UN adopts resolution on Afghanistan's Taliban rule over US objections
The 11-page resolution also emphasizes 'the importance of creating opportunities for economic recovery, development and prosperity in Afghanistan,' and urges donors to address the country's dire humanitarian and economic crisis.
The resolution is not legally binding but is seen as a reflection of world opinion. The vote was 116 in favor, with two — the United States and close ally Israel — opposed and 12 abstentions, including Russia, China, India and Iran.
Since returning to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures, banning women from public places and girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade. Last week, Russia became the first country to formally recognize the Taliban's government.
Germany's U.N. Ambassador Antje Leendertse, whose country sponsored the resolution, told the assembly before the vote that her country and many others remain gravely concerned about the dire human rights situation in Afghanistan, especially the Taliban's 'near-total erasure' of the rights of women and girls.
The core message of the resolution, she said, is to tell Afghan mothers holding sick and underfed children or mourning victims of terrorist attacks, as well as the millions of Afghan women and girls locked up at home, that they have not been forgotten.
U.S. minister-counselor Jonathan Shrier was critical of the resolution, which he said rewards 'the Taliban's failure with more engagement and more resources." He said the Trump administration doubts they will ever pursue policies "in accordance with the expectations of the international community.'
'For decades we shouldered the burden of supporting the Afghan people with time, money and, most important, American lives,' he said. 'It is the time for the Taliban to step up. The United States will no longer enable their heinous behavior.'
Last month, the Trump administration banned Afghans hoping to resettle in the U.S. permanently and those seeking to come temporarily, with exceptions.
The resolution expresses appreciation to governments hosting Afghan refugees, singling out the two countries that have taken the most: Iran and Pakistan.
While the resolution notes improvements in Afghanistan's overall security situation, it reiterates concern about attacks by al-Qaida and Islamic State militants and their affiliates. It calls upon Afghanistan "to take active measures to tackle, dismantle and eliminate all terrorist organizations equally and without discrimination.'
The General Assembly also encouraged U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to appoint a coordinator to facilitate 'a more coherent, coordinated and structured approach' to its international engagements on Afghanistan.
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Afghan refugees stuck in Pakistan as Germany halts entry programme
BERLIN/ISLAMABAD, July 3 (Reuters) - In a cramped guesthouse in Pakistan's capital, 25-year-old Kimia spends her days sketching women — dancing, playing, resisting —in a notebook that holds what's left of her hopes. A visual artist and women's rights advocate, she fled Afghanistan in 2024 after being accepted on to a German humanitarian admission program aimed at Afghans considered at risk under the Taliban. A year later, Kimia is stuck in limbo. Thousands of kilometres away in Germany, an election in February where migration dominated public debate and a change of government in May resulted in the gradual suspension of the programme. Now the new centre-right coalition intends to close it. The situation echoes that of nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared to settle in the United States, but who then found themselves in limbo in January after U.S. President Donald Trump took office and suspended refugee programmes. Kimia's interview at the German embassy which she hoped would result in a flight to the country and the right to live there, was abruptly cancelled in April. Meanwhile, Germany pays for her room, meals and medical care in Islamabad. "All my life comes down to this interview," she told Reuters. She gave only her artist name for fear of reprisal. "We just want to find a place that is calm and safe," she said of herself and the other women at the guesthouse. The admission programme began in October 2022, intending to bring up to 1,000 Afghans per month to Germany who were deemed at risk because of their work in human rights, justice, politics or education, or due to their gender, religion or sexual orientation. However, fewer than 1,600 arrived in over two years due to holdups and the cancellation of flights. Today, around 2,400 Afghans are waiting to travel to Germany, the German foreign ministry said. Whether they will is unclear. NGOs say 17,000 more are in the early stages of selection and application under the now dormant scheme. The foreign ministry said entry to Germany through the program was suspended pending a government review, and the government will continue to care for and house those already in the program. It did not answer Reuters' questions on the number of cancelled interviews, or how long the suspension would last. Reuters spoke with eight Afghans living in Pakistan and Germany, migration lawyers and advocacy groups, who described the fate of the programme as part of a broader curb on Afghan asylum claims in Germany and an assumption that Sunni men in particular are not at risk under the Taliban. The German government says there is no specific policy of reducing the number of Afghan migrants. However, approval rates for Afghan asylum applicants dropped to 52% in early 2025, down from 74% in 2024, according to the Federal Migration Office (BAMF). Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021. Since May 2021 Germany has admitted about 36,500 vulnerable Afghans by various pathways including former local staff, the government said. Thorsten Frei, chief of staff to Germany's new chancellor Friedrich Merz, said humanitarian migration has now reached levels that "exceed the integration capacity of society." "As long as we have irregular and illegal migration to Germany, we simply cannot implement voluntary admission programs." The interior ministry said programs like the one for Afghans will be phased out and they are reviewing how to do so. Several Afghans are suing the government over the suspension. Matthias Lehnert, a lawyer representing them, said Germany could not simply suspend their admissions without certain conditions such as the person no longer being at risk. Since former chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany's borders in 2015 to over a million refugees, public sentiment has shifted, partly as a result of several deadly attacks by asylum seekers. The far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD), capitalising on the anti-migrant sentiment, surged to a historic second-place finish in February's election. Afghans Reuters spoke with said they feared they were being unfairly associated with the perpetrators, and this was putting their own lives at risk if they had to return to Afghanistan. "I'm so sorry about those people who are injured or killed ... but it's not our fault," Kimia said. Afghan Mohammad Mojib Razayee, 30, flew to Germany from Cyprus in March under a European Union voluntary solidarity mechanism, after a year of waiting with 100 other refugees. He said he was at risk after criticising the Taliban. Two weeks after seeking asylum in Berlin, his application was rejected. He was shocked at the ruling. BAMF found no special protection needs in his case, a spokesperson said. "It's absurd — but not surprising. The decision-making process is simply about luck, good or bad," said Nicolas Chevreux, a legal advisor with AWO counseling center in Berlin. Chevreux said he believes Afghan asylum cases have been handled differently since mid-2024, after a mass stabbing at a rally in the city of Mannheim, in which six people were injured and a police officer was killed. An Afghan asylum seeker was charged and is awaiting trial. Spending most days in her room, surrounded by English and German textbooks, Kimia says returning to Afghanistan is unthinkable. Her art could make her a target. "If I go back, I can't follow my dreams - I can't work, I can't study. It's like you just breathe, but you don't live." Under Taliban rule, women are banned from most public life, face harassment by morality police if unaccompanied by a male guardian, and must follow strict dress codes, including face coverings. When security forces raided homes, Kimia said, she would frantically hide her artwork. The Taliban say they respect women's rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and local culture and that they are not targeting former foes. Hasseina, is a 35-year-old journalist and women's rights activist from Kabul who fled to Pakistan and was accepted as an applicant on to the German programme. Divorced and under threat from both the Taliban and her ex-husband's family, who she says have threatened to kill her and take her daughter, she said returning is not an option. The women are particularly alarmed as Pakistan is intensifying efforts to forcibly return Afghans. The country says its crackdown targets all undocumented foreigners for security reasons. Pakistan's foreign ministry did not respond to request for comment on how this affects Afghans awaiting German approval. The German foreign ministry has said it is aware of two families promised admission to Germany who were detained for deportation, and it was working with Pakistan authorities to stop this. Marina, 25, fled Afghanistan after being separated from her family. Her mother, a human rights lawyer, was able to get to Germany. Marina has been waiting in Pakistan to follow her for nearly two years with her baby. "My life is stuck, I want to go to Germany, I want to work, I want to contribute. Here I am feeling so useless," she said.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Trump has found a way to cut out China
Donald Trump is opening up a new frontier in his trade war. Despite striking a pact with China last month, the US president is threatening to reignite tensions with Beijing by entangling the entirety of Asia in a sprawling web of tariff deals. Even with fresh levies imposed on Japan and South Korea, Trump is racing to land a string of agreements across the continent, including with Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia. If he pulls that off, he will build a cage around Xi Jinping's ability to use Asian markets to prop up Beijing's strained export-driven economy. 'What we are witnessing is no passing trade war,' says Neil Shearing, an economist at Capital Economics. 'Rather, it is the manifestation of a deeper, more durable superpower rivalry between the world's two largest economies.' Already, Trump's trade pacts with Britain and Vietnam have set a template for his plan to weaken Beijing's trading power. The UK deal revealed tools for the White House to 'veto' Chinese investment in Britain, while the Vietnam agreement aims to stop Beijing from relying on a loophole to avoid US tariffs. Trump has achieved the latter by putting a 40pc levy on 'transshipments' – that is goods imported into Vietnam, mostly from China, and then re-exported to America. This new tariff is double the 20pc levy on Vietnamese-made goods, thereby sending a clear message to Hanoi. While Vietnam is welcome to export to the US if it can cope with a 20pc levy, Trump will come down on the country like a tonne of bricks if it replaces 'Made in Vietnam' stickers with 'Made in China'. The president has also since threatened other South East Asian countries with more aggressive tariffs unless they make a deal in the next three weeks. This includes a potential 25pc levy on Malaysia, 32pc on Indonesia and 36pc on Thailand and Cambodia. Trump's demands will certainly include Vietnam-style measures to increase the squeeze on China. Export-driven economy Trading figures clearly show why Vietnam has emerged as an early candidate for this strategy. Since Trump first came to power in 2017, China's machinery and electrical goods shipments to Vietnam have risen from about 17pc of its total exports to almost half. And since he returned to the White House this year, Vietnam's imports of these goods from China have jumped by almost a quarter. In the year to May, Vietnam imported $174bn (£129bn) of goods from China and exported $132bn to the US. The ebb and flow of these two figures tend to track each other remarkably closely. Exports to Asia are integral to Xi's attempt to keep China's economy expanding by at least 5pc a year. Beijing juices up GDP by pumping subsidies and investments into manufacturing. This is because Chinese households simply don't spend enough to allow consumption to power the economy. 'Whenever Chinese domestic spending growth sags, export growth accelerates,' says David Lubin, a senior research fellow at the think tank Chatham House. 'And that's simply because Chinese companies can't sell stuff domestically, so they sell it abroad.' At home, this economic model has led to overcapacity and oversupply, forcing businesses into damaging price wars. If these companies can't export their surplus to Asia, supply gluts appear inevitable. Yet, the escape valve remains open. Even though China's exports to the US have dropped more than 40pc from a year ago, its total exports worldwide have climbed by almost 5pc. That has included a 15pc increase in shipments to 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. But the pressure is building on China, as revealed in Beijing's strident reaction to the US-Vietnam trade deal. He Yongqian, the commerce ministry spokesman, branded it 'a typical act of unilateral bullying' and vowed that hostile deals would prompt China to 'take resolute countermeasures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests'. This demonstrates the unenviable position that Vietnam finds itself in, particularly as the US and China are its two largest trading partners. Picking sides Soon, other Asian economies might face an equally painful choice between the battling behemoths. Trump this week has shown he is unafraid to wield a big stick, wherever he thinks it might work. On Monday, he posted on his Truth Social platform that he would slap a new 10pc tariff on 'any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of Brics' – the ever-expanding group of countries led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. This came in response to a Brics summit in Brazil, which included not only the wider membership of Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the UAE, but also a new set of 'partners' from Latin America, Africa and central Asia – as well as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. In a statement issued after the summit, the participating countries attacked 'the proliferation of trade-restrictive actions'. They didn't name the US, but said 'unilateral' measures could 'reduce global trade, disrupt global supply chains and introduce uncertainty into international economic and trade activities'. Speaking after Trump's post, Mao Ning, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said Brics was 'not a bloc for confrontation, nor does it target any country'. 'Tariffs should not be used as a tool for coercion and pressuring,' she said. 'Arbitrary tariff hikes serve no one's interest.' Beijing's approach is more carrot than stick. China presents itself, accurately or otherwise, as the friend of poorer countries and a defender of multilateral bodies such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation. 'As a developing country and a member of the Global South, China breathes the same breath with other developing countries and pursues a shared future with them,' China's state news agency Xinhua recently quoted President Xi as saying. The incentives for developing countries to take China's side in the trade war include the $1 trillion-plus Belt and Road Initiative, which bankrolls global infrastructure projects, and more recently the Shanghai-headquartered New Development Bank, also known as 'the Brics Bank'. In Indonesia, which is scrambling to secure a trade deal with Trump, Beijing has also been in love-bomb mode. Last week, President Prabowo Subianto was on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony on a $6bn Chinese-Indonesian joint venture project to mine nickel and make batteries for electric vehicles. He called it 'colossal, an extraordinary breakthrough', which was no doubt music to Xi's ears. Beijing's response But the Chinese also seem ready to play hard-ball. With India potentially lining up to replace China as the main supplier of iPhones to America, reports surfaced in recent weeks that hundreds of mission-critical Chinese engineers and technicians at Taiwanese firm Foxconn's iPhone plants in India had been recalled to China. Bloomberg has reported that this is part of a broader move: Beijing has informally told companies and regulators to stop exporting key equipment, personnel and know-how to India and Southeast Asia – seemingly to stop multinationals such as Apple being able to shift operations out of China quickly. The Foxconn gambit was less blustery than a Trump tariff, but it shows that Xi is playing the game. And he has a huge head-start, says Chatham House's Lubin. China has been building almost unassailable positions in industries such as solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries and, most importantly, rare earths and magnets. This already shored up Beijing's hand in the trade talks with Trump, forcing him to back down from his most aggressive tariff threats. And it might help mitigate the impact of Trump's iron cage of trade deals. Lubin describes Xi's strategy as an 'asymmetric decoupling' from the US. 'The result of establishing China as a manufacturing powerhouse is to make the world more dependent on China,' he says. 'And that gives China leverage.' The question now is whether Xi's leverage – monopolies in key sectors, plus a shower of money for his Asian partners – is enough to combat Trump's ever-toughening tariff threats. That's the call Asian countries will now have to make.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
UK threatens sanctions on Iran if it doesn't end uncertainty on nuclear plan
European nations will act to impose 'dramatic sanctions' on Iran in the coming weeks if it does not end the uncertainty about its nuclear programme, including by allowing the return of UN inspectors, the UK foreign secretary David Lammy has warned. He also told the Commons that Iran cannot assume Israel will not strike Iran's nuclear sites again. His tough warning was echoed by the French foreign ministry, which is working closely with the UK in a bid to persuade Iran to end its new ambiguity about its nuclear intentions and re-engage in talks with the US. Iran is maintaining a fragile ceasefire with the US and Israel but the risk exists of the crisis flaring up into further warfare unless a diplomatic agreement is found soon. The UK, France and Germany – the E3 -signed the original nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 and according to its terms can impose 'snapback' UN sanctions without the risk of a Security Council veto so long as they act by its expiry in October. Alternatively, they could table a UN resolution to delay the snapback by some months if Iran had shown a willingness to negotiate. The three are also using their power to reimpose UN sanctions as a lever to persuade the US to join the talks with the Iranians, but have so far had no success. Iran has said it will restart talks with the US only if there is a guarantee that Israel will not attack Iran while the talks are under way. Speaking to the UK parliament's foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, Lammy said: 'Iran faces even more pressure in the coming weeks because the E3 can snap back on our sanctions, and it's not just our sanctions, it's actually a UN mechanism that would impose dramatic sanctions on Iran across nearly every single front in its economy. 'So they have a choice to make. It's a choice for them to make. I'm very clear about the choice they should make, but I'm also clear that the UK has a decision to make that could lead to far greater pain for the Iranian regime unless they get serious about the international desire to see them step back from their nuclear ambitions.' The reinstated sanctions would include cargo inspections on Iranian shipments, reinstated arms embargos and restrictions on missile-related technologies. 'Iran's decision to suspend cooperation [with the UN nuclear inspectorate] will only lead to greater uncertainty about their nuclear intentions,' Lammy warned, adding that such a step would also be in stark violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Witholding a judgment on Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear sites, Lammy said the detailed intelligence assessment of the attacks had not been completed but regardless of the degrading effect on Iran's uranium stockpiles and centrifuges, Iran would retain its knowledge of how to build a nuclear weapon – making it necessary for the west to reach some diplomatic agreement. With some inside Iran near triumphant because the Israelis did not dislodge the government, Lammy urged Iran to make a sober assessment of its true strategic weakness. 'Iran has lost its air defences and I suspect the Israelis, monitoring Iran very closely, are free to act again, if they think they can further degrade Iran's nuclear capability,' he said. He added that he had not seen either Russia or China rushing to come to Iran's defence. The Iranian leadership, faced by domestic pressure not to re-engage with America or Israel, has not ruled out further talks with the US, but plans for negotiations to restart this week in Oslo this week have not materialised. At the weekend US special envoy Steve Witkoff said again the US would require Iran to end the enrichment of uranium inside Iran, a red line for Iran.
