MOHRI PUR, PAKISTAN: Men banned women from voting in the village of Mohri Pur sometime around 1947, and they have obeyed ever since -- until this year, when changes to Pakistan's election laws and women's attitudes could shift the dynamic.
At least, that is the hope of many women meeting beneath a Jambolan tree in the village some 60 kilometres (35 miles) from the central Pakistan city of Multan, its shade protecting them from the blazing sun.
Whether the men watching angrily as the women speak to AFP reporters will allow them to follow through when the nation goes to the polls on July 25 is another question.
"They perhaps think that women are stupid... or there is an issue of honour for them," says 31-year-old Nazia Tabbasum.
Village elders banned women from voting decades ago, claiming that visiting a public polling station would "dishonour" them.
So-called "honour" describes a patriarchal code across South Asia that often seeks to justify the murder and oppression of women who defy conservative traditions by acts such as choosing their own husband, or working outside the home.
"I don't know where their honour goes to sleep while they lie down at home... as their women work in the fields," Tabbasum adds, scathingly.
But the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has declared that at least 10 percent of voters in each constituency must be women, otherwise its results will be voided.
Nearly 20 million new voters have been registered in the rapidly growing country, including 9.13 million women, the commission says.
It is another step in women's long battle for rights in Pakistan, a deeply patriarchal country of some 207 million people -- though it does little to address the gender imbalance of the 2013 elections, in which male registered voters outnumbered female by some 11 million.
The shift also sets the stage for a stand-off in conservative rural areas, like Mohri Pur.
"The main reason is that these are the areas where women are not allowed to even come out of the house," says Farzana Bari, a gender expert and rights activist.
The ECP's rule change should improve things -- though Bari warned that within each constituency there could yet be pockets where women are prevented from voting.
There is plenty of precedent: in 2015 men stopped women from voting in a local poll in Lower Dir, in the northwest. The ECP promptly cancelled the result.
In 2013 a court ordered the arrest of male elders in two other northwestern districts over banning female votes in the previous general elections.
In Mohri Pur, located in Punjab province, women do work outside the home and some receive education, yet the vote ban holds.
Many of the younger women under the Jambolan tree are eager to exercise their rights -- but not all.
Widow Nazeeran Mai, 60, says it is not "custom" for women to vote. "(T)here is no one to stop me, but still I don't vote because nobody else does," she says.
Others fear violent reprisals.
"If they go to vote alone, there will be violence and unrest, the men will abuse and beat them, so it's better not to go," explains 22-year-old Shumaila Majeed -- though she remained determined to get as many women to the polls "as possible".
Even Mohri Pur's lone female councillor Irshad Bibi -- elected under laws stipulating at least one woman on every village council -- has never voted.
When asked why, she calls on her husband to speak for her.
"Our elders had set up this custom... We stand by this today," the husband, Zafar Iqbal, tells AFP.
"In any civilised democracy, half the population ought not be disenfranchised," says newspaper columnist Hajrah Mumtaz.
But local politicians say they are helpless.
"I can't break their tradition... the people of this village have to decide when they will allow women to vote," says Raza Hayat Hiraj from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.
Bismillah Noor, a member of the district council who arranged the meeting under the Jambolan tree, says the men are stubborn.
"I've been trying since 2001 but nobody listens to me," she says. "In 2005, men told me their women don't want to vote so I should not force them."
Another attempt in 2013 also failed.
The determination Noor hears from the village women now gives her a glimmer of hope -- but progress is fragile.
In 2015, one woman, Fouzia Talib, became the only one in Mohri Pur to vote in local elections. She was ostracised.
Now, she is unsure if voting on July 25 for politicians she believes will do little for the area is worth the backlash.
"I will see," she tells AFP.
Women vow to defy men who banned their vote in Pakistan village
Women vow to defy men who banned their vote in Pakistan village
- Nearly 20 million new voters have been registered in the rapidly growing country, including 9.13 million women, the commission says
- In Mohri Pur, located in Punjab province, women do work outside the home and some receive education, yet the vote ban holds
Los Angeles fires fully contained after burning for 3 weeks: state agency
- Palisades and Eaton fires burned more than 150 square kilometers and over 10,000 homes
- Estimated damage and economic loss at between $250 billion and $275 billion
The Palisades and Eaton fires in Southern California’s Los Angeles County were the most destructive in the history of the second-largest US city, burning more than 150 square kilometers and over 10,000 homes, causing damage estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, updated the figures on its website on Friday to show 100 percent containment of both fires, meaning their perimeters were completely under control.
Evacuation orders were lifted earlier, with the fires not posing a serious threat for days.
Both blazes started on January 7 and their exact cause remains under investigation.
But human-driven climate change set the stage for the infernos by reducing rainfall, parching vegetation, and extending the dangerous overlap between flammable drought conditions and powerful Santa Ana winds, according to an analysis published this week.
The study, conducted by dozens of researchers, concluded that the conditions fueling the blazes were approximately 35 percent more likely due to global warming caused by burning fossil fuels.
The two fires destroyed thousands of structures over more than three weeks in the affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles and Malibu, and in the Altadena community in Los Angeles County, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.
“Our recovery effort is based around getting people back home to rebuild as quickly and safely as possible,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement Friday. “We are making sure that the Palisades will be safe as residents access their properties.”
City police chief Jim McDonnell said the presence of law enforcement officers in the area would be “more than 10 times” what it was before the start of the fires.
Private meteorological firm AccuWeather has estimated the damage and economic loss at between $250 billion and $275 billion.
African health agency says DRC fighting has spawned ‘health emergency’
- The head of Africa’s health agency said the situation in the DRC city of Goma was a “full-scale public health emergency,” warning that the fighting there could fuel major pandemics
ADDIS ABABA: The head of Africa’s health agency said the situation in the DRC city of Goma was a “full-scale public health emergency,” warning that the fighting there could fuel major pandemics.
The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has been advancing across the Democratic Republic of Congo’s volatile east, which has been the scene of numerous infectious disease outbreaks.
Earlier this week, M23 seized control of most of North Kivu’s capital Goma, a densely populated city of three million people, one million of whom are displaced.
Jean Kaseya, head of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said it was these “extreme conditions, combined with insecurity and mass displacement have fueled the mutation of the mpox virus.”
The clade 1b variant of mpox, which has been recorded in many countries across the world in recent months, first emerged in the neighboring South Kivu province in 2023.
“Goma has become the epicenter, spreading mpox across 21 African countries,” he said in a letter sent on Friday to African leaders.
“This is not only a security issue — it is a full-scale public health emergency,” Kaseya said.
“This war must end. If decisive action is not taken, it will not be bullets alone that claim lives — it will be the unchecked spread of major outbreaks and potential pandemics that will come from this fragile region... devastating economies and societies across our continent,” he said.
The conditions had also led to “widespread measles, cholera and other outbreaks, claiming thousands more lives.”
The conflict in the eastern DRC is a dramatic escalation in a region that has seen decades of conflict involving multiple armed groups, which over the past three decades have claimed an estimated six million lives.
International observers have sounded the alarm on the humanitarian impact of the escalating conflict.
Colombia offers to pay for repatriations from US
BOGOTA: Colombia has offered to pay for the “dignified” deportation of its citizens from the United States, the foreign ministry said Friday, a week after a public spat between presidents Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump over the removal of migrants.
The two leaders had issued threats and counter threats of major trade tariffs of up to 50 percent, and Washington’s embassy in Bogota stopped issuing visas from Monday to Friday in retaliation for Petro’s refusal to allow US military planes to return Colombian migrants to their country.
Petro had accused the United States of treating the migrants like criminals, placing them in shackles and handcuffs.
Colombia’s foreign ministry said Friday it had proposed to Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, that Bogota would “immediately assume the transfer of all citizens deported by the United States,” covering transportation costs for its nationals, according to a statement.
Petro has said his government would not allow expelled migrants to travel in handcuffs.
The Trump administration had announced this week a series of sanctions against Colombia, before backtracking, with the White House saying Bogota had accepted its conditions and reversed course.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Colombian military and civilian aircraft repatriated the first groups of migrants to Bogota.
According to Petro, hundreds of Colombians, including several children, were returned to their country in “dignified” conditions. None of them were “confirmed criminals,” he added.
Colombia is expecting the return of around 27,000 migrants whose deportation orders have been signed in the last six months by the Trump administration or that of his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, a Colombian presidential source told AFP.
Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history, vowing to expel millions of undocumented immigrants, many from Latin American nations.
The United States is Colombia’s largest trade partner and it has provided millions of dollars in aid over decades to fight drug trafficking and terrorism.
Rubio to make debut in Panama as Trump threatens to take canal
- Marco Rubio’s travel comes the same day that Trump’s promised tariffs on the three largest US trading partners – Canada, Mexico and China – are set to come into effect
- Rubio will travel later to four other small Latin American countries for an agenda focused on migration, a highly unusual first trip for the top US diplomat
WASHINGTON: Marco Rubio heads Saturday to Panama on his debut trip abroad as US secretary of state as he looks for how to follow up on President Donald Trump’s extraordinary threat to seize the Panama Canal.
Rubio’s travel comes the same day that Trump’s promised tariffs on the three largest US trading partners – Canada, Mexico and China – are set to come into effect, another step showing a far more aggressive US foreign policy.
Rubio will travel later to four other small Latin American countries for an agenda focused on migration, a highly unusual first trip for the top US diplomat, whose predecessors were more likely to start the job with language of cooperation with major allies.
Trump has refused to rule out military force to seize the Panama Canal, which the United States handed over at the end of 1999, saying that China has exerted too much control through its investment in surrounding ports.
In his inaugural address, Trump said that the United States will be “taking it back” – and he refused to back down Friday.
“They’ve already offered to do many things,” Trump said of Panama, “but we think it’s appropriate that we take it back.”
He alleged that Panama was taking down Chinese-language signs to cover up how “they’ve totally violated the agreement” on the canal.
“Marco Rubio is going over this talk to the gentleman that’s in charge,” Trump told reporters.
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, generally considered an ally of the United States, has ruled out opening negotiations after complaining to the United Nations about Trump’s threat.
“I cannot negotiate, much less open a process of negotiations on the canal,” Mulino said Thursday.
The issue “is sealed. The canal is Panama’s,” Mulino said.
Mulino’s government, however, has ordered an audit of CK Hutchison Holdings, the Hong Kong company that operates ports on both sides of the canal.
It remains to be seen if or how Rubio carries out the threat. Some experts believe that Trump was simply applying pressure and could declare a win by the United States ramping up investment in the canal – an outcome that most Panamanians would welcome.
Rubio has played down the military option but also not contradicted his boss.
“I think the president’s been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again. Obviously, the Panamanians are not big fans of that idea,” Rubio told SiriusXM radio in an interview before the trip.
He acknowledged that Panama’s government “generally is pro-American” but said that the Panama Canal is a “core national interest for us.”
“We cannot allow any foreign power – particularly China – to hold that kind of potential control over it that they do. That just can’t continue,” Rubio said.
The canal remains the crucial link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and coasts, with 40 percent of US container traffic going through it.
Trump administration officials said they were blaming not Mulino but previous Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela who in 2017 – during Trump’s first term as president – moved to sever ties with Taiwan in favor of China.
“It wasn’t just a diplomatic recognition. He literally opened the floodgates and gave strategic assets throughout the Canal Zone to China,” said Mauricio Claver-Carone, the US special envoy on Latin America.
He charged that Panama unfairly raised costs for US ships while also seeking assistance from the United States for canal upkeep. Panama attributes rising costs to the effects of a drought, exacerbated by climate change.
Trump has quickly made clear he will exercise swift pressure to bend other countries to his will, especially on his signature issue of deporting undocumented immigrants.
On Sunday, he threatened major tariffs against Colombia to force its president to back down after he insisted that repatriated migrants be treated in a more dignified way.
Plane with 2 aboard crashes in Philadelphia and sets multiple homes ablaze
- Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said its aircraft crashed with four crew members, one pediatric medical patient and the patient’s mother on board
A medevac plane crashed soon after takeoff in Philadelphia on Friday with a child and five others on board, the air ambulance company that operated it said, adding that it had not confirmed any survivors.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, based in Mexico and licensed to operate in the US, said its aircraft crashed with four crew members, one pediatric medical patient and the patient’s mother on board.
“At this time we cannot confirm any survivors,” the company said in a statement.
State and local officials said late on Friday they could not yet confirm how many people may have died on the ground after the plane slammed into a heavily populated portion of the city. Videos taken by witnesses of the crash clearly showed body parts strewn about the streets and inside nearby homes.
The Mexican government said all those on the plane were Mexican nationals, CNN reported.
The child was a girl on her way home with a final destination of Tijuana, Shai Gold, who works on corporate strategy with Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, told CNN. Her mother was also aboard, he said.
“We are terribly shocked by this tragic turn of events,” Gold said. “This was a very seasoned crew. We are a leading air ambulance company, we fly 600 to 700 times a year.”
He said the company had invested heavily in maintaining its aircraft to the highest international standards and that the plane that crashed had been in excellent flying condition.
“We really don’t know what happened,” Gold said.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told a press conference at the crash scene that “we know there will be loss in this region.”
“We want to offer our thoughts and our serious prayers for those that are grieving at this moment,” Shapiro said.
President Donald Trump wrote on social media that it was “so sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More innocent souls lost. Our people are totally engaged. First Responders are already being given credit for doing a great job.”
The crash follows this week’s collision of an American Airlines jet and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter over Washington, D.C., which killed 67 in the deadliest airplane crash in the US since 2009.
The Federal Aviation Administration said six people were on the Learjet 55 that crashed around 6:30 p.m. (0030 GMT) on Friday. Local media reported it was near the Roosevelt Mall in northeast Philadelphia and that there were multiple injuries on the ground.
Video aired on local TV stations showed the plane in a sharp dive before hitting the ground and exploding in a massive fireball.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker told a press conference at the scene that several houses and cars had been engulfed in flames. She said the situation is “all hands on deck, that’s where we are right now.”
Officials said it was not clear what led to the crash. The weather was cold and rainy and with low visibility when the plane went down.
The air ambulance had left Northeast Philadelphia Airport and was headed to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, about 1,800km to the southwest, the FAA said in a statement.
A large fire and several fire trucks were visible at the crash scene in images broadcast by the Philadelphia CBS affiliate. About two hours after the crash the fires were mostly out, according to TV images.
The Philadelphia police and fire departments did not respond to requests for comment.