Afghanistan welcomes regional rejection of foreign military bases The Afghan government has welcomed the joint stance of Pakistan, Russia, China, and Iran in opposing the establishment of any foreign military bases within Afghanistan.

In a statement, deputy spokesperson of the Islamic Emirate, Hamdullah Fitrat, stated, “We welcome the position of Pakistan, Russia, China, and Iran against the presence of any foreign military bases. Afghan soil will not be allowed to be used against any other country, nor will any armed groups be permitted to operate within the country.”

Fitrat dismissed the notion that Afghanistan posed a threat to other nations as baseless. According to him, the Islamic Emirate is taking serious measures against corruption, narcotics, and all forms of undesirable activities, viewing this as its national responsibility.

He clarified that the Islamic Emirate seeks to establish positive relations with all countries on the basis of mutual respect. The deputy spokesperson added that it is a realistic and pragmatic approach to prioritise relations with regional and global nations in the context of Afghanistan’s security, stability, and development.

“The policy of Kabul is based on mutual trust, positive engagement, and the promotion of friendly relations,” he said, firmly rejecting any unfounded concerns or baseless allegations regarding Afghanistan.

Political analysts believe that the support for Afghanistan’s stability by regional countries presents a significant opportunity for the Islamic Emirate to strengthen its political and economic ties. According to experts, a constructive response from Kabul to the concerns of neighbouring countries could help advance the process of confidence-building.

The development comes after China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan recently held a quadrilateral meeting and issued a joint statement on Afghanistan.

The statement highlighted the importance of regional frameworks — particularly the “Moscow Format” and the “Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)” — in resolving issues related to Afghanistan.

The joint stance of Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan on Afghanistan may not only serve as diplomatic support for the Islamic Emirate but could also open new avenues for peace, stability, and cooperation in the region.

Tang Renjian, China’s former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, was sentenced to death with reprieve for bribery at a court in Jilin province on Sunday, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.

Tang took bribes, including cash and property worth over 268 million yuan ($37.6 million), in various positions held from 2007 to 2024, Xinhua said.

The Changchun Intermediate People’s Court suspended his death sentence for two years, noting he had confessed to his crimes, it added.

China’s Communist Party expelled Tang in November 2024, six months after he was placed under investigation by the anti-graft watchdog and removed from his post.

President Xi Jinping started a campaign of purges of China’s domestic security apparatus in 2020, seeking to ensure police, prosecutors and judges are “absolutely loyal, absolutely pure and absolutely reliable”.

Tang was governor of the western province of Gansu from 2017 to 2020 before being named minister of agriculture and rural affairs, according to official biographies.

In January, Xi said corruption is the biggest threat to China’s Communist Party and remains on the rise.

WASHINGTON: Vacationing in India, engineer Amrutha Tamanam rushed to return to the United States after Donald Trump abruptly announced a $100,000 fee for the visa she holds.

As she scrambled to get back to the country she’s called home for a decade, racially motivated far-right trolls launched coordinated efforts to disrupt flight bookings from India, calling their campaign “clog the toilet.”

The White House would later clarify that the new H-1B fee was a one-time payment not applicable to current holders. But leading US companies had already advised their employees abroad to swiftly return to avoid the fee or risk being stranded overseas.

Tamanam, an Austin-based software engineer, began searching for a flight from the city of Vijayawada, as users on the far-right message board 4chan moved to overwhelm reservation systems, in a bid to block Indian visa holders from booking tickets.

One 4chan thread encouraged users to find India-US flights, “initiate the checkout process”, but “don’t check out,” thereby clogging the system and preventing the visa holders from reaching the United States before the announcement took effect.

The campaign may have had a direct impact on Tamanam, who encountered repeated crashes on airline websites. The checkout page, which typically allows users a window of a few minutes, timed out much faster.

After multiple attempts, she eventually managed to rebook a one-way ticket to Dallas on Qatar Airways, spending around $2,000 — more than double the cost of her original round-trip fare.

“It was hard for me to book a ticket, and I paid a huge fare for the panic travel,” Tamanam told AFP.

‘Keep them in India’

The 4chan thread — which also circulated among far-right Trump supporters on Telegram and other fringe forums — read: “Indians are just waking up after the H1B news. Want to keep them in India? Clog the flight reservation system!”

Responding posts, many riddled with racist slurs, advised users to hold seats for popular India-US routes on airline websites and booking platforms — without completing the purchase.

The stated goal was to block availability on high-demand flights, making it harder to find available seats and inflating prices.

Illustrating the scale of the operation, one 4chan user posted a screenshot of their browser and claimed: “I got 100 seats locked.”

“Currently clogging the last available seat on this Delhi to Newark flight,” another wrote.

Several 4chan users also posted about holding up seats on Air India and slowing the airline’s website. However, an Air India spokesperson told AFP the site experienced no disruptions, with systems operating normally.

‘Shared antipathy’

Though it was difficult to measure the campaign’s overall effectiveness, the trolling was an attempt to “cause panic among H-1B visa holders,” Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told AFP.

“The real scary thing about 4chan is its ability to radicalise people into extremist beliefs,” Beirich said, adding that several US mass shooters had published manifestos to the site.

H-1B visas allow companies to sponsor foreign workers with specialised skills — such as scientists and computer programmers — to work in the United States, initially for three years but extendable to six.

The United States awards 85,000 H-1B visas per year on a lottery system, with India accounting for around three-quarters of the recipients.

In an age of information warfare, the troll operation illustrates how bad actors can launch disruptive attacks “with the stroke of a keyboard,” said Brian Levin, founder of the Centre for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

“As nationalistic politics takes hold across the world, an informal international association of opponents will use an array of aggressive tools, including the internet,” Levin told AFP.

“What I think is so relevant is how rapidly it spread, how diverse the nations represented were, and how shared antipathy across international borders can be mobilised online.”