Tajikistan calls up reservists to bolster border as Afghan troops, fleeing Taliban, seek refuge
Dushanbe, Tajikistan/Kabul, AfghanistanReuters Tajikistan’s President on Monday ordered the mobilisation of 20,000 military reservists to bolster the border with Afghanistan after more than 1,000 Afghan security personnel fled across the frontier in response to Taliban militant advances. The crossings on Sunday underscored the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, where foreign troops near a complete withdrawal […]
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan agree ceasefire after border clashes
Bishkek, KyrgyzstanReuters Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan agreed what they called a complete ceasefire on Saturday after reports of fresh shooting and troop build-ups in the aftermath of border clashes earlier this week that killed 49 people. The heads of the countries’ state security bodies announced the agreement in a joint briefing in Kyrgyzstan hours after Kyrgyzstan’s […]
Pakistan project wins award for shielding villages from natural disasters
Thomson Reuters Foundation A project that combines satellite images, mapping technologies and the local knowledge of villagers to help build climate-proof settlements in disaster-prone areas of Pakistan won an international award last week. More than one million people have benefited from the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) Pakistan project, which was a gold prize […]
Tajik pastor freed after three years in prison for “singing extremist songs in church”
World Watch Monitor A Protestant pastor sentenced to three years in prison for “singing extremist songs in church and so inciting religious hatred” has been freed three months early (he was due to be freed in March, 2020). Bakhrom Kholmatov, 42, was sentenced in July, 2017, and has served his term in a prison in […]
BORDER WARS: DISPUTE OVER GEORGIAN MONASTERY SPOTLIGHTS POST-SOVIET TROUBLES
UMBERTO BACCHI, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports…
Pakistan joins US list of worst religious freedom violators
World Watch Monitor Pakistan is among the 10 countries that appear on the US State Department’s latest list of Countries of Particular Concern for religious-freedom violations, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced in a press statement on Tuesday. China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan are accused of “having engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom”. […]
Tajikistan’s new Religion Law ‘represents total control’
World Watch Monitor Amendments to Tajikistan’s Religion Law, which came into force in January, have given the state a “total control” over religious freedoms, reports regional news agency Forum 18. “Instead of improving the Law, the amendments worsened it and made it more restrictive. The Law represents total control and is unjust,” human rights defender Faizinisso […]
More than 80 countries ‘favour’ one religion over others, says Pew report
World Watch Monitor More than 80 countries favour a specific religion, either officially as a state religion or tacitly through special treatment, according to a new report by the US-based Pew Research Center. Islam is the most common state religion – 27 countries have it as their official religion, including 16 of the 20 countries in the […]
STRANGESIGHTS: OF GOLDEN TICKETS; LONG TITLES; AND, BLACK ICECREAM…
DAVID ADAMS reports on the odder side of life…