23/02/2026

MONDAY | FEB 23, 2026

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Pakistan airstrikes hit Afghanistan

Treat all equally, Lula tells Trump NEW DELHI: Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva yesterday urged Donald Trump to treat all countries equally, after the US leader imposed a 15% tariff on imports following an adverse Supreme Court ruling. “I want to tell US President Donald Trump that we don’t want a new Cold War. We don’t want interference in any other country, we want all countries to be treated equally,” Lula told reporters in New Delhi. The conservative-majority Supreme Court on Friday ruled six to three that a 1977 law Trump has relied on to slap sudden levies on individual countries, upending global trade, “does not authorise the president to impose tariffs”. Lula said he would not like to react to Supreme Court decisions of another country, but hoped that Brazil’s relations with the United States “will go back to normalcy” soon. The veteran leftist Brazilian leader is expected to travel to Washington next month for a meeting with Trump. “I am convinced that Brazil US relation will go back to normalcy after our conversation,” Lula, 80, said, adding that Brazil only wanted to “live in peace, generate jobs and improve lives of our people”. Ties between Brazil and the United States appear to be on the mend after months of animosity. As a result, Trump’s administration has exempted key Brazilian exports from 40% tariffs that had been imposed on the South American country last year. “The world doesn’t need more turbulence, it needs peace,” said Lula. India and Brazil on Saturday

countries have been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute since the Taliban authorities retook control of Afghanistan in 2021. Pakistani military action killed 70 Afghan civilians between October and December, according to the UN mission in Afghanistan. Several rounds of negotiations followed an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkiye, but they have failed to produce a lasting agreement. Saudi Arabia intervened this month, mediating the release of three Pakistani soldiers captured by Afghanistan in October. The deteriorating relationship has hit people in both countries, with the land border largely shut for months. Pakistan said yesterday that despite repeated urging by Islamabad, the Taliban authorities have failed to act against groups using Afghan territory to carry out attacks in Pakistan. The Afghan government has denied harbouring militants. Islamabad launched the strikes after a suicide blast at a Shi’ite mosque in Islamabad two weeks ago and other such attacks more recently in northwestern Pakistan. The Islamic State group had claimed responsibility for the mosque bombing, which killed at least 40 people and wounded more than 160 in the deadliest attack in Islamabad since 2008. – AFP

homes in Nangarhar and Paktika provinces. An AFP journalist in Nangarhar’s Bihsud district said residents from around the remote and mountainous area joined rescuers in one village, using a digger and shovels to search for bodies under the rubble. “People here are ordinary people. The residents of this village are our relatives,” said villager Amin Gul Amin, 37. Nangarhar police told AFP the bombardment started at around midnight and hit three districts. “Civilians were killed. In one house, there were 23 family members. Five wounded people were taken out,” said police spokesperson Sayed Tayeeb Hammad. Afghanistan said it will “deliver an appropriate and calculated response” to the Pakistani strikes. The two

October killed more than 70 people and wounded hundreds. Islamabad said it hit seven sites along the border region targeting Afghanistan-based militant groups “in the aftermath of recent suicide bombing incidents in Pakistan”. The military targeted the Pakistani Taliban and its associates, as well as an affiliate of the Islamic State group, a statement by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said. Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry said “dozens of innocent civilians, including women and children, were martyred and wounded” when strikes hit a madrasa a n d

BIHSUD: Pakistan said yesterday it launched airstrikes targeting militants in Afghanistan, where the government reported children were among dozens of people killed and wounded. The attacks were the most extensive since border clashes in o Children among dozens reported killed

agreed to boost cooperation on critical minerals and rare earths and signed a raft of other deals. – AFP Myanmar denies sexual violence allegations

Afghan villagers helping rescuers search for victims after a Pakistani airstrike hit Girdi Kas village in Bihsud district, Nangarhar province. – AFPPIC

Seoul protests Japanese event SEOUL: South Korea yesterday protested a Japanese government event commemorating a cluster of disputed islands between the two countries, calling the move an unjust assertion of sovereignty over its territory. geographically and under international law,” the ministry said, calling on Japan to drop what it described as groundless claims and to face history with humility. The ministry summoned a top Japanese diplomat to the ministry to lodge a protest.

PHNOM PENH: Myanmar has denied UN claims that sexual violence related to conflict has escalated in the country since the military coup five years ago. The government refuted the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict allegation of widespread sexual crimes committed by groups involved in the civil conflict, including the military and ethnic armed groups. In a statement issued by Myanmar’s National Committee for the Prevention and Response to Sexual Violence in Conflict, the government described the allegations as lopsided and politically motivated. “The UN statement contains unverified information and relies on one-sided allegations from mechanisms such as the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar.

In response to the allegations, the government said as a member of the UN, it is committed to complying with international standards for the prevention of sexual violence in conflict. “Tatmadaw (armed forces) and security forces have adopted a zero tolerance policy towards any offence, including sexual violence, and all perpetrators will be prosecuted under the law,” the committee said. The government launched a nationwide helpline in 2022 to prevent sexual violence. Authorities have received over 2,300 cases of sexual violence from 2017 to January this year, which are not conflict-related, and actions are being taken. A one-stop Women’s Support Centre is also operating nationwide to address such crimes, the government said. – Bernama

“This appears to be politically motivated pressure intended to damage the state’s prestige and image. Therefore, Myanmar strongly objects and firmly rejects this statement,” said the government statement, published by The Global New Light of Myanmar yesterday. Since the military ousted the civilian government in 2021, parts of the country have been rocked by armed conflict, displacing about 3.5 million people, according to UN reports. On Feb 2, the UN special representative Pramila Patten issued a press release condemning the alleged heinous crimes that were committed as a tactic of war, political repression and a strategy to punish and terrorise the citizens. “The scale and brutality of sexual violence perpetrated in Myanmar is horrifying,” said Patten.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said it strongly objected to the Takeshima Day event held by Japan’s Shimane prefecture and to the attendance of a senior Japanese government official, urging Japan to abolish the ceremony. The tiny islets, known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, which controls them, have long been a source of tension between the two neighbours, whose relations remain strained by disputes rooted in Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. “Dokdo is clearly South Korea’s sovereign territory historically,

An individual at the Japan Foreign Ministry said no one was available yesterday to comment. A call to the Prime Minister’s Office went unanswered. Seoul has repeatedly objected to Japan’s territorial claims over the islands, including a protest issued on Friday over comments by Japan’s foreign minister during a parliamentary address asserting Tokyo’s sovereignty over the islets. The territory lies in fertile fishing grounds and may sit above enormous deposits of natural gas hydrate that could be worth billions of dollars, Seoul has said. – Reuters