PAKISTAN: Bakhsheesh Elahi was waiting for the morning bus when a lone gunman on a motorcycle pulled up beside him and shot him dead. Rana Tanveer had just taken his family to safety after radical Islamists spray-painted death threats on his door, when a car smashed into his motorcycle and sped away.
Taha Siddiqui answered his phone to hear a menacing voice from a government agency telling him he needed to come in for questioning, without saying why.
The three men are journalists in Pakistan, considered one of the most dangerous places in the world for this profession. But even by Pakistan’s standards, things have gotten worse, according to journalists, Pakistani and international human rights activists, and advocacy groups.
In addition to attacks from militants or criminals, Pakistani journalists are also facing threats from government agencies or the military itself.
“Journalists are not threatened from one side alone, they are threatened by drug mafia, they are threatened by political gangs. They are also threatened by religious extremists,” said Asma Jehangir, a human rights lawyer and the director of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. “They are threatened by the military. They are also threatened by people who are deeply (involved) in corruption, but when it comes to the extremist elements, governments are very reluctant to move because they themselves are afraid of them.”
Elahi, a determined investigative reporter in northwestern Pakistan’s Haripur, is just the latest example. The father of five, including a daughter born just 20 days earlier, was killed on June 11 while waiting for a bus a few hundred meters from his home.
Local journalists turned Elahi’s funeral into a protest, carrying his body through the streets and stopping traffic to demand that the killers be brought to justice, according to Zakir Hussain Tandi, president of the Haripur Press Club.
But impunity and a lack of prosecution has characterized many of the attacks on journalists in Pakistan. Elahi, who was bureau chief of an Urdu language newspaper and sister television station, was the fourth journalist killed in Haripur district in the last three years. All but one of the murders has gone unsolved.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says 60 journalists and 10 media workers have been killed in Pakistan since 1992.
Elahi’s Facebook page featured his relentless reporting against political corruption. One of the country’s largest television news channels to feature one of his stories.
“We think his death is probably related to journalism,” said Tandi of the press club. “Lots of people didn’t like his investigations, the drug mafia, corrupt politicians, car thieves. He wrote about them all.”
Pakistani journalists and social media activists have been detained, often by intelligence agencies, tortured according to some who were released, and threatened with blasphemy charges, which carry the death penalty and routinely incite mobs of radical extremists to violence.
Last week, a social media activist was sentenced to death for allegedly posting an item deemed insulting to Islam.
That sentence “sends a threatening message to all ... causing fear and leading to self-censorship,” Steven Butler, Asia director of the CPJ, said in an e-mail. “It’s clear that authorities — including investigative authorities, prosecutors, and the military — are keeping a close eye on journalists and ready to act when red lines are crossed.”
Last month, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ordered a crackdown on “those ridiculing the Pakistan Army on social media (to protect) the prestige, reputation and goodwill” of the armed forces.
On May 18, Taha Siddiqui, Pakistan’s correspondent for France 24 TV, received a threatening call from someone claiming to represent the counter-terrorism wing of the Federal Investigation Agency , ordering him to come in for questioning. Siddiqui, who is also bureau chief of the World Is One News website, is an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies.
“My work is in the public domain,” Siddiqui asked. “What does counter-terrorism have to do with journalism, with free speech?“
Siddiqui phoned colleagues for advice and stopped answering his door. He eventually spoke to Jehangir, the human rights lawyer, who advised him to file a petition demanding to know why he was being investigated. Siddiqui, who didn’t go in for questioning, has already made at least one court appearance and was told by the FIA that he was being investigated because of his critical stories about the military.
On May 30, Rana Tanveer, a correspondent for the English-language daily newspaper, The Express Tribune, found death threats spray painted on his home in eastern Lahore saying he would die for writing stories about the plight of minorities in Pakistan — particularly Ahmedis, reviled by mainstream Muslims who label them as heretics because they believe in a messiah who arrived after the Prophet Muhammad.
Pakistan has officially declared them non-Muslims, making it a crime for Ahmedis to identify themselves as Muslims. Dozens are facing charges.
“That was shocking for me,” Tanveer said of the spray-painted threats. He went to the police, which didn’t register a case but instead advised him against filing a formal complaint, saying it would enrage the radicals who had threatened him.
Tanveer has received several such threats over the years; even his landlord had been warned against renting to him because of his coverage of religious minorities
On June 9, Tanveer was riding his motorcycle after meeting a colleague from the Pakistan Union of Journalists to decide how to deal with the threats when a speeding car slammed into him and sent him crashing to the pavement. He suffered a fractured leg and believes it was no accident.
Today, he is in hiding with his family, unprotected by police and unsure when he can return to his job.
Jehangir said she believes the government crackdown is being done at least partially at the behest of Pakistan’s military.
“They think that the image of Pakistan is being destroyed by the word getting out of here,” she said. “Now, if you stop picking up people, stop torturing people, the image will improve, but don’t shoot the messenger.”
Journalists in Pakistan under fire from many sides
Journalists in Pakistan under fire from many sides
Spaniards turn water pistols on visitors in Barcelona and Mallorca to protest mass tourism
- About a thousand Spaniards marched to demand a rethink of an economic model they believe is fueling a housing crunch and erasing the character of their city on Sunday
- The marches were part of a coordinated effort by activists concerned with the ills of overtourism across southern Europe’s top destinations
BARCELONA: Protesters used water pistols against unsuspecting tourists in Barcelona and on the Spanish island of Mallorca on Sunday as demonstrators marched to demand a rethink of an economic model they believe is fueling a housing crunch and erasing the character of their hometowns.
The marches were part of the first coordinated effort by activists concerned with the ills of overtourism across southern Europe’s top destinations. While several thousands rallied in Mallorca in the biggest gathering of the day, hundreds more gathered in other Spanish cities, as well as in Venice, Italy, and Portugal’s capital, Lisbon.
“The squirt guns are to bother the tourists a bit,” Andreu Martínez said in Barcelona with a chuckle after spritzing a couple seated at an outdoor café. “Barcelona has been handed to the tourists. This is a fight to give Barcelona back to its residents.”
Martínez, a 42-year-old administrative assistant, is one of a growing number of residents who are convinced that tourism has gone too far in the city of 1.7 million people. Barcelona hosted 15.5 million visitors last year eager to see Antoni Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familia basilica and the Las Ramblas promenade.
Martínez says his rent has risen over 30 percent as more apartments in his neighborhood are rented to tourists for short-term stays. He said there is a knock-on effect of traditional stores being replaced by businesses catering to tourists, like souvenir shops, burger joints and “bubble tea” spots.
“Our lives, as lifelong residents of Barcelona, are coming to an end,” he said. “We are being pushed out systematically.”
Around 5,000 people gathered in Palma, the capital of Mallorca, with some toting water guns as well and chanting “Everywhere you look, all you see are tourists.” The tourists who were targeted by water blasts laughed it off. The Balearic island is a favorite for British and German sun-seekers. It has seen housing costs skyrocket as homes are diverted to the short-term rental market.
Hundreds more marched in Granada, in southern Spain, and in the northern city of San Sebastián, as well as the island of Ibiza.
In Venice, a couple of dozen protesters unfurled a banner calling for a halt to new hotel beds in the lagoon city in front of two recently completed structures, one in the popular tourist destination’s historic center where activists say the last resident, an elderly woman, was kicked out last year.
‘That’s lovely’
Protesters in Barcelona blew whistles and held up homemade signs saying “One more tourist, one less resident.” They stuck stickers saying “Citizen Self-Defense,” in Catalan, and “Tourist Go Home,” in English, with a drawing of a water pistol on the doors of hotels and hostels.
There was tension when the march stopped in front of a large hostel, where a group emptied their water guns at two workers positioned in the entrance. They also set off firecrackers next to the hostel and opened a can of pink smoke. One worker spat at the protesters as he slammed the hostel’s doors.
American tourists Wanda and Bill Dorozenski were walking along Barcelona’s main luxury shopping boulevard where the protest started. They received a squirt or two, but she said it was actually refreshing given the 83 degree Fahrenheit (28.3 degrees Celsius) weather.
“That’s lovely, thank you sweetheart,” Wanda said to the squirter. “I am not going to complain. These people are feeling something to them that is very personal, and is perhaps destroying some areas (of the city).”
There were also many marchers with water pistols who didn’t fire at bystanders and instead solely used them to spray themselves to keep cool.
Crackdown on Airbnb
Cities across the world are struggling with how to cope with mass tourism and a boom in short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere has surging discontent been so evident as in Spain, where protesters in Barcelona first took to firing squirt guns at tourists during a protest last summer.
There has also been a confluence of the pro-housing and anti-tourism struggles in Spain, whose 48 million residents welcomed record 94 million international visitors in 2024. When thousands marched through the streets of Spain’s capital in April, some held homemade signs saying “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods.”
Spanish authorities are striving to show they hear the public outcry while not hurting an industry that contributes 12 percent of gross domestic product.
Last month, Spain’s government ordered Airbnb to remove almost 66,000 holiday rentals from the platform that it said had violated local rules.
Spain’s Consumer Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy told The Associated Press shortly after the crackdown on Airbnb that the tourism sector “cannot jeopardize the constitutional rights of the Spanish people,” which enshrines their right to housing and well-being. Carlos Cuerpo, the economy minister, said in a separate interview that the government is aware it must tackle the unwanted side effects of mass tourism.
The boldest move was made by Barcelona’s town hall, which stunned Airbnb and other services who help rent properties to tourists by announcing last year the elimination of all 10,000 short-term rental licenses in the city by 2028.
That sentiment was back in force on Sunday, where people held up signs saying “Your Airbnb was my home.”
‘Taking away housing’
The short-term rental industry, for its part, believes it is being treated unfairly.
“I think a lot of our politicians have found an easy scapegoat to blame for the inefficiencies of their policies in terms of housing and tourism over the last 10, 15, 20 years,” Airbnb’s general director for Spain and Portugal, Jaime Rodríguez de Santiago recently told the AP.
That argument either hasn’t trickled down to the ordinary residents of Barcelona, or isn’t resonating.
Txema Escorsa, a teacher in Barcelona, doesn’t just oppose Airbnb in his home city, he has ceased to use it even when traveling elsewhere, out of principle.
“In the end, you realize that this is taking away housing from people,” he said.
One dead, 36 injured after 6.1-magnitude earthquake in Peru
- A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Peru on Sunday, leaving one person dead and 36 injured as the tremor triggered landslides, officials said
LIMA: A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Peru on Sunday, leaving one person dead and 36 injured as the tremor triggered landslides, officials said.
The quake hit shortly before noon and was centered around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Callao, a port city next to the capital Lima, the National Seismological Center said. The US Geological Survey put the magnitude at 5.6.
Peru said the tremor had not generated a tsunami warning.
A man died in Lima when a wall fell on the car he was driving, the National Police said.
In addition, the Emergency Operations Center reported 36 injuries in Lima.
President Dina Boluarte called for “calm” from citizens, noting that there was no tsunami warning for the South American country’s Pacific coastline.
The TV channel Latina showed footage of landslides in several areas of the capital city.
The quake also prompted a suspension of a major football game being played in Lima. The city’s subway service was also halted.
Peru is home to 34 million people and lies on the so-called Ring of Fire, a stretch of intense seismic and volcanic activity around the Pacific basin.
Peru averages at least 100 detectable earthquakes every year.
The last big one, in 2021 in the Amazon region, had a magnitude of 7.5, left 12 people injured and destroyed more than 70 homes.
A devastating quake in 1970 in the northern Ancash region of Peru killed around 67,000 people.
World entering new era as nuclear powers build up arsenals — SIPRI think tank
- Nine nuclear states — US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel plan to increase their stockpiles
- Of total global inventory of estimated 12,241 warheads in Jan. 2025, about 9,614 were in military stockpiles for potential use
STOCKHOLM: The world’s nuclear-armed states are beefing up their atomic arsenals and walking out of arms control pacts, creating a new era of threat that has brought an end to decades of reductions in stockpiles since the Cold War, a think tank said on Monday.
Of the total global inventory of an estimated 12,241 warheads in January 2025, about 9,614 were in military stockpiles for potential use, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in its yearbook, an annual inventory of the world’s most dangerous weapons.
Around 2,100 of the deployed warheads were kept in a state of high operational alert on ballistic missiles, nearly all belonging to either the US or Russia.
SIPRI said global tensions had seen the nine nuclear states — the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — plan to increase their stockpiles.
“The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the Cold War, is coming to an end,” SIPRI said. “Instead, we see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements.”
SIPRI said Russia and the US, which together possess around 90 percent of all nuclear weapons, had kept the sizes of their respective useable warheads relatively stable in 2024. But both were implementing extensive modernization programs that could increase the size of their arsenals in the future.
The fastest-growing arsenal is China’s, with Beijing adding about 100 new warheads per year since 2023. China could potentially have at least as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as either Russia or the US by the turn of the decade.
According to the estimates, Russia and the US held around 5,459 and 5,177 nuclear warheads respectively, while China had around 600.
Police break up Nigeria protest as anger mounts over killings in southern state
- Gunmen attacked the village of Yelewata in Benue state, killiing over 100, according to Amnesty International
- Pope Leo XIV condemned the killings, in comments during his Sunday prayer in Rome, calling it a “terrible massacre”
JOS, Nigeria: Police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the central city of Makurdi on Sunday, as anger mounted over the killing of dozens of people by gunmen in a nearby town.
Gunmen attacked the village of Yelewata on Friday night in a region that has seen a surge in violence amid clashes between Muslim Fulani herders and mostly Christian farmers competing for land and resources.
Police fired tear gas to break up a protest by thousands of people, witnesses said, as demonstrators called on the state’s governor to act swiftly to halt the cycle of violence.
“The protesters were given specific time by the security to make their peaceful protest and disperse,” Tersoo Kula, spokesperson for Benue state’s governor, told AFP.
John Shiaondo, a local journalist, said he was covering the “peaceful protest” when the police moved in and started firing tear gas.
“Many people ran away for fear of injuries, and I also left the scene for my safety,” he told AFP.
Joseph Hir, who took part in the protest, said people were protesting the killings in Benue when the police intervened.
“We are not abusing anyone, we are also not tampering with anybody’s property, we are discharging our rights to peacefully protest the unabated killings of our people, and now the police are shooting tear gas at us,” he told AFP.
Benue state governor Hyacinth Alia told a news conference late Sunday that the death toll had reached 59 in Yelewata, though residents said the toll could exceed 100.
“We will move very quickly to set up a five-man panel... to enable us find out who the culprits are, to know who the sponsors are and to identify the victims and to see how justice will be applied,” Alia said.
Amnesty International put the death toll at more than 100.
The rights group called the attack “horrifying,” saying it “shows the security measures (the) government claims to be implementing in the state are not working.”
Pope Leo XIV also condemned the killings, in comments during his Sunday prayer in Rome, calling it a “terrible massacre” in which mostly displaced civilians were murdered with “extreme cruelty.”
He said “rural Christian communities” in Benue were victims of incessant violence.
Authorities typically blame such attacks on Fulani herders but the latter say they are targets of violence and land seizures too.
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said in a statement Sunday night he had “directed the security agencies to act decisively and arrest perpetrators of these evil acts on all sides of the conflict and prosecute them.
“Political and community leaders in Benue State must act responsibly and avoid inflammatory utterances that could further increase tensions and killings,” he said.
Governor Alia said earlier that “tactical teams had begun arriving from the federal government and security reinforcements are being deployed in vulnerable areas.”
“The state’s joint operational units are also being reinforced, and the government will not let up its efforts to defend the lives and property of all residents,” he said.
Attacks in the region, part of what is known as the central belt of Nigeria, are often motivated by religious or ethnic differences.
Two weeks ago, gunmen killed 25 people in two attacks in Benue state.
More than 150 people were killed in massacres across Plateau and Benue states in April.
EU chief calls at G7 for world to ‘avoid protectionism’
- “Let us keep trade between us fair, predictable and open. All of us need to avoid protectionism,” von der Leyen says
KANANASKIS, Canada: EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday called on G7 leaders to avoid protectionist trade policies as leaders from the industrialized countries arrived at their annual summit.
“Let us keep trade between us fair, predictable and open. All of us need to avoid protectionism,” von der Leyen said at a press briefing, with US President Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught certain to enter the conversations at the three-day event.
