World Leaders Reaffirm Commitment to Fighting Climate Change

BERLIN — 

World leaders affirmed their commitment to combating climate change on Thursday ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement on whether he would pull out of the Paris climate accord.

Trump is expected to announce his decision on Thursday afternoon U.S. time (3 p.m. EDT; 1900 GMT).

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, speaking to reporters during a visit to Berlin, said fighting global warming is a "global consensus" and an "international responsibility."

Without mentioning the U.S. specifically, Li said that "China in recent years has stayed true to its commitment" and pointed out that his was one of the first countries to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has in the past even been dubbed the "climate chancellor" for her efforts to fight global warming, welcomed Li's remarks at their joint press conference.

Other European leaders were more explicit in expressing their fears that the U.S. government may abandon international measures against climate change.

"Please don't change the [political] climate for the worse," European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Britain would continue to press the U.S. to reduce dangerous emissions even if Trump pulls out.

Johnson told Sky News that Britain still wants the U.S. to take the lead in fighting climate change and called on individual U.S. states to keep making progress on that front.

"We will continue to lobby the Americans and the White House to show the leadership they have shown in the past on reducing CO2," he said.

Abandoning the pact would isolate the U.S. from a raft of international allies who spent years negotiating the 2015 agreement to fight global warming and pollution by reducing carbon emissions.

While traveling abroad last week, Trump was repeatedly pressed to stay in the deal by European leaders and Pope Francis. Withdrawing would leave the United States as one of just three countries outside the agreement. The other two are Syria and Nicaragua.

Russia joined the chorus speaking out in favor of the climate accord. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said Russia "thinks highly" of the accords and sees no alternative to it. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov added that its implementation will not be as effective "without the key signatories."

During a trip to Europe this week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed India's commitment to fighting climate change and said it would be a ``crime'' to spoil the environment for future generations.

Scientists say Earth is likely to reach more dangerous levels of warming sooner if the U.S. retreats from its pledge because America contributes so much to rising temperatures. Calculations suggest withdrawal could release up to 3 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide a year — enough to melt ice sheets faster, raise seas higher and trigger more extreme weather.

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Afghanistan Mourns Victims of Deadly Bomb Attack on Capital

ISLAMABAD — 

Afghanistan Thursday mourned the victims of a massive truck bomb that blew up Wednesday in the diplomatic section of the country’s capital, killing at least 90 people and wounding more than 400 others.

The bomb ripped through the central Wazir Akbar Khan area of Kabul, home to foreign diplomatic missions and government offices, damaging dozens of vehicles and surrounding buildings. Afghan officials said the explosives were packed in a sewage tanker.

Most of the casualties were civilians, but the dead included Afghan security guards at diplomatic sites.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

Afghans blame Haqqani network

The Afghan Intelligence agency, NDS, in a brief statement, has blamed the Haqqani network, which allegedly is based in neighboring Pakistan and fighting alongside the Taliban. The NDS also asserted that Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI, helped in planning the attack.

Afghan officials have blamed Islamabad previously for facilitating insurgent attacks in their country, charges Pakistani officials deny.

The Taliban has denied involvement, saying the insurgent group has nothing to do with Wednesday’s bombing or any attacks that target civilians. The insurgents have lately intensified attacks on Afghan security forces, killing and wounding scores of them.

Islamic State has claimed attacks against high-profile Afghan targets in recent months, including a deadly suicide raid on the country’s largest military hospital in Kabul in March.

Afghan native and Indiana University professor Nazif Shahrani told VOA he is not surprised by the bombing.

“It shows that the government is not very much in control of security issues and there are also concerns that infiltration within the government security structure by these terrorist organizations may be in place,” he said. “It is not surprising but it’s tragic, and the fact that government cannot do much about it is even more tragic.”

Damage

The bombing happened in an area not far from the German embassy. Pictures circulated on social media showed the blast turned a portion of the diplomatic mission into ruins. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said an Afghan security guard was among those killed and that a number of employees were wounded.

The French, Turkish and Iranian embassies are also among missions that suffered material damage.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry says two of its embassy employees, both Japanese nationals, were slightly injured in the Kabul bombing while minor damage was also caused to the building.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said 11 U.S. citizens working as contractors in Afghanistan were injured.

The explosion mostly devastated a nearby building, housing the main office of Roshan, the leading telecommunications service provider in Afghanistan.

Afghan security forces swiftly cordoned off the area and international troops arrived at the site to assist in rescue efforts.

Reaction

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned Wednesday’s blast as an “inhuman and cowardly attack” against innocent civilians in the holy Islamic month of Ramadan.

The White House said U.S. President Donald Trump called Ghani to express his condolences and condemn the bombing, saying that the attack happening during Ramadan underscores “the barbaric nature of the terrorists who are enemies of all civilized peoples.”

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the bombing as “morally reprehensible and an outrage,” particularly during the month of Ramadan.

NATO’s U.S.-led Resolute Support military mission said the attack “demonstrates a complete disregard for civilians and reveals the barbaric nature of the enemy faced by the Afghan people.”

Neighboring Pakistan also denounced the terrorist attack, saying it has caused damage to the residence of Pakistani diplomats and staff and inflicted minor injuries to some.

“The people and government of Pakistan extend their heartfelt sympathies and deepest condolences to the government and the people of Afghanistan and the bereaved families,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

The latest violence comes as President Ghani is set to host a conference of neighboring and regional countries in Kabul next week to discuss ways to end an increasingly deadly Afghan conflict.

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Conflicting Trends Highlight EU-China Business Ties

BEIJING — 

The business relationship between China and Europe is showing several contradictory trends as Beijing seeks to protect its own state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and its leaders seek foreign investments promising further liberalization in rules.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was in Berlin on Wednesday calling for joint efforts to promote trade liberalization and investment facilitation. On the same day, a European industry body in China expressed concerns about discrimination against foreign investors and painted a bleak picture of investment growth by Europe-based companies.
Li's itinerary, which includes a visit to the European Union headquarters in Brussels, comes in the midst of rising political demand for ensuring reciprocity in business dealings with China. Some European countries are asking the EU to make laws enabling them to closely scrutinize Chinese investments and weed out the dubious ones.

“The discussion in itself shows that there is a lot of frustration in Europe on the lack of reciprocity,” said Mats Harborn, president of the European Chamber. “We have open bets for Chinese investments while for us to go to China is a whiling road, so this is causing now political discussions in Europe,” he said.

Given such political conditions, Li's agenda may seem very ambitious unless China is ready to offer major trade-offs. He is trying to persuade European leaders to accord the status of “market economy” to China, and relax their actions on the dumping of Chinese goods. He also wants the EU to grant a certificate of airworthiness for a China-developed large passenger plane, the C919.

Thomas Gatley, head of research at Beijing-based Gavekal Dragonomics, said the central government in Beijing does make some efforts to open up investment sectors by tweaking the negative list. But these actions are not implemented on the ground.

“We have seen some measures in the form of revised negative list, slowly sub-sector by sub-sector, China opening up to foreign investment in the official capacity,” Gatley told VOA. “But the (foreign) firms continue to find that when they try to operate in these previously closed areas, there is a lot of de facto barriers to success. That continues to be the substance of complaints by foreign companies.”

European companies have reported much better performance in China in the past year. Harborn said this had to do with the government's stimulus package in 2016, and there are questions if the high growth scenario will continue in the coming months.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economist for Capital Economics, said the Chinese economy showed signs of recovery in 2016 because of a generous flow of credit by financial institutions. But this may not continue as the government is cracking down on risky lending.

“We had quite a sharp slowdown in credit over the past half year, particularly since the start of the year, they have been cracking down quite hard on financial risks on bank and financial institutions,” Evans-Pritchard told VOA.

A business confidence survey conducted by the European Chamber revealed over 60 percent of its member-companies regard China's slowing economy as the number one cause for concern. This is a significant change from past years when the focus of complaints was discriminatory treatment of foreign companies and regulatory controls.

But several members of the Chamber continue to worry about discrimination, saying environmental enforcement agencies are still a lot tougher with foreign companies than they are with local ones.

Another new source of worry for foreign firms is the increasing competitiveness of Chinese companies, which is something that will increase with time as Beijing goes about implementing the China 2025 plan to push the local industry into using the next generation of technology.

“European companies in China acknowledge that Chinese companies are getting increasingly innovative. Rather than a challenge, this should be perceived as an opportunity,” said Denis Depoux, Roland Berger Co-Head for Asia.

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In India, Number of Women in Workforce Falls Significantly

NEW DELHI — 

Using a work-from-home facility, Swati Sharma worked for a few months after her baby was born six years ago but quit when her company withdrew the option.

“They wanted people to come to work everyday, it became very difficult,” she said, pointing out that child care facilities near her home in New Delhi did not have high standards.

Stories of women leaving jobs are common: An estimated 20 million Indian women have dropped out of the workforce over the last decade, both in sprawling cities and the vast countryside where fewer women now work on farms.

It’s a staggering number that researchers are trying to decode.

Indian economy is robust

Despite India’s buoyant economy, female employment has fallen dramatically over the last decade. Only 27 percent of women are in the workforce compared to about 40 percent in the mid-1990s. That is less than many lower-income countries like neighboring Bangladesh or other emerging economies like Brazil.

A World Bank study released recently says India needs to reverse the declining rates of women in the labor market to push growth.

The study said 3 of every 5 prime working age Indian women (26-45 years old) are not economically active.

Higher incomes play role

But not all the reasons are negative. An era of high growth has increased household incomes and propelled millions of families into the middle and upper middle class. The relative household affluence has given many women the option to drop out of the workforce.

In the lower-income strata, better incomes for farm and construction labor have also resulted in many poor families in rural areas educating girls. As a result, the number of those between 15 and 25 years in school and college has doubled to 30 percent.

“Many of these young women who were working before perhaps out of necessity are now in school and building up their human capital,” said Frederico Gil Sander, senior economist at the World Bank in New Delhi.

More jobs needed for the well-educated

However not all women stay at home because there is a dearth of suitable opportunities.

“If you survey women, many of the women they want to work, but the fact is that not enough jobs are being created that women can take up,” Sander said.

In an urbanizing country, while large cities offer regular jobs in services and manufacturing, similar avenues are not available in smaller towns.

Garima Verma, 32, for example, quit her job a year ago because she wanted a break. But some months later she moved from New Delhi to Jaipur and says that finding a suitable job in a smaller city has not been easy.

“Lesser (opportunities) I would say as compared to metros definitely,” she said.

Indian workplaces can be unfriendly to women

But even in booming urban centers, women often find it hard to stay the course, partly because most Indian companies have rigid work structures and reliable child care facilities are few and far between.

Sairee Chahal, founder of SHEROES, a portal for women job seekers, said in an era of global competition, extended work hours have become the norm at most workplaces. And patriarchal attitudes in a conservative society do not help.

“Firms are very unwelcoming around the need for flexibility, maternity is still considered a challenge. And while women have made it to the workplace, men have not picked up stuff at home and that continues to burden women at home,” Chahal said.

A need for more high tech jobs

The low participation of women in the workforce is especially surprising in a country where a large number of college graduates are women — women like Garima Verma and Swati Sharma, who both have college degrees.

“Even highly educated women are not working and this is in a way a form of a brain drain,” Sander said. “Only 34 percent of women with either a diploma or college degree are working.”

Pointing out that this includes a large number of women graduates in science and technology, the World Bank said India needs to create opportunities to tap this human capital.

Swati Sharma, for example, would like to return to work once her 6-month-old baby is a little older, but with working conditions in companies too challenging, she is taking a course so that she can teach “the only option left for me,” she said.

The World Bank said the key to closing the gender gap is to create more jobs, especially regular salaried jobs that are flexible and can be safely accessed by women.

But that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, warns human resources professional Chahal, and reversing the declining trend poses many challenges.

“We do have women who are educated — basically all set and nowhere to go, all set and no doors opening for you,” she said.

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Afghans Mourn After Massive Truck Bombing Kills 90

KABUL — 

Afghans on Thursday mourned the loss of family members, friends and colleagues a day after a massive truck bomb in the capital left at least 90 people dead and more than 450 others wounded in one of the worst extremist attacks since the drawdown of foreign forces from Afghanistan in 2014.

Scores of people waited in hospitals to learn the status of family members and friends wounded in Wednesday's attack.

The bomber drove into Kabul's heavily guarded diplomatic quarter during the morning rush, leaving behind chaos and destruction. Most of the casualties were civilians, including women and children, but the dead also included Afghan security guards.

There was no claim of responsibility.

The explosives were hidden in a tanker truck used to clean out septic systems, according to Najib Danish, deputy spokesman for the interior minister. The blast gouged a crater about 5 meters (15 feet) deep near Zanbaq Square in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, where foreign embassies are protected by their own security personnel as well as Afghan police and National Security Forces. The nearby German Embassy was heavily damaged.

Also in the area is Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry, the Presidential Palace and its intelligence and security headquarters, guarded by soldiers trained by the U.S. and its coalition partners.

Afghanistan's war, the longest ever involving U.S. troops, has shown no sign of letting up and the introduction into the battle of an Islamic State affiliate has made the country only more volatile.

Although they are small in number, militants from the Islamic State in Khorasan - an ancient name for parts of Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia - have taken credit for several brazen assaults on the capital.

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Bangladesh Navy Searching for About 80 Fishermen Missing Since Cyclone

DHAKA, BANGLADESH — 

Bangladesh’s navy was searching for 81 fishermen still missing Thursday in the Bay of Bengal after a devastating cyclone killed several people and left thousands homeless.

Of 144 fishermen missing, the Bangladesh Naval Force rescued 33 and Indian Naval Force rescued 30, said Mostaque Ahmed, head of the Cox’s Bazar Mechanized Fishing Boat Owners Association.

Cyclone Mora, with winds up to 135 kph (85 mph) and heavy rain, hit southeast Bangladesh around Cox’s Bazar and the border with neighboring Myanmar Tuesday, leaving thousands of Muslim Rohingya refugees hunkered down in ruined camps.

The Bangladeshi government estimates that there are 350,000 Rohingyas in Bangladesh following a new influx last October, when the Myanmar army launched an offensive in response to insurgent attacks.

Authorities in Cox’s Bazar and neighboring Chittagong district evacuated 350,000 people from low-lying areas before the storm roared in from the Bay of Bengal Tuesday.

“Though the fishermen were rescued, most of the boats, the main instrument for our survival are totally damaged and it is not possible to get them replaced quickly as we are not solvent,” Ahmed told Reuters by phone from Cox’s Bazar.

“Still we are grateful to the government as now the air force with helicopters is searching the remaining missing fishermen.”

Cyclone Mora formed after monsoon rains triggered floods and landslides in Sri Lanka, off India’s southern tip, killing 202 people in recent days, authorities said.

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Senior China Official Gets Life in Prison for $22M in Bribes

BEIJING — 

The former head of China's statistics bureau has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of taking bribes equivalent to more than $22 million over more than two decades.

The sentence against former National Bureau of Statistics head Wang Baoan was handed down by a court in Hebei province just outside Beijing.

It was among five newly resolved public corruption cases reported late Wednesday by the official Xinhua news agency involving a combined 488 million yuan ($72 million) in bribes and illicit gifts.

President Xi Jinping has made a public corruption crackdown a central issue since late 2012. In 2016 alone, prosecutions were reportedly launched against 48 officials at the provincial level and above.

Wang was accused of trading political favors for money, sex, property and business concessions.

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