Top Asian News 5:46 a.m. GMT
The US lifts bounties on senior Taliban officials, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, says Kabul
The U.S. has lifted bounties on three senior Taliban figures, including the interior minister who also heads a powerful network blamed for bloody attacks against Afghanistan's former Western-backed government, officials in Kabul said Sunday. Sirajuddin Haqqani, who acknowledged planning a January 2008 attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul, which killed six people, including U.S. citizen Thor David Hesla, no longer appears on the State Department's Rewards for Justice website. The FBI website on Sunday still featured a wanted poster for him. Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said the U.S. government had revoked the bounties placed on Haqqani, Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and Yahya Haqqani.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
The global impact of Trump vs. Musk
With help from Anthony Adragna and Aaron Mak Could Elon Musk's online slapfight with President Donald Trump put a dent in his global telecom ambitions? Musk's satellite broadband company Starlink has reaped massive gains since he became 'first buddy' to Trump. Numerous countries have cut red tape to approve Starlink this year, some reportedly under pressure from Trump's State Department. In some cases, countries appeared to be giving Starlink a green light in order to ingratiate themselves with the White House. Vietnam approved the service in February. In early May, the Democratic Republic of Congo granted Starlink a license. Later that month, South Africa eased laws that required telecom companies to provide 30 percent equity to groups that were historically marginalized — which could allow Starlink to start service without meeting the requirement. Now, Musk's feud with Trump raises the question of how Starlink will fare in future negotiations. Will countries feel the need to let it in? Will Trump go to bat for the company? 'When trade officials or when governments sit down for negotiations, you think about what horses you have to trade,' said a former Starlink executive, granted anonymity to speak freely. 'I don't even know if Starlink is a horse anymore.' Since Trump took office, a number of countries have granted licenses to Starlink, including India on Friday. The State Department reportedly pressed some of those countries, like Gambia and Cameroon, to approve the service. (As of late March, Starlink said it had coverage in 130 countries or territories.) Caleb Henry, director of research at the consulting firm Quilty Space, said U.S. diplomacy had helped Starlink get traction in hard-to-reach places. 'Starlink has already received market access in the easiest countries and the mid-tier countries,' he said. 'What's left is the hard countries. That's where the State Department gets involved.' Henry and other telecommunications veterans who spoke to DFD said this wasn't necessarily unusual: The State Department often lobbies for U.S. companies, and in that sense, Starlink was enjoying the same support that Boeing or the satellite companies Iridium and Globalstar have received in the past. Blair Levin, a telecoms expert who served in senior roles at the Federal Communications Commission under Democratic administrations, said he has seen an unconventional element in the State Department's discussions over Starlink: They're tying in the White House's tariff policy as well. Consider the case of Lesotho. According to The Washington Post, the landlocked African country was hunting for a way out of 50 percent tariffs announced by Trump. Then in April this year it granted Starlink a license. According to the Post, the State Department noted that development in an internal memo: 'As the government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with the United States, it hopes that licensing Starlink demonstrates goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.' The State Department did not confirm or deny the report, but said, 'Any patriotic American should want to see an American company's success on the global stage, especially over compromised Chinese competitors.' The embassy of Lesotho did not respond immediately to questions about the report. Said Levin: 'Embassies often represent the interests of U.S.-based companies. That's not unusual. But to tie tariff negotiations to certain companies, that's very unusual.' Satellite policy expert Ruth Pritchard-Kelly concurred. 'I can't say I've ever seen a country begging the U.S. not to do something catastrophic, saying 'look, we've even licensed your best friend's satellite service, please don't impose tariffs on us,'' she said. So what now? If Musk remains on the outs with Trump, he could become a global liability for the company, Pritchard-Kelly said: 'If Lesotho is actually worried about the U.S. imposing tariffs on them, then aligning themselves with this tech, which is currently run by someone who is persona non grata to Trump, could be a problem.' So far, the Musk-Trump feud has largely played out online, and Trump has not followed up on his threats to cancel the government's SpaceX contracts. But Trump has other buttons he could push to make Musk's life hard, said Pritchard-Kelly. One is withdrawing Starlink's license to operate in space. 'It's never happened, but I think if Trump really wanted to rattle Musk he would say, 'I'm going to pull your license,'' she said. The former Starlink executive said the State Department — and the government more broadly — could also pose subtle obstacles to the company, such as by slow-rolling approvals or giving less weight to Starlink's comments on federal policy. 'There are other disadvantages that could come to Starlink or other Musk companies just because they're no longer considered a favored son,' the person said. In the longer term, Musk's falling out with Trump is likely to spur other countries to keep investing in their own systems, according to satellite analyst Tim Farrar. On Friday, top lawmakers in the European Parliament wrote to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, asking her to set aside €60B for space – including the EU's IRIS2 satellite communications network. 'You're going to have people who want to see IRIS2 going forward taking advantage of the risk of Musk threatening he could just decommission things at random,' Farrar said. But it will be 'years, if ever' before rival internet services have the muscle to match Starlink's 7,000-plus satellites, he said, even as Chinese companies and Amazon's Project Kuiper race to launch their own constellations. 'The State Department has to promote U.S. satellite interests over Chinese satellite interests,' Farrar added. 'For the time being, Starlink's the only game in town.' Vance Talks AI and Data In an hour-and-a-half-long appearance on comedian Theo Von's podcast over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance got into some heady tech topics. Von, whose 4 million YouTube subscribers have made him a fixture of online bro culture, tends to be skeptical of both Big Tech and Big Government. So it might be natural that Vance took an anti-establishment line on AI laws and data collection. On AI: Vance talked about the Republicans' proposal for a 10-year moratorium preventing states from regulating AI — an idea that, to many people's surprise, surfaced in the House reconciliation bill and made it to the Senate. He was skeptical of its chances on procedural grounds ('To be honest with you, I don't think that's going to make it in the final bill'), and then channeled his inner law student by laying out the populist case for both sides of the moratorium debate. Explaining why he might be in favor, Vance suggested the moratorium could stop liberal bias from infecting AI systems: 'You basically have a federal regulation that prevents, like, California from having a super progressive set of regulations on artificial intelligence.' On the other side, Vance cited the ELVIS Act, which Tennessee's Republican legislature passed in March prohibiting the unauthorized use of AI to replicate singers' voices. Vance said it was reasonable to want to protect the likes of Taylor Swift and Robert Plant from having AI coopt their voices to generate new songs — an explanation that both Swifties and Led Heads might find convincing. On data collection, Vance advocated for more regulations, calling out iPads for tracking users' reading behaviors. He also made an intriguing reference to a national security briefing he reviewed, after quickly checking with a staffer to ensure that the info wasn't classified. 'Let's say you're reading a story from some random newspaper and you hover on a particular paragraph, your iPad is collecting that information on you … that is the stuff that really freaks me out,' he said. The particular data collection technique that Vance was referencing is unclear — the Vice President's office did not respond to DFD's inquiry by deadline. Apple also did not respond to DFD's question about the brief and how iPads track user activity. Vance was responding to Von's question about the administration's contracts with Palantir to help implement a March executive order for more data sharing between agencies. Vance – whose mentors include Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel – described the order as connecting pre-existing databases, rather than enabling additional data collection. 'We've got to live in reality and the government's already got this information,' he said. 'We just need to make sure they don't misuse it.' UK'S BIG AI BET With much of the tech world descending on the U.K. for London Tech Week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is doubling down on his plans to work 'in partnership' with businesses to harness the power of artificial intelligence for social good, POLITICO's Joseph Bambridge and Tom Bristow report. That commitment comes as the U.K. government prepares for a spending review this week that will set out its fiscal plans for the rest of this parliament. A government AI action plan released in January previously vowed to 'mainline' the technology throughout public services. Starmer said there is a responsibility to 'harness this unprecedented opportunity and to use it to improve the lives of working people.' 'Britain is once again, after years of chaos, a stable partner for investors that believes the future should be shaped by our democratic values, and that in this volatile world, is unequivocally, unashamedly, defiantly even, open for business,' the prime minister said Monday. Tech luminaries like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis mingled with Starmer at his country residence over the weekend. post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
NATO chief's speech was meant as a call to arms, but it was also a shameful admission for the alliance
For all the stark warnings and ominous predictions made by the head of NATO today, one key fact remained unmentioned. The West is still funding the Russian war effort to the tune of billions by buying oil and gas, funnelling vast amounts into an economy that is now fully militarised. Russian gas exports to Europe went up by 20% last year and its LNG exports to the EU are now at record levels. Read more: Vladimir Putin's Russia is now making more money from selling fossil fuels than Ukraine receives from allies. NATO's secretary general Mark Rutte did not mention any of that. But he did spell out what Russia is doing with all that hydrocarbon revenue. It is using it to put its economy onto a war footing that is now pumping out munitions at a rate that puts the West to shame, to the extent Russia could have the capability to take on NATO in three to five years, according to Mr Rutte. New Sky News podcast launches on 10 June - simulates an attack by Russia to test UK defences 👉Search for The Wargame on your podcast app👈 The secretary general meant his speech in London as a warning and call to arms. But it was also a shameful admission for the Western alliance he heads. More than three years into this war, Russia is outstripping the entire Western bloc by four to one in terms of munitions production. Russia's economy is 1/25th that of NATO's combined economic might and crippled by sanctions and yet every three months pumps out more shells than the entire NATO bloc manages in a year. And while Europe carries on funding Russia's war effort by buying its oil and gas, none of that is going to change. We are now in the insane and obscene situation where European taxpayers will have to fork out more, a lot more, to counteract the threat of a militarised Russia, whose resurgence is being subsidised by Western countries buying its fossil fuels. Historians will look back on that and wonder why it was allowed to continue more than three years into this devastating conflict.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Iran and U.S. Face Off at Crucial IAEA Meeting
The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has called on Iran and the United States to find a "diplomatic solution" in talks over Tehran's nuclear program as a crucial quarterly meeting at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA's board of governors meeting is expected to hear and vote on a resolution finding Tehran in noncompliance with its safeguards for the first time in 20 years. Iran has vowed to take strong action against Western nations pushing the resolution at the gathering in the Austrian capital, with Behrouz Kamalvandi of Iran's atomic energy agency saying the IAEA "shouldn't expect the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue its broad and friendly cooperation" if the measure is approved. Speaking as the meeting kicked off in Vienna on June 9, Rafael Grossi said he was "convinced the only way forward is through a diplomatic solution." "Over the past months, I have worked closely and intensively with the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, through active consultations, in support of their bilateral negotiations to reach a mutually acceptable agreement that guarantees the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," Grossi added. In a June 6 post on X, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi slammed Britain, France, and Germany -- collectively known as the E3 -- for "falsely accusing Iran" of violating its obligations and claimed the move was "designed to produce a crisis." "Mark my words as Europe ponders another major strategic mistake: Iran will react strongly against any violation of its rights. Blame lies solely and fully with irresponsible actors who stop at nothing to gain relevance," Araqchi warned. A draft resolution prepared by the E3 and backed by the United States was shared on June 5 with the 35 members of the IAEA Board of Governors, which will meet until June 13. In its latest quarterly report, the IAEA said Iran has sharply increased its production of highly enriched uranium, stockpiling 408.6 kilograms enriched to 60 percent -- up from just under 275 kilograms in February. The agency also criticized Iran for poor cooperation, particularly its failure to explain nuclear traces detected at undeclared sites. While 60 percent enrichment is below the 90 percent threshold required for weapons-grade material, it far exceeds the 3.67 percent limit set by the 2015 international nuclear deal, which US President Donald Trump exited in 2018 during his first term in office. Trump returned to the presidency in January. It comes as Trump has been seeking to forge a deal with Iran to rein in its nuclear activities. Washington and Tehran have held five rounds of talks since Trump, who re-imposed sanctions after withdrawing from the 2015 deal, returned to office. Uranium enrichment has been a major sticking point. The US administration maintains Iran must cease all enrichment activities, and Iran has rejected that demand. Araqchi, who leads Tehran's negotiating team, on May 31 said he had received "elements" of a US proposal for a potential deal following the Omani-mediated talks. Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on June 8 said that "the US plan does not even mention the lifting of sanctions." He accused Washington of attempting to impose a "unilateral" deal that Tehran would not be able to accept. Meanwhile, Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib claimed, without offering evidence, that Tehran had captured an 'important treasury' of information regarding Israel's nuclear program. The remarks came after Iran state broadcaster IRIB reported what it described as one of the "largest intelligence operations" in history against Israel, claiming Iranian intelligence obtained a vast cache of "sensitive documents" -- including thousands allegedly related to Israeli nuclear projects and facilities -- from inside Israeli territory. He said the documents -- which he claimed related to the United States, Europe, and others -- would "soon" be made public. By RFE/RL More Top Reads From this article on
