标签： Asia

In a seismic upset that has sent shockwaves through U.S. Democratic politics, progressive public health advocate Abdul El-Sayed has claimed the Democratic Party’s U.S. Senate nomination for Michigan, defeating centrist incumbent Congresswoman Haley Stevens in one of the costliest and most closely watched primary contests in modern American history.

NBC News projected El-Sayed’s victory late Tuesday, following a months-long bruising campaign that saw outside interest groups pour more than $60 million into the race — the bulk of that sum directed at blocking El-Sayed from advancing to the general election. With 92.9 percent of expected ballots counted by 8:30 a.m. BST Wednesday, the progressive challenger held a narrow but decisive lead, capturing 48.7 percent of the vote compared to Stevens’ 47.3 percent.

Within moments of the projection, former primary candidate Mallory McMorrow, a state legislator who dropped out of the race weeks before election day, threw her full support behind El-Sayed, unifying progressive factions ahead of the November general election.

The outcome stands as a major political defeat for high-profile pro-Israel lobbying groups, most notably the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which poured more than $30 million into independent expenditure campaigns to boost Stevens and defeat El-Sayed, one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent and vocal pro-Palestinian voices.

As preliminary vote counts began trickling in early Wednesday, El-Sayed addressed cheering supporters at a Detroit watch party, framing the moment as a stepping stone rather than a final victory. “I wish I could tell you that I was declaring victory right about now,” he told the crowd, while already turning his attention to the general election matchup against former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers.

The 41-year-old former Detroit health director will now face Rogers in November, in a competitive general election race that could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate for the final two years of Donald Trump’s second presidential term. Directing his message to his November opponent, El-Sayed declared: “I know you’re listening, Mike. Mike, we are coming for you.”

El-Sayed’s projected primary win marks a defining watershed moment for both the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and Michigan’s large Arab American electorate. Voters from both groups coalesced around El-Sayed over months of grassroots organizing rooted in widespread opposition to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and deep frustration with the Democratic Party’s longstanding alignment with pro-Israel advocacy groups.

Throughout the primary, El-Sayed repeatedly criticized AIPAC and its affiliated political action committees for attempting to “buy” the election through unprecedented levels of outside spending. Stevens, for her part, pushed back against claims that she was overly influenced by out-of-state interest groups, arguing that her long record of delivering policy results for Michigan voters made her the stronger candidate.

El-Sayed has repeatedly described Israel’s military operations in Gaza as a genocide — a framing that aligns with positions held by dozens of international human rights organizations and Palestinian advocates, but one that has been rejected by both Israeli officials and every recent U.S. presidential administration. The progressive candidate has also argued that the billions of dollars in annual U.S. military aid sent to Israel should instead be redirected to domestic priorities including expanding healthcare access, building more affordable housing, funding public education, and upgrading crumbling national infrastructure.

His policy positions on the Gaza conflict have resonated deeply with Michigan voters, many of whom organized grassroots opposition to former President Joe Biden during the 2024 Democratic primaries over his unwavering support for Israel’s military campaign.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Early official results from the first two phases of legislative assembly elections in Pakistan-administered Kashmir show Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) holding an overwhelming early lead, defying weeks of destabilizing protests and organized boycott calls from a recently banned opposition group.

Raja Shakeel, spokesperson for the region’s independent election commission, confirmed Wednesday that candidates backed by PML-N have secured 24 of the 34 seats decided in the first two rounds of voting. Even with 11 remaining seats set to go to the polls on August 10, election observers already project the party is on an unassailable path to form the next regional government — marking PML-N’s return to power in the territory after a 10-year absence.

Election officials extended voting across three phases to address two overlapping challenges: persistent security threats from unrest and severe disruption from annual monsoon rains, which made large-scale outdoor campaign rallies logistically unfeasible and dangerous. Despite these headwinds and the boycott campaign, voter turnout has outperformed many expectations: regional data shows turnout surpassed 50% across most voting areas, hitting 56% in the regional capital of Muzaffarabad.

The electoral process was overshadowed for weeks by demonstrations led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), an opposition group that was formally banned by the regional government over public order and national security concerns shortly before voting began. The JAAC has centered its protest on 12 legislative seats reserved for refugees displaced from Indian-controlled Kashmir following the 1947 partition of British India. The group argues these seats give unfair disproportionate political influence to people residing outside Pakistan-administered Kashmir and has repeatedly called for the reserved seats to be eliminated entirely. The controversy escalated in June when the region’s Supreme Court ruled that the reserved seats are constitutionally protected, and can only be altered through a formal constitutional amendment, a process that requires approval from the elected legislative assembly.

The reserved seats were first established to guarantee political representation for displaced families who settled across mainland Pakistan after partition, when Pakistan-administered Kashmir lacked the infrastructure and resources to accommodate a large influx of new residents. Decades later, many descendants of these displaced families still reside across Pakistan, while others have since relocated to the Pakistan-administered Kashmir region.

In the lead-up to voting, repeated clashes broke out between JAAC supporters and local police. Regional authorities have further alleged that members of the Pakistani Taliban have infiltrated JAAC protests to disrupt the democratic process, claims the JAAC has not issued any formal response to. Despite these threats of violence, the majority of registered voters turned out to cast their ballots, exercising their democratic right amid widespread insecurity.

Political analysts note that the strong turnout and rejection of the boycott campaign signals broad public confidence in the regional democratic process, even amid longstanding political tension. In a formal statement following the release of early results, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif offered congratulations to all winning candidates for their successful campaigns.

The Kashmir region has remained one of the world’s longest-running territorial disputes: both nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan administer separate portions of the Himalayan territory, while each claims full sovereignty over the entire region. Since both states gained independence from British rule in 1947, two of the three full-scale wars fought between the two nations have been over control of Kashmir.

On a Wednesday marked by overlapping symbolic events tied to Bangladesh’s 2024 political upheaval, ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina made a defiant declaration from her exile in India: she intends to return to her homeland this December, even as a capital punishment sentence hangs over her head for the deadly 2024 crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Hasina delivered the announcement via an audio address at a New Delhi event commemorating the second anniversary of the student-led uprising that forced her from power. The 15-year incumbent prime minister fled to India in 2024 as mass protests swept across Bangladesh, and has remained in exile outside her country ever since. In 2025, a Bangladeshi court convicted her in absentia of crimes against humanity for ordering the violent response to the uprising, sentencing her to death. A United Nations report on the unrest recorded that nearly 1,400 people lost their lives during the crackdown, charges that Hasina has repeatedly and vehemently denied.

Facing legal jeopardy that could cost her life, Hasina framed her planned return as a non-negotiable responsibility to the people of Bangladesh. “I know that they may put me in jail, or they may kill me, or anything may happen, but still I have to go back,” she stated. “Fear cannot decide my duty to the people.” She also used the address to push for two key political demands: the lifting of the current ban on her Awami League party, and the release of all political detainees being held under the current administration.

Bangladesh’s current government has repeatedly requested India extradite Hasina to face her sentence, but New Delhi has thus far refused to hand the former leader over. The status of that extradition request remains unchanged as of Hasina’s latest announcement.

Half a world away in Dhaka, the same day brought a separate event that cemented the legacy of the uprising that ended Hasina’s rule: Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman officially opened the July Mass Uprising Memorial Museum, installed in Hasina’s former official residence. The memorial initiative was first launched by the interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who took office just three days after Hasina fled the country in 2024. Yunus joined Rahman for the inauguration ceremony.

The museum preserves the story of the 2024 uprising through immersive exhibits, including audio and video footage of the unrest, personal effects of protesters killed during the crackdown, contemporaneous newspaper clippings, and documentation of alleged systemic political repression that occurred during Hasina’s 15 years in power.

Rahman, the son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia and Hasina’s long-standing political archrival, won a landslide election victory in February 2025, in a vote administered by Yunus’ interim government. Hasina’s Awami League was blocked from participating in that electoral contest. The report on Hasina’s announcement was filed by contributing journalist Alam based in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Pakistan’s federal government has introduced sweeping new regulations governing international media reporting across most of the country, triggering fierce condemnation from journalist groups and press freedom advocates who warn the rules will further erode independent coverage and create fertile ground for disinformation.

Announced on Sunday under the official title of the *Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines, 2026*, the new requirements mandate that every individual working for international media outlets — including Pakistani citizens, freelance contributors and local fixers — must obtain a government-issued No Objection Certificate (NOC) to report from any location outside of Pakistan’s three largest cities: Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore. The policy leaves all on-the-ground reporting outside these major urban centers completely at the discretion of federal authorities.

The move comes as Pakistan already ranks 153rd out of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, reflecting long-standing challenges to open journalism in the nation of 240 million people. Critics note that while media restrictions have a long history in Pakistan, domestic outlets have traditionally faced greater pressure than their international counterparts, which many Pakistanis rely on for unfiltered reporting on sensitive issues.

“These guidelines are tantamount to choking international media in an increasingly shrinking space,” said Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, a prominent Pakistani political commentator. “The public looks at the international media for independent reporting. Placing restrictions simply creates more room for disinformation and spread of fake news.”

The regulations do not include any clear timeline for processing NOC applications, a gap that mirrors existing approval processes for foreign journalists. Many international correspondents have previously reported waiting months for NOC approval, or receiving no response at all — a delay that effectively blocks coverage of breaking news events from outside the three permitted cities. To avoid these bottlenecks, international outlets have long relied on Pakistani contributors based in or able to travel freely to regions like Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Pakistan-administered Kashmir; under the new rules, all of these contributors will now require official approval to work on stories.

Zaffar Abbas, veteran editor of Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper *Dawn*, called the new rules “ridiculous restrictions and are totally unacceptable.” With more than four decades of journalistic experience in Pakistan spanning military dictatorships and authoritarian civilian governments, Abbas noted he has never encountered such sweeping limits on reporting. “To ask journalists to get an NOC for travelling outside the three major cities not just undermines freedom of movement but also freedom of the press,” he added.

In its official defense of the policy, the Pakistani government has rejected claims that the guidelines are intended to restrict reporting, framing the rules instead as a neutral “administrative mechanism” to verify media credentials, coordinate reporting requests, and facilitate access to restricted regions. Government officials further argue that any accreditation system must retain the authority to revoke credentials for journalists who engage in activity that threatens national security or public order.

The guidelines include a provision allowing authorities to revoke a journalist’s accreditation for “acts against ideology, sovereignty, security or public order of Pakistan” — a broadly worded clause that Khokhar has called “vague,” warning it opens the door to arbitrary enforcement against critical reporting.

Legal experts have also raised red flags about the policy’s legal foundation. Salhuddin Ahmed, a lawyer practicing before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, says the guidelines have no basis in statutory law. “These ‘guidelines’ are merely an executive order and lack any legal backing from statute,” Ahmed explained. “They refer to the rules of business; those rules are only meant to regulate the internal functioning of government, not create legal obligations on others. Quite clearly, these guidelines are a hastily and ill-thought-out attempt to further curb independent reporting in Pakistan.”
The government counters that the rules are a valid regulation of the Information Ministry’s External Publicity wing’s administrative relationship with foreign media, falling within the scope of existing government business rules.

Press freedom advocates, including a coalition of international journalists and the president of Pakistan’s Federal Union of Journalists, are currently working to arrange a meeting with Pakistan’s information minister to formally raise their objections to the new policy.

Observers have pointed to ongoing unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PAK) as a key trigger for the new restrictions. The region has seen two months of violent clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces that have left dozens dead, amid a local election boycott and sweeping internet shutdowns that have made independent verification of events extremely difficult.

Just one day after the new guidelines were announced, the External Publicity wing sent an urgent WhatsApp message to international media outlets ordering all journalists currently in PAK to “return back IMMEDIATELY” and apply for an NOC if they wish to report from the region. The message was sent after multiple major international outlets, including the BBC, published on-the-ground reports from the disputed territory.

Earlier this week, the Qatari news network Al Jazeera’s website became inaccessible to users within Pakistan after the Information Ministry labeled a correspondent’s report from PAK’s regional capital “yellow journalism” — a term referring to sensationalized, inaccurate reporting. No formal public ban on the outlet has been announced, however.

Kashmir is one of the world’s most long-standing disputed territories, with both India and Pakistan claiming full sovereignty over the region while each controls only a portion of it. Coverage of unrest in Pakistan-administered Kashmir has long been an extremely politically sensitive topic for the Pakistani government. Two local Pakistani journalists speaking to the BBC confirmed they had been explicitly warned by their editors to avoid covering the ongoing unrest.

BANGKOK, Associated Press – As diplomatic tensions simmer between the world’s two largest economies ahead of a planned high-level summit, China unveiled a suite of targeted countermeasures against the United States on Wednesday, responding directly to a series of recent restrictive actions rolled out by the Biden administration. The retaliatory package includes new export controls on drone technology and a formal trade ban targeting six U.S.-based entities, marking a sharp escalation in the ongoing bilateral economic and geopolitical standoff.

The rising friction comes even after earlier signs of detente: during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s May meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing, the two leaders reached tentative consensus that was meant to ease strained ties, ahead of Xi’s expected official visit to the U.S. this September. Even so, recent unilateral actions from Washington have pushed Beijing to respond in kind, Chinese officials confirmed.

According to a statement released by China’s Ministry of Commerce, the latest countermeasures are a direct response to two recent U.S. actions: first, a ban on imports of Chinese drones issued by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, and second, the addition of 43 Chinese firms to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a move that blocks imports of goods produced by those companies into the U.S.

The Commerce Ministry emphasized in its statement that Washington’s recent steps “seriously violate the important consensus reached by the two heads of state and severely damage China’s legitimate rights and interests.” The statement added that “China has no choice but to take necessary countermeasures in response,” while noting that Beijing has exercised deliberate restraint throughout the escalation. Beijing has called on Washington to immediately reverse its restrictive measures against Chinese entities and abandon what it calls its “erroneous practices.” The ministry also issued a clear warning: further retaliatory steps will be implemented if the U.S. rolls out any new restrictive policies targeting China.

Under the new drone export rules, Beijing now requires case-by-case security reviews for all exports of unmanned aerial vehicles, their core components, and related dual-use technologies that can be adapted for both civilian and military applications.

Six U.S. entities are barred from all trade and commercial dealings with Chinese entities, including New York-based biotechnology firm Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. and the non-governmental organization Human Rights in China. A seventh U.S.-based firm, Compliance Testing LLC, was also banned from operating in China; the Commerce Ministry stated that the company collaborated with the FCC on actions that “harm China’s sovereignty and security.”

In a separate regulatory move, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation announced that U.S.-based firms that conduct on-site factory inspections for China’s mandatory CCC (China Compulsory Certificate) safety certification will no longer be authorized to provide these services. CCC certification is required for all electronic products sold in the Chinese market to confirm they meet national safety standards, meaning U.S. electronics manufacturers seeking access to the Chinese market will now be required to hire third-party auditors based outside the U.S., or work with non-U.S. designated certification bodies.

The Commerce Ministry also revealed it has launched a national security probe into imported printing software and office equipment, though it declined to name specific companies affected by the investigation.

The latest escalation follows a series of recent U.S. restrictions targeting Chinese tech imports: In December 2024, the U.S. FCC implemented a ban on new Chinese drone imports, later revising the rule to allow a small number of specific models to enter the country. Just last week, the FCC also issued new import bans on foreign-made humanoid robots and power inverters, citing unaddressed national security risks – a policy that is widely understood to primarily target Chinese manufacturing exports.

The report was contributed by Leung from Hong Kong.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Against a backdrop of steadily mounting cross-Strait tensions, Taiwan launched its annual 10-day Han Kuang military exercises on Wednesday, a large-scale training series designed to prepare the self-governing island for a potential military incursion from China, which has long claimed Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory.

Unlike routine training maneuvers, this year’s drills are tailored to address the full spectrum of modern security threats Taiwan faces, from large-scale invasion scenarios to the incremental, below-war-threshold “gray-zone” pressure that China has regularly employed in recent years. A core operational objective of the exercises is to verify whether Taiwan’s standing military can maintain uninterrupted 24-hour defensive operations across multiple fronts, while building more flexible, autonomous response capabilities for frontline troops.

This iteration of the exercises introduces several key updates that reflect evolving defense priorities. Drawing on doctrinal guidance from the United States, Taiwan’s military is testing new communication protocols, including the backbrief system, through which lower-echelon commanders explicitly outline their mission execution plans to senior leaders. Defense analysts note this framework is intended to empower frontline fighters to make independent, effective decisions amid the chaos of combat, rather than relying solely on top-down orders.

Another notable expansion comes in reserve mobilization: this year’s drills will activate a record force of more than 5,000 reservists organized into two full brigades, marking a significant increase from 2023’s exercise, which mobilized just one 3,000-strong reserve brigade. The drill will assess how quickly reserve personnel can transition from peacetime standby status to fully operational active duty, a critical capability for reinforcing frontline defenses in the opening days of a conflict.

In line with Taiwan’s longstanding focus on integrating civilian defense into national security planning, urban resilience drills will be conducted across three major population centers: the capital Taipei, central Taiwan’s Taichung, and southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung. To simulate the signal jamming and telecommunications disruption that would likely accompany a large-scale attack, organizers will intentionally slow mobile internet speeds for a 30-minute period during the drills, testing civilian response protocols and public adaptability to critical infrastructure outages.

The exercises also mark the first formal field testing of Taiwan’s newly delivered American-made M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks. Taipei signed a contract to purchase 108 of the advanced tanks from the U.S. in 2019, with the final shipment of the platform arriving on the island in April this year.

Taiwan relies on the U.S. for the vast majority of its advanced military hardware, and Washington remains Taipei’s most important informal security partner amid persistent Chinese territorial claims. Beijing views the democratically governed island as a separatist province that must be reunified with mainland China, by force if necessary, and has ramped up near-daily military coercion campaigns over the past five years, including regular incursions of military aircraft and naval vessels into Taiwan’s adjacent air and sea defense identification zones.

Just weeks before the launch of the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s legislative body approved a $24.8 billion supplementary defense budget earmarked for U.S. arms purchases, a figure that fell short of the $40 billion proposal put forward by President Lai Ching-te. Currently, the Taiwanese government is awaiting approval for a long-delayed $14 billion arms sales package from Washington. While former U.S. President Donald Trump and Congress previously signed off on a separate record-breaking $11 billion arms package for Taiwan, Trump indicated after a May visit to China that arms sales to Taipei could serve as a “good negotiating chip” in talks with Beijing, and has so far declined to greenlight the new, pending $14 billion sales package.