Pakistan and India, after a gap of nearly two years, have revived talks on a World Bank-mediated treaty that regulates sharing of the Indus river and its tributaries between the nuclear-armed rivals.

The two-day meeting of the Indus Water Commission began Monday in Islamabad and officials said the discussions focused on designs of three controversial hydropower projects India plans to build on the Chenab River.

Pakistan believes the planned Pakal Dul, Lower Kalnai and Miyar power generation facilities violate the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, or IWT, and could disrupt water flow into Pakistan.

Eighty percent of Pakistan’s agricultural land is irrigated, and this irrigation depends on rivers flowing into the country from India.

India’s participation in talks welcomed

Pakistani Minister for Water and Power Khwaja Asif welcomed the Indian decision to attend the talks and said he hoped the meeting would help resolve bilateral issues under the IWT framework. He said that settling disputes under the historic treaty would serve interests of both India and Pakistan.

The minister said that flood data supplied by India and tour programs of inspection, as well as meetings by Pakistan and India to the sites of interest in the Indus Basin, are also on the agenda of the talks.

The last meeting of the commission took place in May 2015, but a spike in political and military tensions prevented the two sides from holding the usually-annual meeting in 2016.

Last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatened to revoke the 57-year-old Indus Water Treaty.  The bilateral treaty assigns the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers to India, and the Chenab, Jehlum, and Sindh rivers to Pakistan.

Modi suggested that the sharing of water resources could be conditional on Pakistan preventing militants from undertaking cross-border terrorist attacks in India and divided Kashmir.  

Islamabad, which denies Indian terror charges, condemned Modi’s statement and warned such a move would be viewed as an act of war.

Pakistan’s objections ignored

New Delhi also recently intensified work on proposed power station projects on rivers in Kashmir flowing into Pakistan, ignoring objections from Islamabad and warnings these projects will deprive the country of its due share of water.

While India has resumed talks with Pakistan on water-related issues, it has refused to resume a wide-ranging bilateral dialogue aimed at normalizing political ties and finding solutions to outstanding disputes, including Kashmir.  New Delhi continues to cite Islamabad’s lack of action against anti-Indian militants.

The two countries have been locked in military skirmishes across the Kashmir border in recent months, raising fears of another war between India and Pakistan. 
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Malaysia is gunning for a revamp of its aging naval fleet, as countries in the region prepare to face threats from the influx of Islamic State (IS) militants fleeing Mosul, and from rising tensions in the South China Sea.

Defense spending in the Asia Pacific region is expected to hit $250 billion from 2016-20, IHS Janes Defence Weekly said in December, and Malaysia intends to improve on its capabilities alongside other states in the hotly contested South China Sea, even as its defense budget narrows.

Malaysia’s navy aims to replace all 50 vessels in its aging fleet as the country cut its total defense budget by 12.7 percent to 15.1 billion ($3.41 billion) this year. That will be led by the procurement of four littoral mission ships (LMS) built in collaboration with China.

“The LMS are designed for many aspects of maritime security such as dealing with cross-border crime, piracy, anti-terrorism, and search and rescue operations,” Malaysian navy chief Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad Badaruddin told Reuters in an interview.

“These ships would be very capable of dealing with the threat posed by Daesh and other maritime security concerns,” Kamarulzaman said, referring to the Arabic acronym for IS.

Malaysia is expected to formalize the LMS deal with China at the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (LIMA) this week to build four LMS and acquire the technology to construct more of the ships at home. The navy hopes this will enable them to obtain a total of 18 LMS.

Plans to acquire four LMS from China were first announced in November.

Over 500 exhibitors from 36 countries will parade their wares at this year’s LIMA, which is held every two years on the northern duty-free island of Langkawi.

Kamarulzaman said they are also in the final stages of negotiations with French shipbuilder DCNS to launch a program to build the larger littoral combat ships (LCS), which he said should be formally announced in August or September this year.

The navy is also looking to acquire three new multi-role support ships (MRSS) and two more submarines to round off the fleet.

Competing needs

The naval buildup in the region comes as tensions rise in the South China Sea, where Beijing’s creation of artificial islands has alarmed some Asian countries and stoked friction between China’s navy and the U.S. air force.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims.

Under President Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s total defense spending jumped around 26 percent, and last month Thailand’s military government approved a 13.5 billion baht ($389.05 million) submarine deal with China after putting the purchase on hold last year.

Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), however, need to share intelligence if they want their big-ticket buys to be of any use, said Shahriman Lockman, a senior analyst with the Kuala Lumpur-based Institute of Strategic and International Studies.

Shahriman said asset upgrades like Malaysia’s LMS program are important, but stressed that such high-value procurements would end up sailing blindly without strong intelligence sharing among the 10 ASEAN members, supported by a wide network of surveillance equipment.

“We’re talking military patrol aircraft, radars, drones … and in bigger numbers. Quantity is a quality of its own. It doesn’t make sense to aspire to top-of-the-range equipment but in small numbers,” Shahriman said.

“Equipment that contributes to maritime domain awareness ought to be the priority for all. You can’t fight what you can’t see.”
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An 18-year-old female novice singer and a 23-year old barber-turned-rapper are the unlikely finalists of a televised talent contest providing Afghans a welcome distraction from the daily bloodshed in their country.

The two are vying to become the next “Afghan Star.” This year’s season is the most tradition-breaking yet in a deeply conservative country where the Taliban once outlawed music and Western-style popular culture is widely frowned upon.

Originally due to be broadcast live, the final will instead be pre-recorded following a wave of Islamist attacks in Kabul, with the winner announced on Tuesday night.

Finalist Zulala Hashimi, from a militant-plagued province in the east, quit school and overcame resistance from relatives unhappy with her singing publicly. When Hashimi auditioned, she was one of only two women out of three hundred contestants.

“I showed people that a woman can do it. I ask every woman to make an effort to reach this point,” she told Reuters, her mother by her side between rehearsals at a television studio protected behind blast walls and Kalashnikov-wielding guards.

Wowing audiences with bright traditional outfits and jewel-encrusted tiaras, and off-stage sporting brown-rimmed Ray Bans, Hashimi’s songs in Pashto and Dari have won her thousands of fans, who vote by text message and on Facebook.

Up against Hashimi is Sayed Jamal Mubarez, a barber from the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif who spent several years in Iran, one of thousands from Afghanistan’s Hazara minority that sought refuge across the country’s western border.

Having ditched his shalwar kameez in early auditions for jeans, a zipped black jacket and a “Street Swagg” baseball cap, Mubarez said he discovered rap in Iran and has been writing his own lyrics ever since.

“My parents are illiterate, but when I was singing they were encouraging me, so I believed that I could win people’s support,” he said backstage. “But I never thought of being a finalist.”

Inside a compound

Afghan Star, now in its twelfth season, is produced by the private television channel Tolo. Tolo’s reporting has earned it the wrath of the Taliban, who last year killed seven Tolo employees in a suicide attack on a staff minibus.

The contest was moved to inside a compound in Kabul’s city center.

Obaid Juenda, a judge on the show who now lives in London, said the percentage of women auditioning had fallen sharply to five percent amid the deteriorating security.

Juenda hoped the show gave contestants a springboard for a career, but in a country where opportunities for public performances are limited, past winners have faded into obscurity.

“There isn’t an industry here. We have too many people here who love female singers but we can’t sell our music legally. They can’t perform in public,” he told Reuters.

Hashimi said she had received nothing but support so far.

“Right now I don’t have any problem,” she said, her eyes darting nervously to her mother.  “If in the future there are some challenges I’ll try to cope with them to fulfil my dreams.”

 
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A new law designed to protect the marital rights of Pakistan’s minority Hindu community is also expected to help prevent what Hindu activists say are forced conversions to Islam of teenaged Hindu girls.

The law makes it illegal for Hindus to marry before they turn 18. According to journalist and rights activist Jai Prakash Moorani, that takes away the incentive for forcefully converting underage girls.

“If those who are forcing these girls to convert cannot marry them, then they won’t have an interest in converting them,” Moorani said.

Pakistan’s Hindu community has long complained that conversion and marriage were being used as legal cover for the kidnapping of young girls, who were allegedly threatened with harm or harm to their families so they would give false statements in court.

Limited impact

Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a Hindu member of Pakistan’s parliament, disagreed that the new law provided any protection to such girls.

The act as it was passed, he pointed out, only applies to the Hindu community, so if a girl was forced to convert, it did not apply to her.

He thought a better solution would be to not allow persons under 18 to convert at all.

“If you don’t allow persons under 18 to get married, to get driver’s licenses, to get national identity cards, why do you allow them to convert?” he asked.

The law does state that any Hindu marriage may be annulled by court if the “consent of the petitioner was obtained by force, coercion, or by fraud.”

In Sindh province, where most of Pakistan’s Hindus live, police officials said many of the converted girls were not kidnapped. Many times, they said, poor Hindu girls eloped with affluent Muslim men and converted because a Muslim cannot marry a Hindu.

Hindu activists maintained that such girls were too young to be allowed to make life-changing decisions.

“What does a 12-,13-year-old know about love?” asked Ravi Dawani, the general-secretary of All Pakistan Hindu Panchayat.

Girls between 12 and 18, he said, were often lured away with false promises and later threatened so they would lie in court when their marriages or conversions were challenged.

Often, he added, their parents were not allowed to meet them.

Hotchand Karmani, the president of Pakistan Hindu Council, said the community wanted the judiciary to intervene and give such children, whether boys or girls, time to think about their decision.

“Many of them have no idea of Islam or any other religion,” he said. “They convert in the name of love and then have problems a year or two later.”

Legal issues

Pakistani Hindus also expressed reservations over another clause that allowed a court to terminate a marriage if one of the two partners converted to another religion and filed a petition in court.

This, they said, opened doors for the kidnapping and conversion of young Hindu married women similar to forced conversion of unmarried teenage girls.

“If someone wanted to terminate their marriage, they should do so before converting to another religion, not immediately after,” Vankwani said.

Kapil Dev, a rights activist, said he was surprised to find the clause in the act since the Human Rights committee in the Senate promised to have it removed.

Despite those concerns, Pakistan’s Hindus in general welcomed the passage of a law that allowed for their marriages to be legally registered.

Hindu marriages were not recorded through any government document previously, creating problems when spouses applied for identity cards and passports, or tried to get benefits for their husbands or wives.

And if a marriage broke down, there was no legal recourse for either spouse.

President Mamnoon Hussain signed the Hindu Marriage bill into law on Sunday. It applies to three of Pakistan’s four provinces. Sindh province has passed its own version of the bill.
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Five Regional Express Airlines passenger planes had been grounded as a precaution after a near disaster in which a propeller fell off an airliner as it approached Sydney Airport, the Australian airline said on Monday.

A Saab 340 carrying 19 passengers and crew landed safely in Sydney on Friday after one of its two propellers fell off over Sydney’s southwest fringe.

The Sydney-based airline, also known as Rex, said it had grounded another five of its fleet of 55 Saab 340s because their propeller gear boxes and shafts were from the same series as the defective propeller.

“This is an extremely rare event,” Rex’s chief operating officer Neville Howell said in a statement.

The only recorded similar mishap occurred in 1991 when a Comair Airways plane landed safely after losing a propeller, Howell said.

An Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation team was examining the damaged aircraft in Sydney. Investigators also want to examine the propeller for clues, but that had not been found by Monday, Rex said.

Flight 768 was flying from Albury, 500 kilometers (300 miles) southwest of Sydney, when the pilots shut down the right engine due to “abnormal indications,” Rex said.

The pilot then saw the spinning propeller assembly leave its shaft and fly over the wing without touching the plane, the airline said.

Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association president Paul Cousin said those aboard the plane were “lucky in the extreme” that the propeller had not sliced into the fuselage or tail of the plane.

The Saab 340 is designed to climb, cruise and land on a single engine.
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South Korean officials say North Korea’s latest rocket-engine test showed “meaningful” advancement in engine function.

Lee Jin-woo, deputy spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry said Monday, “Through this test, it is found that engine function has made meaningful progress, but further analysis is needed for exact thrust and possible uses.”

North Korea ground-tested a new high-thrust rocket engine, the country’s official news agency KCNA said on Sunday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the test was successful and “emphasized that the world will soon witness the great significance of the epoch-making victory we achieved today,” KCNA reported.

The test consisted of firing the rocket engine while it was held in place on the ground, not powering a missile. The ignition took place at the Tongchang-ri rocket launch station near the North’s border with China, according to KCNA, which said Kim went to the site at dawn.  

From this same region, Pyongyang launched a satellite into space in February 2016 using banned intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

Possible ICBM engine

The state news agency quoted Kim as saying the new “high-thrust engine would help consolidate the scientific and technological foundation to match the world-level satellite delivery capability in the field of outer space development.”

This also indicated the engine being tested was likely intended for use in long-range missiles.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson emphasized Saturday during his visit to China the need for a new approach to deal with the growing North Korean nuclear threat, and stressed the United States is willing to consider “all options” to rein in North Korea’s aggressive military policies.

Analysts say this could range up to some form of limited military action, and would certainly confront North Korea more directly that the diplomatic approach backed by former President Barack Obama, whose policy in the region was known as one of “strategic patience.”
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke up for free trade at a major technology fair on Sunday with jabs clearly pointed at an increasingly protectionist United States.

Both called for a free trade deal to be reached quickly between Japan and the European Union, in comments made after G-20 finance ministers and central bankers dropped a long-standing mention of open trade in their final communique after a two-day meeting in Germany.

Neither leader named the U.S. government as they opened the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover, but both used the opportunity to distance themselves from protectionist tendencies coming from the Trump administration.

“In times when we have to argue with many about free trade, open borders and democratic values, it’s a good sign that Japan and Germany no longer argue about this but rather are seeking to shape the future in a way that benefits people,” Merkel said.

As G-20 president, Germany feels especially committed to these principles, she added.

After meeting President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday for the first time, Merkel said she hoped the United States and the European Union could resume discussions on a trade agreement. Trump said he did not believe in isolationism but that trade policy should be fairer.

Merkel stressed that Germany was strongly in favour of free trade and open markets.

“We certainly don’t want any barriers but at a time of an ‘Internet of things’ we want to link our societies with one another and let them deal fairly with one another, and that is what free trade is all about,” she said.

Speaking at the same event, Abe said: “Japan, having gone through reaping in abundance the benefits of free trade and investment, wants to be the champion upholding open systems alongside Germany.”

He added: “Of course to do so it will be necessary to have rules that are fair and can stand up to democratic appraisal.”

He also said the European Union and Japan should soon reach an economic deal. Merkel welcomed his comments, saying: “It’s very, very good that Japan says we want a free trade agreement, we want it soon because that could be the right statement and Germany would love to be a driving force behind this.”

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told Bild am Sonntag newspaper he was pleased that he would be meeting Abe on Tuesday and said the bloc wanted to conclude a free trade deal with Japan this year.
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Taiwan’s government, worried about being used as a pawn by China and the United States, said on Monday the self-ruled island must protect its own interests as concerns in Taipei rise ahead of an expected meeting of U.S and Chinese leaders.

China has never renounced the use of force to take back what it deems a wayward province and has been pressuring Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who leads an independence-leaning ruling party, to concede Taiwan is a part of China.

The United States is Taiwan’s only major political ally and sole arms supplier.

“We call on the United States and China, when they improve relations, to not use Taiwan in their own interest or as a chess piece,” Catherine Chang, Taiwan’s minister in charge of China affairs, the Mainland Affairs Council, told reporters.

Chang urged Beijing to communicate with Taipei “in order to maintain stability and peace in the Asia Pacific region.”

The comments come after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday in Beijing that U.S. President Donald Trump anticipates a meeting “soon.”

At issue for Taipei is whether a Trump-Xi meeting will harm Taipei’s interests as Washington begins considering a big, new arms package for Taiwan, a move sure to anger China.

“We should seek the greatest advantage in the interaction between the United States and China, to reduce the possibility of Communist China guiding and manipulating the U.S.-China-Taiwan relationship,” said Peng Sheng-chu, chief of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau.

Peng, who was answering questions at a parliamentary session, didn’t elaborate on what steps Taiwan should take, but said that based on the bureau’s current intelligence, it was not likely that a new communique that could hurt Taiwan’s interests would result from a Trump-Xi meeting.

“But we do not rule out the possibility,” Peng said.

In December, Taiwan had celebrated a diplomatic coup when Trump, as president-elect, took a congratulatory phone call from Tsai and raised questions about whether he would stick with the four-decade-old “one China” policy.

Trump changed tack last month and agreed to honour the “one China” policy during a phone call with Xi.

Tillerson left China with warm words from Xi on the weekend, ending his first trip to Asia since taking office with an agreement to work together with China on North Korea and putting aside trickier issues.

Xi praised increasing communications in recent weeks between Beijing and Washington, and said he is “confident” of seeing bilateral relations moving in the “right direction.”

Taiwan was discussed during the meeting, but details were not provided.
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The foreign and defense ministers from Japan and Russia met in Tokyo on Monday, with both sides expressing hope that discussions on joint development of islands claimed by both countries might help them move closer to resolving the territorial dispute preventing them from forging a peace treaty.

The talks are the first “two-plus-two” meeting since Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

The one-day meeting is largely focusing on regional security, especially how best to deal with North Korea’s launches of missiles and its nuclear program.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said before the talks that its envoys would raise the issue of a plan by the U.S. and its ally South Korea to deploy a state-of-the-art missile defense system known as THAAD, which has antagonized China and Russia.

Joint efforts in fighting terrorism and drug trafficking were also on the agenda.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida was meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, while Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada sat down for talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The four ministers will also hold joint talks on international and bilateral issues.

Japan and Russia last held “two-plus-two” talks in November 2013. Meetings were shelved after that due to the crisis in Ukraine, as Japan joined sanctions against Moscow.

The Tokyo talks are not expected to lead to a breakthrough on conflicting claims to islands north of Hokkaido — Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islets — that came under Russian control after Japan’s defeat in World War Two.

But the countries see more room for agreement on joint development of fisheries, tourism and other areas that might help bridge the gap.

Kishida said he intended to work in a “speedy manner” to move closer toward reaching a peace treaty, especially making progress on joint economic development.

Lavrov agreed, saying at the outset of the talks that “I believe this joint development will become an important step to create an appropriate environment for resolving a peace treaty.”

Earlier, a Japanese foreign ministry official said Tokyo would raise concerns over Russia’s installment of surface-to-ship missiles on Etorofu and other military activity elsewhere on the disputed islands, and seek an explanation from Moscow. It does not plan to push harder than that, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition he not be named.

Japanese officials also said the talks would include work on planning a visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Moscow later this year. Logistics of visits by Japanese former residents of the disputed islands will also be addressed, they said.
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