World

LONDON — Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai called for Pakistan to stop deporting undocumented Afghans, saying she was especially concerned about the "dark future" awaiting women and girls sent back.

"It is deeply concerning that Pakistan is forcing Afghan refugees based in Pakistan back into Afghanistan, and I'm deeply concerned about the women and girls,” the activist, who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2014, told AFP in an interview on Friday.

Despite extending leave for Afghan refugees with permits to stay in Pakistan for another year, Islamabad this week said it would remove illegal migrants.

More than 600,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan since Islamabad last year ordered undocumented migrants to leave or face arrest.

Human rights monitors have warned that some sent to Afghanistan faced persecution by the Taliban, who came into power in 2021 and have imposed an austere form of Islam, barring girls from higher education and excluding women and girls from areas of public life.

"A lot of these girls in Pakistan were studying, they were in school, these women were doing work", said Malala, 27, who grew up in Pakistan's Swat valley.

She had to move to the UK after she was shot, aged just 15, for resisting the Pakistan Taliban's then-ban on girls' education in her hometown.

"I hope that Pakistan reverses its policy and that they protect girls and women especially because of the dark future that they would be witnessing in Afghanistan", she added.

'Principled engagement' 

Speaking to AFP on her birthday, recognised by the UN as Malala Day, the activist launched into the challenges facing the only country in the world where girls over 12 are barred from school.

"I cannot believe that I'm witnessing a time when girls have been banned from their education for more than three years,” she said, adding that while the situation was "shocking", she "admired the resilience of the Afghan activists".

The Malala Fund is campaigning for the UN to formally broaden their definition of crimes against humanity to include "gender apartheid" — a phrase the UN has used to describe the situation in Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, the UN and Taliban sat down for talks in Doha for the first time since the latter came to power but without women in attendance.

Malala said the Doha talks made a "compromise on the future of women and girls", calling for a "principled engagement" with the Taliban. 

"World leaders need to realise that when they sit down with the Taliban... and they're excluding women and girls, they are actually doing a Taliban a favour," she said.

"I want to call out those countries as well — that includes Canada and France — who have a feminist foreign policy" to "condemn" conversations like the Doha talks, she added.

Gaza schools 

Malala also called for an "urgent" ceasefire in the war in Gaza.

"It is horrifying how many schools have been bombed in Gaza, even more recently the four schools", she added, referring to four schools that were hit by Israeli air strikes this week.

According to the education ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, 85 percent of educational facilities in the territory are out of service because of the war.

"It is deeply concerning because we know that children do not have a future when they're living under a war, when their schools and homes are destroyed", said Malala.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, said it used more than half its budget before the war to fund education.

However, it is facing funding woes after several countries including the United States and Britain suspended aid following Israeli accusations that its workers were involved in Hamas' attack against Israel on October 7. 

Some countries like Australia and Germany have however resumed funding when evidence could not be found to support Israel's claims.

"When it comes to humanitarian support, all countries should be making no compromise. They should make sure that all the immediate and urgent needs of people are provided, and UNRWA is an example of that,” Malala said of countries resuming funding for the group.

"I do hope that all countries are providing aid and support because it's about those innocent people and civilians who need to be protected."

WASHINGTON — Senator Bernie Sanders, a prominent figure of the US political left, on Saturday threw his support behind Joe Biden's White House campaign, dismissing calls for the president to withdraw from the race over health concerns.

"Enough! Mr Biden may not be the ideal candidate, but he will be the candidate and should be the candidate," independent senator Sanders wrote in a New York Times column, adding that "it's time for Democrats to stop the bickering and nit-picking".

Sanders' column comes amid steadily growing calls from Democratic officials and donors for the 81-year-old Biden to step aside following a disastrous performance in his June 27 debate with former president Donald Trump. So far, some 20 members of Congress have called for him to leave the race.

Most polls taken since the debate show Trump with a national lead over Biden, though within the margin of error. They also show some key battleground states, including Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, shifting in the Republican's favor.

And a majority of Americans — including Democrats — believe Biden is too old to serve again, according to a recent poll.

Nor did the president help his own cause when, at a summit in Washington earlier this week, he mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as his foe Vladimir Putin, before quickly correcting himself.

Biden, however, insisted during an appearance on Friday that he is, and will remain, his party's flagbearer.

"I am running and we're going to win," he told an enthu siastic audience in Detroit, amid chants of "Don't you quit."

'Circular firing squad' 

Sanders noted in his op-ed that he had some strong disagreements with Biden. Like many of his youthful supporters, Sanders fervently opposes what he called "US support for Israel's horrific war against the Palestinian people" in Gaza.

Sanders, who at 82 is himself seeking reelection to the Senate in November, did acknowledge the signs of the president's aging.

But given Biden's achievements — and the record of Trump, "who has 34 felony convictions and... has told thousands of documented lies" — the senator brushed Biden's shortcomings aside.

"Yes, I know," he wrote. "Mr. Biden is old, is prone to gaffes, walks stiffly and had a disastrous debate with Mr. Trump. But this I also know: A presidential election is not an entertainment contest. It does not begin or end with a 90-minute debate."

He blamed the eruption of anti-Biden rhetoric partly on "the corporate media [which] has obsessively focused on the June presidential debate and the cognitive capabilities of a man who has, perhaps, the most difficult and stressful job in the world".

Sanders also blamed those Democrats who he said had "joined that circular firing squad".

He challenged the president to do more — to "propose and fight for a bold agenda" that would help lift working families "who have been left behind for far too long".

But Biden, he concluded, was "a good and decent Democratic president with a record of real accomplishment", including helping rebuild the US economy and shoring up the country's crumbling infrastructure.

"For the sake of our kids and future generations, he must win."

PARIS — French left-wingers attacked President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday after he called for a broad coalition government, demanding that their movement alone should propose a prime minister.

No single force won Sunday's second-round vote outright, though a broad alliance of Socialists, Communists, Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) won the most seats, with 193 in the 577-strong national assembly.

With no overall majority, the result left France rudderless at home, where it will host the Olympic Games in just over two weeks, and weakened abroad, where President Emmanuel Macron was in Washington for a NATO summit focused on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In an open letter to voters, Macron said on Wednesday that "nobody won" the ballot.

He has left centrist Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in place and called on parties to find common ground for a broad coalition.

Socialist Party chief Olivier Faure accused Macron of failing to "respect the vote of the French people", while LFI figurehead Jean-Luc Melenchon blasted the "return of the royal veto".

Sophie Binet, head of France's biggest trade union federation, the CGT, also enlisted the image of France's long-defunct monarchy to attack the president.

"It's like having Louis XVI locking himself away in Versailles," she said, referring to the king guillotined in 1793 during the French Revolution.

"If [Macron] doesn't respect the result of the polls, he risks plunging the country into chaos once again," she said.

'Bring people together'

The president's letter appeared to rule out a role for either LFI — the largest player in the New Popular Front (NFP) left alliance — or the far-right National Rally (RN) in the new coalition.

Voters from different camps joined forces in the second-round run-off to shut the RN out of power in a "republican front", allowing Macron's followers to claim second place with 164 seats and leaving the far right in third at 143.

With each of the three blocs controlling roughly one-third of the chamber, it may be a long slog to find a government able to survive a no-confidence vote.

"We can't form a national unity government with just one camp," Macron ally Francois Bayrou told AFP, calling for a prime minister able to "bring people together".

The conservative Republicans Party — once the vehicle of presidents like Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, but now reduced to 40 seats — has refused to join a government coalition, but says it could vote to adopt a legislative programme.

Three-time RN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen meanwhile dismissed Macron's letter as a "disgraceful circus".

Her party now has its eyes firmly on France's next presidential election in 2027, when term limits mean Macron will not be able to stand again.

Economic fears

Macron arrived in Washington on Wednesday for a NATO summit where allies may now be weighing the prospect of French instability on top of the potential return of NATO-sceptic Donald Trump to the White House.

Macron did not speak to the press at the event.

Markets are also anxious, with warnings this week from ratings agencies that uncertainty over government finances could lead to credit downgrades for its over three-trillion-euro ($3.25 trillion) debt pile.

On Thursday, Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau warned against the left's economic programme without naming the NFP specifically.

"In the economic competition, our small firms, our companies can't be weighed down with excessive wage costs, including the minimum wage, and by taxes that are too heavy," Villeroy told broadcaster Franceinfo.

The NFP vowed ahead of the polls both to increase the minimum wage and to raise taxes on companies and the wealthy.

Revenue would pay for welfare projects including reversing Macron's widely resented increase to the official retirement age.

"We spend a lot more than we pay in taxes, including on social spending and pensions," Villeroy said.

"That's what creates the budget deficit," he added, after the government overspent by 5.5 per cent of GDP last year, well above the EU limit of 3 per cent.

BEIJING — China is building almost twice as much wind and solar energy capacity as every other country combined, research published on Thursday showed.

The world's second-largest economy is the biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that scientists say drive climate change.

China has committed to bring carbon emissions to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060.

It has endured several waves of extreme weather in recent months that scientists say are rendered more severe by climate change.

China currently has a total of 339 gigawatts (GW) of capacity under construction, including 159GW of wind and 180GW of solar.

That is "nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined", according to the study by Global Energy Monitor, a US-based NGO.

The figure far exceeds the second-ranked nation, the United States, which is building a total of just 40GW, the report said.

It said China has broken ground on a third of new wind and solar capacity it has announced to date, compared to a global average of just seven per cent.

"The stark contrast in construction rates illustrates the active nature of China's commitment to building renewables projects," the study said.

'Turning point?'

Beijing's vast renewable energy buildout does have some drawbacks.

The national grid falls back on heavily polluting coal plants to deal with surges in power demand.

And it struggles to transmit renewable energy generated in remote north-western regions to economic and population centres in the east.

However, China’s combined wind and solar capacity is set to overtake coal this year, according to the report.

It said the rapid renewables expansion raises hopes that Beijing’s carbon emissions will peak even sooner than expected.

In a separate report released on Thursday, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found China issued no new permits for coal-based steelmaking projects in the first half of 2024.

CREA said that was the first time on a half-yearly basis that there have been no new permits since China announced its “dual carbon goals” in September 2020 — a development hailed as a possible “turning point” by the independent research organisation.

“As China’s steel demand peaks and more scrap becomes available, there is great potential to shift away from coal-based production, representing a significant opportunity for emissions reduction in the next 10 years,” CREA’s report said.

Scientists say global warming makes extreme weather more frequent and intense.

China has seen a summer blighted by searing heat in the north and torrential rain in the south.

Its weather agency last week forecast very high temperatures to persist in the coming weeks under the impact of climate change.

Heavy rains in the east and south have also triggered a string of deadly floods and landslides in recent weeks.

WASHINGTON — NATO allies announced on Wednesday they had started the long-promised transfer of F-16 jets to Ukraine as leaders meet for a summit in Washington clouded by political uncertainties in the United States.

With the pomp of the three-day gathering in the US capital, President Joe Biden is aiming to rally the West and also reassure US voters amid pre-election scrutiny on whether at 81 — six years older than the alliance — he remains fit for the job.

Biden individually welcomed the other 31 leaders of the alliance before urging them to keep pace with Russia's military production which has stepped up sharply in the two years since President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

"We can — and will — defend every inch of NATO territory and we'll do it together," Biden told the North Atlantic Council, the formal decision-making body of the alliance, convened in an air-conditioned convention centre as Washington sweltered in a heat wave.

Biden announced that Denmark and The Netherlands had begun sending US-made F-16 jets to Ukraine — making good on a key promise last year to Kyiv, which has struggled to gain parity in the air with Russia.

Biden earlier announced new air defense systems for Ukraine and said the United States had agreed to place long-range missiles periodically in Germany.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the F-16 transfer “concentrates Vladimir Putin’s mind on the fact that he will not outlast Ukraine, he will not outlast us and, if he persists, the damage that will continue to be done to Russia and its interests will only deepen”.

“The quickest way to get to peace is through a strong Ukraine,” Blinken said.

But Donald Trump, who is edging out Biden in recent polls, has mused about bringing a quick peace settlement by forcing Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia.

The Republican mogul has repeatedly questioned the utility of NATO — formed in 1949 as collective defense against Moscow — which he sees as an unfair burden on the United States.

‘Terror must fail’ 

On the eve of the summit, Russia fired a barrage of missiles on Ukraine, killing dozens, including in Kyiv where a children’s hospital was reduced to debris.

Biden invited to the summit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who voiced gratitude for the F-16s.

The new aircraft will “bring just and lasting peace closer, demonstrating that terror must fail”, Zelensky wrote on social media.

The summit will look for ways to “Trump-proof” the alliance including by having NATO itself take over coordination of arms delivery from the United States.

Outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has also secured a pledge to keep supplying arms at the same rate — some 40 billion euros ($43 billion) annually — that NATO members have been since Russia invaded. 

“I expect that regardless of the outcome of the US elections, the US will remain a strong and staunch NATO ally,” Stoltenberg said as leaders gathered for the summit.

Biden has also invited four key Pacific partners — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — as he seeks to increase NATO’s role in managing a rising China.

 ‘Irreversible’ Ukraine path to NATO 

Ukraine wants firm assurances that it will one day join NATO, which considers an attack on any member an attack on all.

Several diplomats said negotiations had settled on wording of a statement that will voice support for Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership”.

Kyiv’s membership enjoys wide backing from Baltic and Eastern European nations still haunted by decades under the Soviet yoke.

But Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have led opposition, concerned that the alliance would effectively be entering war with nuclear-armed Russia as it occupies swathes of Ukraine.

President Alexander Stubb of Finland — which, like Sweden, joined NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — hailed the language as a message to Putin that he is failing in his goal of pushing back the alliance.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, visiting days after his Labour Party swept to power, promised Zelensky that Britain — unlike the United States — was united across partisan lines on supporting Ukraine.

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday put responsibility on parliament to negotiate a broad coalition reflecting France's "republican institutions" to break the stalemate following an inconclusive snap election.

"Nobody won," Macron said in a written message to voters published in French regional newspapers about the election. 

"I am asking all political forces who recognise themselves in the republican institutions, the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, a European orientation and the defence of France's independence, to start a sincere and fair dialogue to build a solid, and by definition pluralist, majority," Macron said.

The formulation appeared designed to exclude Marine Le Pen's far-right RN Party, but also implicitly far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon's France Unbowed (LFI), a big portion of the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance.

The election called by Macron with the aim of "clarifying" the political landscape in the end left France with a hung parliament.

Centrists allied with Macron were looking Wednesday for an alliance with the right to counter ambitions by the NFP which emerged, surprisingly, with most seats in the National Assembly.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's government will remain in power as Paris makes final preparations for the Olympics, starting in just over two weeks.

But Attal's centrist group in parliament lost ground and the hunt is on for his successor.

French leftists believe that as the largest bloc in the new National Assembly with some 190 seats they are entitled to propose a new prime minister.

"Macron is clinging to denial and refuses to accept his defeat," LFI politician Manon Aubry posted on X.

But many in Macron’s centrist camp, which holds around 160 seats, would refuse to support a new government that includes figures from the hard left.

The president’s Renaissance outfit appeared divided as it sought allies in the lower chamber, with some seeking to include forces ranging from the centre left to the right in a broad coalition, and others only wishing to join forces with conservatives.

Aurore Berger, re-elected on Sunday and minister in charge of gender equality in the outgoing government, said her group wanted to ally with the conservative Republicans and other members of parliament near the centre.

Republicans parliamentary leader Laurent Wauquiez said his party would come up with a “legislative pact” it would propose to other groups.

‘Move forward’ 

Until Wednesday’s letter, Macron had laid low following the election, and was away on Wednesday for a NATO summit in Washington. 

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who was also re-elected, told the CNews broadcaster he could support a “right-wing prime minister”.

Former prime minister Edouard Philippe, a Macron ally, has called for a deal between the centrists and the conservatives “to move forward and be able to manage the country’s affairs for at least a year”.

But Francois Bayrou, a centrist Macron supporter, urged the president to name a prime minister who could “bring together” both sides of parliament.

Any contender would have to survive a confidence vote in parliament when it opens for business next week.

The broad leftist NFP alliance including Greens, Socialists, Communists and LFI has said they would suggest a candidate for prime minister by the end of the week.

Divisive LFI leader Melenchon has put forward 33-year-old Clemence Guette, who prepared his programme when he ran for president in 2022.

The more moderate Socialist leader Olivier Faure has also said that he would be willing to lead a Cabinet himself.

Despite doing less well than expected, the anti-immigration RN and allies still gained ground in the National Assembly, from 89 seats in 2022 to more than 140 today.

Winning an absolute majority “has only been postponed”, she told reporters.

The party’s 28-year-old leader, Jordan Bardella, urged his members of parliament to be “perfectly beyond reproach” in their posts, after a campaign in which several RN candidates were exposed as ignorant about policy or for former extremist behaviour. 

PARIS — French parties sought to project strength and gather allies on Tuesday, with the government adrift following an election in which no one political force claimed a clear majority.

Having defied expectations to top the polls, new MPs from the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance began showing up to visit their new workplaces in parliament ahead of a first session on July 18.

But the coalition of Greens, Socialists, Communists and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) is still debating over who to put forward as a potential prime minister and whether it could be open to working in a broader coalition.

Combined, the left-leaning parties' hold 193 of 577 seats in the National Assembly and are well short of the 289-seat threshold for a majority.

Nevertheless, members plan to name a potential prime minister "by the end of the week", leading LFI figure Mathilde Panot said.

In the French system, the president nominates the prime minister, who must be able to survive a confidence vote in parliament — a tricky proposition with three closely-balanced political forces in play.

Any left-leaning government would need “broader support in the national assembly,” influential Socialist MP Boris Vallaud acknowledged in an interview with broadcaster France Inter.

Macron’s camp came second in Sunday’s vote, taking 164 seats after voters came together to block the far-right National Rally (RN) from power.

This left the anti-immigration, anti-Brussels outfit in third place with 143 MPs.

The president has kept Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s government in place for now, hoping horse-trading in the coming days and weeks could leave an opening for him to reclaim the initiative.

However, “there has been an institutional shift. Everyone thinks it’s up to the newly-elected National Assembly to bring forth a solution, which [Macron] would simply have to accept,” wrote commentator Guillaume Tabard in conservative daily Le Figaro.

‘None can govern alone’

In a sign that some divisions remain, the left parties’ MPs planned to enter the parliament at different times throughout the day.

The Socialists are still hoping to glean a few more members for their group to outweigh LFI and have a greater say over the alliance’s direction.

Meanwhile, members of Macron’s camp were eyeing both the centre-left Socialists and conservative Republicans as possible allies of convenience for a new centrist-dominated coalition.

“None of the three leading blocs can govern alone,” Stephane Sejourne, head of Macron’s Renaissance party, wrote in daily Le Monde.

“The centrist bloc is ready to talk to all the members of the republican spectrum,” he added — while naming red lines including that coalition members must support the EU and Ukraine and maintain business-friendly policies.

These requirements, he warned, “necessarily exclude LFI” and its caustic founder Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Markets are paying close attention to the EU’s second-largest economy.

Ratings agency Moody’s warned it could downgrade its credit score for France’s more than three-trillion-euro debt pile if a future government reverses Macron’s widely-loathed 2023 pension reform, echoing a Monday warning from S&P on the deficit.

What next?

Even as politicians struggle to define the immediate path ahead, eyes are also already turning to the next time French voters will be called to the polls.

Macron’s term expires in 2027 and he cannot run a third time — potentially leaving the way open for his twice-defeated opponent, RN figurehead Marine Le Pen, to finally capture the presidency.

The far-right outfit has been digesting a disappointing result after polls suggested it could take an absolute majority in parliament.

On Tuesday, party sources told AFP its director-general Gilles Penelle had resigned.

Penelle, elected last month to the European Parliament, was the architect of a “push-button” plan supposed to prepare the RN for snap elections, which ultimately failed to produce a full roster of credible candidates.

The far right outfit’s progress is undeniable, having advanced from just eight MPs soon after Macron’s first presidential win in 2017 to 143 today.

Greens and LFI leaders nevertheless called Tuesday for the RN to be shut out of key parliamentary posts.

“Every time we give them jobs, we increase their competence. It’s important not to give them jobs with responsibilities,” leading LFI lawmaker Mathilde Panot said.

“Today we represent 10 million French people with 143 MPs,” retorted RN representative Thomas Menage, calling the appeal “anti-democratic”.

As for Macron, he has sought to stay above the fray, planning for a trip to Washington for a NATO summit starting on Wednesday where allies may be in need of reassurance of France’s stability.