A bipartisan group of U.S. senators Wednesday introduced legislation which calls for an increase in the number of visas available to Afghans who helped U.S. forces in positions such as interpreters.

The bill calls for an extra 2,500 Special Immigrant Visas specifically for Afghans who assisted the U.S. military, often risking their lives.

“This legislation would ensure the continuation of this vital Special Immigrant Visa program, and send a clear message that America will not turn its back on those who at great personal risk stand with us in the fight against terror,” Senator John McCain said in a statement.

McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced the measure alongside fellow Republican Thom Tillis, Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, and another Democrat, Jeanne Shaheen.

Faced with a shrinking pool of visas, the U.S. embassy in Kabul has started turning away Afghan military interpreters and other Afghan nationals seeking to immigrate to the United States through the decade-old special visa program.

A State Department official said Friday the embassy stopped scheduling new special immigrant visa interviews for Afghans on March 1 after concluding that it had enough unused visas only for those who are already in the final stages of the application process.

The Special Immigrant Visa program was created by Congress in 2008 for Afghan military translators, but was later expanded to cover any Afghan who could demonstrate “at least one year of faithful and valuable service” to or on behalf of the U.S. government.

With tens of thousands of U.S. forces serving in Afghanistan, the program long enjoyed bipartisan support, with Congress extending it annually and authorizing 7,000 visas in 2015 and 2016.

As the U.S. combat mission is winding down and anti-immigrant sentiment sparked during the recent presidential campaign continues to rise, opposition to the program has grown.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a longtime critic of the program, led an effort last year against increasing the number of Special Immigrant Visas to Afghans.
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Nearly four in 10 U.S. colleges and universities have reported a decline in international student applications, according to a recent survey by six higher education groups.

The study, of 250 American colleges and universities, found the highest number of declines were from applicants from the Middle East.  Universities report declines of 39 percent in undergraduate applications from the Middle East, while applications from graduate students from the region have decreased by 31 percent.

According to the Institute of Higher Education, the majority of Middle East students are from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait.

The report mentions that according to institution-based professionals perceptions the United States is now less welcoming to individuals from other countries is one of the “most frequently noted concerns of international students and their families.”

More than one million international students come to the United States to attend colleges and universities, adding some $32.8 billion to the U.S. economy.  The majority are from China, with more than 300,000 nationals studying, followed by India with 160,000 students.

Iran, which accounted for more than 12,000 international students for the 2015/2016 academic year, is one of six countries for which U.S. President Donald Trump’s has instituted a temporary ban on travelers.

India and China, which make up 47 percent of international student enrollment, have also been impacted.  Twenty-six percent of colleges have reported declining undergraduate applications from India, while 25 percent say they have seen a decline in those from China.

Although one of the top destinations for international students, U.S. universities and colleges face stiff competition from schools in Britain, Canada, France and Australia which each attracting a significant number of applicants.       

The international student survey was conducted in February by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, the Institute of International Education, NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and the International Association for College Admission Counseling.

Full results from the study will be released later this month.

 
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The Philippine vice president is raising alarms about the president’s bloody crackdown on illegal drug use, which she says can’t be solved “with bullets alone,” adding that Filipinos should “defy brazen incursions on their rights.”

Vice President Leni Robredo’s videotaped comments, which were issued to the media Wednesday, are some of her sharpest critiques so far of President Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign and are likely to antagonize him because they are intended for a meeting of international human rights advocates, whom he has often lambasted.

Philippine presidents and vice presidents are elected separately and often come from rival political parties. Robredo, who belongs to the opposition Liberal Party, resigned from a Cabinet post in December, citing “major differences in principles and values” with the brash-talking leader.

In her speech to be shown Thursday at a U.N.-linked forum on extrajudicial killings in Vienna, Austria, she raised concerns about the mounting number of killings of mostly poor drug suspects she described as “summary executions,” and about a lack of transparency and accountability in Duterte’s crackdown.

“We are now looking at some very grim statistics. Since July last year, more than 7,000 people have been killed in summary executions,” Robredo said in the video.

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said Robredo can speak freely on public issues but should avoid unfounded allegations. Duterte and his national police chief have said they do not condone extrajudicial killings, but have repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death in public speeches.

Robredo said Filipinos deserve safe communities, “but drug abuse should not be treated as one that can be solved with bullets alone. It must be regarded as it truly is: a complex public health issue, linked intimately with poverty and social inequality.”

She said she has received complaints that residents of impoverished Manila communities have been rounded up in places like basketball courts and told they had no right to demand search warrants because they were living illegally on land they did not own.

Robredo said she has also been told that law enforcers sometimes threatened close family members with detention when they were unable to locate the real drug suspects.

National police spokesman Senior Superintendent Dionardo Carlos said the allegations, if true, violate police policy and should have been reported to authorities so they could investigate. “If these are happening or have happened, our request is for specifics because these are not sanctioned,” he said.

Robredo said Filipinos should demand greater transparency in the publicly funded campaign and ask “why no one is being held accountable,” citing what she said were hundreds of complaints filed with the Commission on Human Rights, which recommended that the Department of Justice file criminal complaints. However, no complaints have been filed against law enforcers, said Robredo, who previously worked as a human rights lawyer.

Robredo said she has publicly asked Duterte “to direct the nation toward respect for rule of law, instead of blatant disregard for it. We ask him to uphold basic human rights enshrined in our constitution, instead of encouraging its abuse.”

“We also asked the Filipino people to defy brazen incursions on their rights,” said Robredo, who has said she joined the 1986 “people power” revolt that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos. “The Filipino nation has come so far since our country’s darkest days. We are not about to back down now.”

 
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A meeting Britain is hosting Wednesday is expected to resolve the tense border dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials told VOA hours before the talks.

Pakistan closed its border with landlocked Afghanistan to all traffic nearly a month ago, after a string of terrorist attacks killed scores of people. Authorities in Pakistan blame the violence on fugitive militants Islamabad says are sheltering in Afghan territory.

The border closure fueled bilateral tensions, prompting Britain to intervene and facilitate Wednesday’s meeting.

“We expect as a results of the talks in London and the recent contacts that we have had within the government and with the government of Afghanistan we expect this issue [border talks] to be resolved in the coming week,” Pakistani Trade Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan told VOA in Islamabad.

He said that efforts are under way to open the Afghan border with “heightened security procedures” so that trading resumes as soon as possible.

“That should be an immediate result of it for sure,” a senior Afghan official told VOA when asked if Kabul expected London talks to lead to opening the border. The official requested anonymity because he is directly involved in diplomatic engagements that paved the ground for Wednesday’s meeting.

Both Minister Khan and the Afghan official spoke hours before British National Security Adviser Mark Lyall Grant was to mediate talks between Afghan National Security Adviser Hanif Atmar and Pakistani foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz.

Khan underscored the need for Pakistan and Afghanistan to separate political and security issues from trade-related activities.

He added that Pakistan sent a proposed draft on “preferential trade agreement” to Kabul several years ago but it has since been awaiting approval by the Afghan National Security Council, making it difficult for his government to meet traders’ demands for separating economics from security issues.

“The government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif agrees completely, provided the same understanding is on the other side and whatever hurdles that were present before the recent border closure were because the government of Afghanistan insisted to take both tracks together,” said the minister.

He acknowledged that the decision to close the border has inflicted heavy financial losses on traders in both countries but said he was not in a position to immediately provide estimates.

”They [traders] say it is somewhere around $40-50 million; some people say it is up to $100 million because there is a very large number of traders who deal in perishables. Those numbers take a while to come to us,” he said.

Last week, Islamabad opened the border for only two days to allow tens of thousands of stranded Afghans to return to their country.

Afghanistan depends on Pakistani seaports for international trade, which is considered the war-torn country’s economic lifeline. The border closure has stranded thousands of shipping containers after having left Pakistan’s southern port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea.

 
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Newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit South Korea later this week at a time of significant political change that could complicate the alliance between Washington and Seoul.  VOA’s Brian Padden has more from Seoul.
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South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s removal from office, which is likely to bring about a significant change in the country’s political landscape, begs the question of whether it will affect the U.S.-South Korea joint efforts against North Korea.

Following months of massive protests by millions of people demanding her ouster, Park left office last week after South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously upheld a parliamentary vote to impeach her over an influence peddling scandal that has rattled the nation’s political and business elite.

A presidential election is scheduled for early May. Moon Jae-in from the opposition Democratic Party, who lost to Park in 2012, is likely to secure the top spot, opinion polls suggest. Unlike the past two conservative presidents, Moon, a human rights lawyer and former chief of staff to left-leaning President Roh Moo-hyun, advocates rapprochement and cooperation with Pyongyang.

The night before the court removed the country’s first female leader, Moon said the alliance with Washington is “a pillar of our diplomacy,” but added that South Korea should learn to “say ‘no’ to the Americans,” according to The New York Times.

Possible shift to opposition

Amid speculation that the possible shift to a liberal government in South Korea may soften the country’s posture on the North, four former U.S. ambassadors to South Korea told VOA the relations between the two allies likely will remain on compatible footing, no matter who wins the upcoming election.

Mark Lippert, who served as ambassador to Seoul until mid-January, said the U.S.-South Korea alliance has always been evolving and that the two countries were able to mitigate and manage disputes as they occurred.

“The past has been one where even when we have had disagreements, we managed to drive the alliance forward in a very positive and strong manner,” said Lippert, who served during Barack Obama’s second term in office. “And that gives me great hope and confidence to the future.”

Thomas Hubbard, who served from 2001 to 2004 during the George W. Bush administration, said the alliance is strong enough to endure some changes.   

“For the last 10 years of so, we’ve pursued a remarkably united approach to North Korea, and I see no reason why that would have to change with a new Korean government,” he said.

Alliance likely to remain intact

Kathleen Stephens, who served as ambassador during the first Obama term, said whoever comes to power next in Seoul is going to have to deal with a far more dangerous and stubborn North Korea.

“The most immediate challenge is, of course, the state of determination of North Korea under Kim Jong Un to consolidate its nuclear weapons and missile technology to include new and very dangerous capabilities,” said Stephens, who is now a William J. Perry Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

“I think the policy approaches [toward North Korea] are not clear and are going to require a good deal of deep consultation between Washington and Seoul and indeed with other partners in the region.” 

Alexander Vershbow, who spent three years in South Korea from 2005 to 2008, cautioned that questions may arise over the foreign policy decisions of former President Park, including the ongoing deployment of the U.S. missile defense system THAAD to South Korea.

“It’s possible that some of the candidates may question the THAAD decision itself,” said Vershbow, who is currently with the Atlantic Council. “I think that would be unfortunate because it is an appropriate response to the growing missile threat posed by North Korea.”

The deployment drew strong domestic opposition as well as protests from China, which contends that the system’s advanced radar will penetrate into its territory. The first elements of the defensive shield arrived last week, and the system could be operational as early as April.

North Korean factor

North Korea’s state media have followed Park’s impeachment closely since the corruption scandal surfaced in late October. Some experts have warned that North Korea could take advantage of South Korea’s political uncertainties.

Dennis Wilder, a former senior director for East Asian affairs at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration, told VOA Pyongyang might try to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul.

“The North Koreans will take advantage of any kind of weakness in the South to try and put pressure on the people of South Korea and the government of South Korea,” said Wilder, who is now a Georgetown University professor. “I am sure the North Koreans would like to see the new THAAD system removed from South Korea, they would want to see the joint military exercises reduced.”

Shortly after Park was ousted, the U.S. reaffirmed its commitment to its longstanding ally.

“The U.S.-ROK alliance will continue to be a linchpin of regional stability and security, and we will continue to meet our alliance commitments, especially with respect to defending against the threat from North Korea,” U.S. State Department Acting Spokesperson Mark Toner said.
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China has started fresh construction work in the disputed South China Sea, new satellite images show, a sign that Beijing is continuing to strengthen its military reach across the vital trade waterway.

Regional military attaches and experts believe the work shows China’s determination to build up its network of reefs and islets, even if it is seeking to avoid a fresh confrontation with the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

An image of North Island in the Paracels group taken on March 6 shows recent work including land clearing and possible preparation for a harbour to support what experts believe may be eventual military installations. Initial work was damaged in a typhoon last year.

The pictures, provided by private satellite firm Planet Labs, follow reports in January showing work undertaken on nearby Tree Island and other features in the Paracels, which are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

Diplomats briefed on latest Western intelligence assessments say Beijing is pursuing efforts to dominate its maritime ‘backyard’, even if it tweaks the timing of moves to avoid being overtly provocative.

“The Paracels are going to be vital to any future Chinese attempt to dominate the South China Sea,” said Carl Thayer, a South China Sea expert at Australia’s Defence Force Academy.

“We can see they are committed to militarization, whatever the official rhetoric tells us, even if they are going to do it bit by bit.”

Uncertainties over Trump

The more widely disputed Spratlys archipelago to the south are higher profile but the Paracels are key to China’s presence in the South China Sea.

China has in recent years temporarily based surface-to-air missile launchers and crack jet fighters at long established bases on Woody Island on the Paracels, helping protect its  nuclear submarine facilities on Hainan Island.

North Island is part of an arc of reefs that are expected to form a protective screen for Woody, which includes civilian facilities and a listening post.

Zhang Baohui, a mainland security expert at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University, said he believed China was pursuing long-held goals of strengthening its facilities in the Paracels, and had calculated the Trump administration would not over-react given other pressing priorities.

“There’s also uncertainty with this young Trump administration, but this is very important work to the Chinese – the Paracels are vital to defending Hainan, which is in turn important to China’s nuclear deterrent,” he said. “The calculation here is that it is really only Vietnam that will be rattled by this.”

The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China’s Defense Ministry said it was “not familiar” with any work at North Island.

“What needs to be stressed is that the Xisha Islands are China’s inherent territory,” it said, using the Chinese name for the Paracels. China fully occupied the Paracels in 1974 after forcing the navy of the-then South Vietnam off its holdings.

News of fresh Chinese activity comes as Rex Tillerson prepares for his first visit to the region as U.S. Secretary of State later this week. Tillerson sparked alarm in Beijing when he said in January China should not be allowed access to islands it has built in the South China Sea.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, was unable to confirm new construction work on North Island but said it would not be surprising.

“It would be in line with what they have been doing, why else would they clearing land on the islands but for militarization,” the official said. “There is no other reason to have a presence there.”

Diplomatic sources in Beijing say China is not looking for confrontation with the United States over the South China Sea, pointing to China’s low-key reaction to last month’s patrol of a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group in the waters there.

China has recently sought to portray itself as being conciliatory over the disputed waterway, saying it and Southeast Asian nations are committed to a peaceful resolution.

Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said a draft code of conduct for behaviour in the South China Sea had now been completed and that tensions had “distinctly dropped.”
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Visitors to Bangalore, India, these days can see street art, have beer at local microbreweries or take an Uber ride to a distant neighborhood to meet with venture capitalists about a recent startup that grabbed their attention.

Gone are the days of a city dominated by call centers and American visa seekers.

“There’s an artisanal hot dog place there,” Sean Blagsvedt, founder of online job portal Babajob, said of a nearby neighborhood, speaking over his plate of salmon sashimi. “You have a bazillion 20-something tech people who don’t like to cook and suddenly have a [large amount] of money to start paying for interesting food. … You saw the same things in San Francisco.”

A wide variety of dining options, nightlife and other activities has blossomed alongside the tech industry in “India’s Silicon Valley.”

Bangalore was rated the most dynamic city in the world, two spots ahead of California’s Silicon Valley — which isn’t a city but was ranked as one — by the JLL City Momentum Index this year. The index looks at more than 100 cities around the world, rated by their “ability to embrace technological change, absorb rapid population growth and strengthen global connectivity.”

Not looking abroad

Call centers and outsourced IT workers still make up a part of Bangalore, but a vibrant crowd of modern, enthusiastic, tech-minded people has grown to dominate the city — and for most of them, the promise of “a better life” abroad is not on their radar.

Bangalore, however, has been attracting Americans and Europeans to start companies in India for Indians. And this phenomenon is hardly new.

Blagsvedt, who is also Babajob’s CEO, moved to Bangalore from his hometown of Seattle, Washington, when he was 28 to work with Microsoft. Although Blagsvedt enjoyed his work, he felt compelled to work more directly with Indians, for Indians.

“I always had this nagging thing, like, am I doing enough to address the inequity that I saw, am I doing enough to make the best use of my skills, to try to do something important to make a difference?” he said.

After reading a study that said to get out of poverty, one needed to either change jobs or start a successful business, Blagsvedt was inspired to change how people found those positions.

“If only we could find a way to digitize all the jobs, make it accessible to people who don’t use computers, and digitize the social network, then we might be able to catalyze the escape from poverty for a lot of people,” he said.

Twelve years, a successful company and a family later, Blagsvedt is “more Bangalorean than me!” according to an Indian on his team, Akshay Chaturvedi.

In the past 10 years, however, it’s not just Americans and Europeans with humanitarian motivations who are starting companies in Bangalore.

Indians, even those who paid for American educations and planned to pay off those debts with American jobs, have seen the increasing opportunity back home.

‘A lot of vibrancy’

“[There is] a lot of young talent trying to build solutions that are uniquely India on almost every sector, whether that’s health services, education, digital media, even financial inclusion,” said Vani Kola, a venture capitalist who has been in Bangalore for 10 years after working in Silicon Valley. “I see a lot of vibrancy with respect to opportunity for building unique companies with unique solutions for India.”

And Indians have taken advantage of that opportunity. The number of startups in Bangalore rivals those in the top tech cities around the world. In 2015, San Francisco research firm Compass rated Bangalore as the second fastest-growing startup ecosystem in the world, and it was the only Asian city besides Singapore to place in the top 20 startup ecosystems.

Chaturvedi is one such person who, after completing a fellowship in the United States, returned to India, specifically Bangalore, to join the world of unique Indian startups.

“I can’t imagine my life without startups,” Chaturvedi told VOA. “Everything I do — I’m touched by a startup at least 20 times a day. Every single dinner I order by some food tech startup.”

In the days after we spoke with him at Babajob, Chaturvedi quit to work on his own startup — Leverage, an online platform for higher education services.

Although the question of the future of H1-B visas, a visa most often granted to IT workers from India, is on the minds of American companies that employ them, Bangalore seems less concerned.

“When students studied there, I said, ‘Look, there’s a lot of opportunity calling in India — can’t I do something here?’ That, I think, was a trend that was already there for the last few years,” Chaturvedi said. “And now [the] Indian economy seems to be strong and the opportunity from startups seems very viable in India.”

Fewer seeking H1-Bs

Blagsvedt holds a stronger opinion, saying that H1-B visas are exploitative, and that the rise of opportunity in Bangalore has limited the number of people desperate for those options.

“They haven’t raised that minimum salary in 22 years,” Blagsvedt said. “Now you tell me where you can hire a five-year programmer in Silicon Valley for $65,000 [a year]. You just can’t. And what does that guy have as recourse? If he doesn’t like the job, his visa is sponsored fully … he can’t complain, he can’t even switch jobs!”

Blagsvedt and Chaturvedi both said that in the Bangalore startup ecosystem, they had heard no talk, or worry, about the proposed changes to the U.S. visa program.

Chaturvedi did admit, however, that any threats to the H1-B program “would have been far scarier 10 years back.”

In today’s Bangalore, any widespread panic that Silicon Valley might imagine simply hasn’t taken hold.
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