21/08/2025

THURSDAY | AUG 21, 2025

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Seoul blocks elderly ex-spy from going North

‘U.S. DEMAND FOR RV S FUELS DEFORESTATION’ JAKARTA: Tropical wood demand from some of America’s top RV (recreational vehicle) brands is fuelling deforestation in Kalimantan. The recreational vehicle industry is the biggest consumer of tropical wood in the United States, UK-based NGO Earthsight and Indonesian NGO Auriga Nusantara said in a report. They said sheets of tropical “lauan” plywood found in Indonesia were likely being used in the floors, walls and ceilings of RVs produced by major brands. Earthsight director Sam Lawson said: “RV giants need to get out of the 1980s and implement the kinds of minimum sustainability standards other US corporates have had in place for decades.” Indonesia has one of the highest rates of deforestation. – AFP CHINA, INDIA PLEDGE TO RESUME FLIGHTS BEIJING: China and India announced they would restart direct flights in a string of diplomatic breakthroughs. Following Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s trip to India, Beijing and New Delhi also agreed to advance talks on their disputed border, resume tourism visa issuance and boost trade. In talks on the border issue with National Security adviser Ajit Doval, the two sides agreed to “explore the possibility of advancing demarcation negotiations” and vowed to reopen three border trade markets. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to China later this month, his first visit since 2018. Wang is due in Pakistan, India’s arch-rival and one of China’s closest regional partners. – AFP FIREBALL LIGHTS UP JAPANESE SKIES TOKYO: A flashing fireball dashed across the skies of western Japan, shocking residents and dazzling stargazers, though experts said it was a natural phenomenon and not an alien invasion. Videos and photos emerged online of the extremely bright ball of light visible for hundreds of kilometres shortly after 11pm (midnight in Malaysia) on Tuesday. Toshihisa Maeda, head of Sendai Space Museum in the Kagoshima region in southwestern Japan, said that it was a fireball, an exceptionally bright meteor. It seemed to have gone into the Pacific, he said. Objects causing fireball events can exceed one metre in size, according to Nasa. – AFP NORTH KOREA SLAMS SEOUL’S LEADERSHIP SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister accused Seoul yesterday of having a “double character”, slamming it for holding military drills with the US while attempting diplomatic overtures towards Pyongyang. New South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has vowed to“respect” the North’s political system and build “military trust”, while pledging to pursue dialogue without preconditions – a sharp break with the policies of his predecessor. Even so, South Korea and the United States began annual joint exercises on Monday aimed at preparing for potential threats from the North. Lee described the drills as “defensive” and said they were “not intended to heighten tensions”. – AFP

BR I E F S

Among them is Samia, 26, from Afghanistan’s Hazara minority, a community long persecuted at home, who gave birth just three weeks ago. “I came here when my baby was seven days old, and now it has been 22 days … we have no food, and my baby was sick but there was no doctor,” she said, wearing damp clothes and shoes caked in mud as she cuddled her son, Daniyal. The United Nations says Pakistan has begun deporting documented Afghans before a Sept 1 deadline that could force more than a million to leave. The action comes despite about 1.3 million holding refugee registration documents, while 750,000 have Afghan identity cards issued in Pakistan. Samia now lives on the park’s wet ground, among 200 families who cook, sleep and dry their belongings there after nights of rain. Plastic sheets serve as makeshift shelters, and children and parents spend their days battling mud, sun and hunger. Families pool the little money they SEOUL: An elderly North Korean ex-spy who spent decades in jail in the South and has pleaded to be sent to the North was prevented yesterday from crossing the border by South Korean soldiers. Ahn Hak-sop, 95, is one of six elderly former North Korean soldiers and spies who have recently stepped up their demands that Seoul repatriate them to their ideological homeland. They were convicted in the South for anti-state activities and served decades behind bars for refusing to renounce communism. They have subsequently been released. Holding a North Korean flag, Ahn “walked a few hundred metres towards a military checkpoint and was stopped by personnel”, said a spokeswoman for a civic group campaigning for his return. Anh was later taken to hospital. A photo carried by the Yonhap news agency showed Ahn holding the red-and-blue North Korean flag at the border – an act that is punishable under Seoul’s national security law. The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically still at war. Ahn was captured during the o Unification Ministry reviewing issue

Ahn pleads with a police officer near a military checkpoint in the border city of Paju. – AFPPIC

which handles inter-Korean affairs, said on Tuesday it was reviewing “various ways to address the issue”. A ministry official said more former convicts in similar situations were expected to demand repatriation, though the government had no precise figure on how many remain alive. In 2000, South Korea repatriated 63 “unconverted” former prisoners during a brief period of rapprochement – the first and only such event to date. – AFP

uniform under orders from the Workers’ Party,” Ahn said in an interview last year. “But the South Korean government did not treat me as such, and I was forced to spend more than 40 years in prison, subjected to torture.” The civic group said it would continue to press for the men’s return. North Korea has yet to comment on the case. Seoul’s Unification Ministry,

Korean War in 1953 while on an infiltration mission and remained imprisoned until 1995, a lengthy term that could have ended earlier had he agreed to embrace democracy. The civic group representing Ahn and the five others argues they should be recognised as “prisoners of war” and that their repatriation requests must be respected under the Geneva Convention. “I am a prisoner of war who came here in a North Korean military

Evicted Afghan refugees huddle in Islamabad park ISLAMABAD: Evicted from their homes and huddling under plastic sheets after heavy rains, Afghan refugees in a park n ear government offices in Islamabad said they had nowhere to go as Pakistan pressures landlords to expel do cumented families. have to buy potatoes or squash, cooking small portions over open fires to share with several people. The women use the washroom in a nearby mosque. Sahera Babur, 23, another member of the Hazara community, who is nine months pregnant, spoke with tears in her eyes.

“If my baby is born in this situation, what will happen to me and my child?” she said, adding that police had told her landlord to evict her family because they were Afghan. Dozens of policemen stood at the edge of the park when Reuters visited, watching the camp. Refugees said officers regularly told them to leave or risk being taken away. Police denied harassment. Jawad Tariq, a deputy inspector-general, said refugees were only asked to leave voluntarily or move to holding centres. Pakistan’s Information Ministry did not respond to a text message requesting comment. Refugees say they have been left in limbo for years. “UNHCR gave us promises … but they have not visited us,” said Dewa Hotak, 22, an Afghan and former television journalist. The agency’s spokesperson in Pakistan, Qaiser Khan Afridi, called the situation “precarious”, adding that Afghans unable to regularise their stay faced arrest, deportation and homelessness.

Afghan citizen Tayyaba, 45, who was working in the archive department at Radio Television Afghanistan, sits with others at the park. – REUTERSPIC

Pakistan, host to millions of Afghans since the 1979 Soviet invasion, has stepped up expulsions under a 2023 crackdown, blaming Afghans for crime and militancy, charges rejected by Kabul. Iran’s plan to deport Afghans adds to a refugee return crisis. The green grass and serene vistas in Islamabad’s park stand in stark contrast to the lives of those camping there. “My message to the world is to see our situation,” Samia said, clutching her newborn. – Reuters

He said the agency was pressing Islamabad to create a registration mechanism and reiterated its call not to return people to a country where their lives may be in danger. Many at the camp say they cannot go back to Afghanistan because of the risks. Ahmad Zia Faiz, a former adviser in Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry, said he feared reprisals for serving in the previous government, adding, “If we return to Afghanistan, there is a risk of being killed.”