing more than 800 people since June.

US tariffs of 50 percent took effect Wednesday on many Indian products, doubling an existing duty as President Donald Trump sought to punish New Delhi for buying Russian oil.India has criticized the levies as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable,” with its export body calling on Wednesday for government intervention to assuage fears of heavy job cuts.Trump has raised pressure on India over the energy transactions, a key source of revenue for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, as part of a campaign to end the conflict.The latest salvo strains US-India ties, giving New Delhi fresh incentive to improve relations with Beijing.But US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business on Wednesday that Trump had good ties with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”I think at the end of the day, we will come together,” he said.While Trump has slapped fresh duties on allies and competitors alike since returning to the presidency in January, this 50-percent level is among the highest that US trading partners face.Crucially, however, exemptions remain for sectors that could be hit with separate levies — such as pharmaceuticals, computer chips and smartphones.Industries that have already been singled out, such as steel, aluminum and automobiles, are similarly spared these countrywide duties.The United States was India’s top export destination in 2024, with shipments worth $87.3 billion.But analysts have cautioned that a 50-percent duty is akin to a trade embargo and is likely to harm smaller firms.Exporters of textiles, seafood and jewelry were already reporting cancelled US orders and losses to rivals such as Bangladesh and Vietnam, raising fears of heavy job cuts.Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, called for “liquidity support from the government.””We want to ensure that even if business stops, we are able to keep workers on the payroll”, he told AFP, saying they were “still optimistic” for  trade negotiations.- ‘Eroded trust’ -The world’s fifth-largest economy is looking to cushion the blow, with Modi promising to lower the tax burden on citizens during an annual speech to mark India’s independence.Modi earlier vowed self-reliance, pledging to defend his country’s interests.The foreign ministry previously said India had begun importing oil from Russia as traditional supplies were diverted to Europe over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.It noted that Washington actively encouraged such imports at the time to strengthen stability in the global energy market.Russia accounted for nearly 36 percent of India’s total crude oil imports in 2024. Buying Russian oil saved India billions of dollars on import costs, keeping domestic fuel prices relatively stable.But the Trump administration held firm on its tariff plans in the lead-up to Wednesday’s deadline.Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro told reporters last week that “India doesn’t appear to want to recognize its role in the bloodshed.””It’s cozying up to Xi Jinping,” Navarro added, referring to the Chinese president.Wendy Cutler, from the Asia Society Policy Institute, said India had moved from being “a promising candidate for an early trade deal to a nation facing among the highest tariffs.”Cutler, a former US trade official, told AFP that the “high tariffs have quickly eroded trust between the two countries, which could take years to rebuild.”Trump has used tariffs as a tool for addressing everything from what Washington deems as unfair trade practices to trade imbalances.US trade deficits were a key justification behind his higher duties on dozens of economies taking effect in early August — hitting partners from the European Union to Indonesia.But the 79-year-old Republican has also taken aim at specific countries such as Brazil over the trial of its former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of plotting a coup.US tariffs on many Brazilian goods surged to 50 percent this month, but with broad exemptions.

Floods and landslides triggered by record-breaking heavy rain have killed more than 30 people in India’s Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said on Wednesday.A landslide on the route to the famous Hindu shrine Vaishno Devi killed 33 people, local disaster management official Mohammad Irshad told AFP.India’s Meteorological Department said the torrential rain had smashed records in two locations. Jammu and Udhampur recorded their highest 24-hour rainfall on Wednesday, with 296 mm (11.6 inches) in Jammu, nine percent higher than the 1973 record, and 629.4 mm (24.8 inches) in Udhampur — a staggering 84 percent surge over the 2019 mark.Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the loss of lives was “saddening”.The intense monsoon rainstorm in the Indian-administered territory has caused widespread chaos, with raging water smashing into bridges and swamping homes.Floods and landslides are common during the June-September monsoon season, but experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing their frequency, severity and impact.Climate experts from the Himalayan-focused International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) warn that a spate of disasters illustrates the dangers when extreme rain combines with mountain slopes weakened by melting permafrost, as well as building developments in flood-prone valleys.ICIMOD warned this month that the wider Hindu Kush Himalaya region is suffering “accelerated glacier melt, shifting weather patterns, and an increasing frequency of disaster events”, including floods.The local administration said on Wednesday thousands of people were forced to flee in the Jammu region.Schools have been shut, with the region’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah saying officials were struggling with “almost non-existent communication”.The main Jhelum river in the Kashmir valley has also risen above the danger mark and authorities sounded flood alerts, including for the key city of Srinagar.Powerful torrents driven by intense rain smashed into Chisoti village in Indian-administered Kashmir on August 14, killing at least 65 people and leaving another 33 missing.Floods on August 5 overwhelmed the Himalayan town of Dharali in India’s Uttarakhand state and buried it in mud. The likely death toll from that disaster is more than 70 but has not been confirmed.