Instruction: Write an article about: US convenes anti-China ‘Quad’ alliance, Beijing calls it ‘tool for containment and siege’. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Antony Blinken, Australia, China, Cold War Two, India, Japan, new cold war, Quad, Russia, Scott Morrison, Ukraine

Output:
The US, Japan, and India held a meeting of the Quad alliance in Australia. Beijing condemned it as “a tool for containing and besieging China to maintain US hegemony,” with an “antiquated Cold War mentality.”

(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)
The United States has brought Japan, India, and Australia together in an anti-China alliance called the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad for short.
Top representatives of these four countries convened in the Australian city of Melbourne on February 11, to discuss ways to counter Beijing, among other issues.
The Chinese government responded to the meeting by condemning the Quad as “a tool for containing and besieging China to maintain US hegemony.” Beijing accused the alliance of seeking “to stoke confrontation,” with an “antiquated Cold War mentality.”
The timing of this gathering was not coincidental; it came right in the middle of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which the US, Australia, and India had condemned with diplomatic boycotts. (Britain’s influential newspaper the Financial Times described the Beijing Olympics as “the new front line in the US-China cold war.”)
The Melbourne meeting featured the foreign ministers of the US, Japan, India, and Australia, and was their fourth reunion since the Quad was re-established by the Donald Trump administration in 2017 to focus on containing Beijing.
The Quad is a vital part of our vision for the Indo-Pacific and shows the priority we place on working with partners and allies in the region. We had a productive discussion on issues that shape our collective prosperity and security. pic.twitter.com/VvEhZOEVAK
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) February 11, 2022

The Australian government enthusiastically endorsed the Quad meeting by not only sending its foreign minister but also its Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the leader of the right-wing Liberal Party, who has made fearmongering about the supposed “threat” of China a central part of his political program.
Under Morrison, Australia has become a front line in the second cold war. The country joined an anti-China military alliance with Washington and London called AUKUS, and announced it is buying nuclear-powered submarines with North American and British technology – a very provocative move, given that all other countries that have nuclear submarines also have nuclear weapons.
In a press conference before the Quad meeting, Morrison claimed Australia has faced “coercion and the pressure,” implying that China was guilty. He framed the conflict with Beijing as a matter of “freedom,” insisting that the alliance exists to protect “a world order that favors freedom, and particularly here in a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Appreciate that PM @ScottMorrisonMP met the Quad FMs collectively before we began talks. His insights and thoughts were valuable.
We are focused on the early and effective realization of our Leaders' vision. pic.twitter.com/VfKMSRcbdw
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) February 11, 2022

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Quad members “share concerns that in recent years China has been acting more repressively at home and more aggressively in the region, and indeed potentially beyond.”
Blinken joined the Australian prime minister in portraying the meeting as “four democracies coming together.” Juxtaposing them implicitly against Beijing, Morrison claimed the Quad consists of “great democracies, great liberal democracies.”
Neither Blinken nor Morrison mentioned that Japan is essentially a one-party state that has been ruled by the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party, with few exceptions, since 1955, or that India is governed by the far-right Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been dismantling the secular state and attacking the rights of religious minorities.
Facts like these, along with the US and Australian governments’ continued history of genocide against Indigenous peoples and brutal violations of civil rights, blatantly contradicted their attempt to portray the Quad as a symbol of freedom and democracy against supposed Chinese authoritarianism.
The foreign ministers of the United States, Australia, India, and Japan at the Quad meeting in Melbourne on February 11
Following the meeting, the four Quad member states released a joint statement. From the use of language, it appears that this declaration was largely written by the United States.
Blinken stated in the press conference that the Quad exists to defend the “free and open Indo-Pacific, the most dynamic region in the world with the fastest growing economies, half the world’s population.” The statement echoed this rhetoric, calling “to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific – a region which is inclusive and resilient, and in which states strive to protect the interests of their people, free from coercion.”
Blinken said the Quad seeks “to defend the rules-based system that we have spent tremendous time and effort building over these many years.” The declaration used this phrase “rules-based” three times, reflecting Washington’s attempts to create a new international legal framework that it controls, in order to isolate China and Russia.
Although the joint statement forcefully condemned North Korea and Myanmar, it was careful not to mention China by name. Despite this, it was overwhelmingly aimed at attacking Beijing, implicitly referring to it as a threat to the Indo-Pacific region.
The Chinese government vociferously condemned the February 11 Quad meeting in Australia.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian asserted in a press conference on the same day, “China believes that the so-called Quad group cobbled together by the US, Japan, India and Australia is essentially a tool for containing and besieging China to maintain US hegemony.”
The Quad “aims to stoke confrontation and undermine international solidarity and cooperation,” Zhao said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman added, “I want to stress that as the Cold War is long over. The attempt to forge a so-called alliance to contain China wins no support and leads nowhere.”
“Relevant countries should abandon the antiquated Cold War mentality, correct the wrong approach of bloc confrontation and geopolitical games, and contribute to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific,” Zhao said.
A reporter in the press conference asked the Foreign Ministry spokesman to respond to US Secretary of State Blinken’s comment that “China has been acting more repressively at home and more aggressively in the region.” Zhao replied, “Speaking of being aggressive in this region and beyond, the United States is second to none.”
Speaking of being aggressive in this region and beyond, the United States is second to none. pic.twitter.com/hOL0DSUF5L
— Spokesperson发言人办公室 (@MFA_China) February 12, 2022

Global Times, a newspaper owned by the Communist Party of China’s official organ People’s Daily, responded to the Australia meeting with an article titled “US ropes in Quad allies to fight ‘two-front wars’ with China and Russia despite spent force.”
The semi-official Chinese newspaper wrote, “The sign is clearer than ever that the US is turning Quad into a tool to serve its own strategic goal of countering China and Russia simultaneously.”
It noted that Blinken brought up the conflict in Ukraine in the Quad meeting, although the alliance claims to be focused on Indo-Pacific concerns.
Washington’s attempt to get its Quad allies on board with a cold war against Russia as well is less likely, however. Australia has taken a hard line against Moscow, but Japan and India have more complex relationships.
Japan and Russia are certainly not allies, but until recently they had cordial diplomatic ties. A conflict in 2021 over disputed islands led to souring relations, and Moscow has criticized Tokyo for joining the US in threatening Russia over Ukraine.
India’s government, led by the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindu-nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has taken an extremely aggressive line against China.
In fact, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar used the Quad meeting as an opportunity to attack China, blaming it for a border dispute that has led to violence.
Yet while ultra-conservative Hindu-nationalist politicians in New Delhi, like their right-wing counterparts in the West, have turned Beijing into a convenient scapegoat for their domestic problems, India has not joined the United States in its war drive against Russia.
In a press conference before the Quad meeting, a journalist asked Foreign Minister Jaishankar what New Delhi’s position is on the conflict in Ukraine. He evaded the question, repeating that “this meeting is focused on the Indo-Pacific.”
The Australia reunion made it clear that, while the Quad members are united in their mutual goal to contain China, they still have political differences on other issues.


Instruction: Write an article about: NY Times admits Saudi bombing of Yemen could not continue without US support. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: New York Times, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Output:
The New York Times editorial board acknowledged that Saudi Arabia could not wage war on Yemen without US backing: “the coalition would be grounded if Washington withheld its support”.

The editorial board of The New York Times has acknowledged what journalists and activists have said for well over a year: The Saudi Arabia’s brutal bombing campaign, which has ravaged Yemen and created a humanitarian catastrophe, would be impossible were it not for US support.
“Experts say the coalition would be grounded if Washington withheld its support,” the US newspaper of record wrote in “America Is Complicit in the Carnage in Yemen,” an editorial published on August 17.
The United States is complicit in the Saudi carnage in Yemen. https://t.co/WRiWwpQ6fM pic.twitter.com/1AJKIwI7Sw
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) August 17, 2016

This admission comes a bit late, considering the US-backed bombing began in March 2015 — and, since then, thousands of civilians have been killed; millions have been displaced; more than half of the country, at least 14 million people, are going hungry; and parts of major Yemeni cities have been pulverized.
“The United States is complicit in this carnage,” the editorial board conceded. “It has enabled the coalition in many ways, including selling arms to the Saudis.”
The Times continued:
Although many experts believe the threat to be overstated, Mr. Obama agreed to support the Yemen intervention — without formal authorization from Congress — and sell the Saudis even more weapons in part to appease Riyadh’s anger over the Iran nuclear deal. All told, since taking office, Mr. Obama has sold the Saudis $110 billion in arms, including Apache helicopters and missiles.
Mr. Obama has also supplied the coalition such indispensable assistance as intelligence, in-flight refueling of aircraft and help in identifying appropriate targets. Experts say the coalition would be grounded if Washington withheld its support. Instead, the State Department last week approved the potential sale of $1.15 billion more in tanks and other equipment to Saudi Arabia to replace items destroyed in the war.
The editorial board also recognized a UN report that found the coalition responsible for 60 percent of the deaths and injuries to Yemeni children, along with reports by human rights groups that document war crimes committed by the coalition.
Many of these basic facts — which independent journalists have reported on for months— have been absent from the Times’ coverage of the war.


Instruction: Write an article about: Pakistan warns of foreign-backed regime-change attempt, to disrupt China/Russia alliance. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: China, Imran Khan, Islamophobia, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia

Output:
Pakistan’s opposition is trying to overthrow Prime Minister Imran Khan with a no-confidence motion. Khan says the US sent him a threatening letter and he has proof of foreign funding for a regime-change operation, aimed at reversing his independent foreign policy – like his alliance with China and Russia and support for Palestine.

(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)
While the world’s attention is understandably focused on the crisis in Ukraine, equally grave developments are taking place elsewhere. Perhaps the most consequential – and underreported – is a regime-change operation underway in Pakistan.
This March, opposition lawmakers in Pakistan’s parliament launched a “no-confidence” motion aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Khan, who was democratically elected in 2018, has warned that an “effort is being made to topple the government with the help of foreign funds in our country.”
“Our people are being used. Mostly unknowingly, but some knowingly are using this money against us,” Khan said at a rally on March 27. He added that the government had proof of these payments.
Khan argued that these external interests seek to reverse his independent foreign policy. He recalled his predecessor Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Pakistani prime minister who was overthrown in a US-backed coup in 1977, then executed following a show trial.
Bhutto was punished “when he tried to bring in a free foreign policy to the country,” Khan declared.
Khan specifically singled out the United States for meddling to try to remove him from power. He said he received a letter from Washington that threatened him for refusing to allow it to establish US military bases in Pakistan.
He cautioned that the opposition is collaborating with the United States and other foreign countries in its no-confidence motion against him.
#Pakistani PM #ImranKhan said that he has received threats from #Washington due to his rejection of establishing #US military bases in #Pakistan.
He said he refuses to resign from his position, stressing that he will not kneel for any entity, nor will he allow his people to. pic.twitter.com/2LD4aajwiB
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) March 31, 2022

These warnings came just over a month after Khan publicly criticized the US government for cynically using Pakistan to advance Washington’s interests. He also simultaneously praised China for always acting as a “friend” of Islamabad.
“Whenever the US needed us, they established relations, and Pakistan became a frontline state [against the Soviet Union], and then abandoned it and slapped sanctions on us,” Khan complained.
On the other hand, “China is a friend which has always stood by Pakistan,” he contrasted.
The idea that a regime-change plot could even be conceived of, let alone attempted, in a nuclear-armed country of more than 220 million may seem shocking and preposterous. On the surface, it strikes as incredulous considering that Islamabad is a major world capital, arguably the most powerful within the Muslim-majority world.
Nevertheless, it is precisely these characteristics that make Pakistan so geopolitically important.
The following is an analysis of the principal reasons for why hostile foreign elites have decided that Prime Minister Imran Khan must go:
Imran Khan was always dubbed a “fanatic” – i.e., overly critical of US foreign policy.
Khan strongly opposed Washington’s so-called “war on terror,” and especially the war in Afghanistan, arguing that military solutions were both immoral and counterproductive. For this he was long disparagingly referred to as “Taliban Khan.”
What bruised Washington’s ego even more was that Khan turned out to be right. The American debacle in Afghanistan that ended with Kabul falling to the Taliban was perceived by the US as a victory for Pakistan, and for Khan in particular.
The US is unwilling to forgive Khan for its own humiliation in Afghanistan, even though he had little to do with it.
Imran Khan’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2019 was condemned as overly audacious. A Pakistani leader speaking so strongly on issues of global injustice made Western elites feel that he had become way too big for his shoes.
At least three of the points that he emphasized in his remarks rubbed Western supremacists in the wrong way.
First, Khan condemned powerful Western countries for enabling elites of the Global South to plunder their own societies.
Second, he highlighted Islamophobia as not a marginal affair, but as a dangerous phenomenon structuring our global order – and one that the world must take seriously.
Relatedly, Khan scathingly criticized the insidious characterization of some Muslims as “moderate” and others as “radical.” These maliciously constructed distinctions have been essential to the political lexicon of the “war on terror.”
Third, Khan spoke passionately about the Kashmiri struggle against Indian occupation in a way that few Pakistani (or any other) leaders have.
His rhetorical performance seemed to be a page out of the anti-colonial playbook of the 1960s.
Perhaps most concerning to Western elites is how Imran Khan has strengthened Pakistan’s decades-old relationship with China.
Islamabad and Beijing are key partners in infrastructure projects aimed at connecting the region. They work together in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Belt and Road Initiative.
Pakistan-China relations have gone from strength to strength & CPEC is a reflection of our mutual commitment to this enduring relationship.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) October 1, 2019

Khan received a very warm reception at the Beijing Olympics this February. It was a clear affirmation that Islamabad remains Beijing’s close ally.
In addition, President Xi Jinping and the Chinese leadership deem Khan to be a Pakistani leader genuinely interested in cooperation for Pakistan’s development, free from the enormous corruption and incompetence that characterize other political forces in the country.
Whether this is true or not, Beijing believes it. And Xi has built a very close relationship with Khan personally.
Furthermore, the fact that China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Summit in Islamabad this March spoke volumes to China’s embrace of Pakistan’s leadership within the Muslim world.
The recent breakthrough in the relationship between Pakistan and Russia seems to have been the straw that ultimately broke the camel’s back.
Islamabad never had a close relationship with Moscow. On the contrary, Pakistan and the Soviet Union had been adversaries during the first cold war, and retained a level of bitterness and distance. Moscow was always considered a strong ally of New Delhi.
But on the sidelines of the Beijing Olympics, Russian President Putin extended an invitation to Prime Minister Khan. Seeing an opportunity to at least neutralize a regional powerhouse that has historically been Islamabad’s foe, he agreed to the visit.
However, as soon as Khan landed in Moscow, Putin launched his military assault against Ukraine. Khan was lambasted by Western capitals for not condemning Russia then, and this continued when he returned home.
#Kremlin: Vladimir Putin met with Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan, who is in Russia on a working visit https://t.co/jrvKVN0fzX pic.twitter.com/WF7aupsZau
— President of Russia (@KremlinRussia_E) February 24, 2022

Khan received a strongly worded letter from European ambassadors demanding he denounce Moscow. The prime minister’s response, “we are not your slaves,” became quite popular not only in Pakistan, but in many parts of the Muslim world and the Global South.
Khan noted that his requests that these same Western countries condemn India’s behavior in Kashmir or Israel’s crimes in Palestine routinely fell on deaf ears.
Since then, Khan has consistently called for an end to the war in Ukraine and a diplomatic solution.
At the OIC summit he hosted, Khan specifically called on China to help mediate between Russia and Ukraine.
But the rapprochement with Russia appears to be where Khan crossed the rubicon.
As the global geopolitical battle lines are being rigidly drawn, Khan’s Pakistan seems to increasingly be on the “wrong side,” according to Washington.
The decision to host the 48th Session of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in Islamabad this March crystallized Imran Khan’s role as one of the most popular Muslim political leaders today.
Khan seemed to be trying to mimic the performance and standing of Pakistan’s prime minister in the 1970s, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who similarly hosted an OIC meeting in Lahore, with great fanfare and purpose.
Whatever one’s feelings about Islam and politics, there is no question that powerful external forces detest those Muslim actors that they cannot control.
Washington has continued to work closely with brutal exclusivist forces such as al-Qaeda in Syria and the House of Saud. It has also cultivated a class of “moderate” Muslims since 9/11 that have faithfully delivered an empire-friendly Islam.
There is one factor that unites all of these disparate Muslim actors: their servility to Washington.
Unfortunately, Khan does not fit these imperial categories – as much as both Western and Pakistani liberal elites would want to portray him as a “fundamentalist.”
Khan’s invocation of an Islamicate civilizational ethos that centers social justice, however incoherently articulated and scarcely implemented, also advanced a politics of countering Western supremacy.
Imran Khan has demonstrated a gradual tilt toward countries that, on the whole, represent a counterweight to Saudi-led hegemony throughout the Muslim world.
The 2019 Kuala Lumpur Summit called by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad marked a milestone in this project. Nations such as Turkey, Iran, and Qatar participated.
Everyone knew that this was a significant attempt to challenge traditional Saudi dominance and influence.
Mahathir, who is very fond of Khan, invited Pakistan, and the participants understood how important the Pakistani prime minister’s presence would be.
Yet in the last minute, Islamabad pulled out.
Days before the Kuala Lumpur Summit, Khan was summoned to Riyadh, where he was warned in no uncertain terms: You are not to go to Malaysia, and if you do, the House of Saud will begin the deportation of Pakistani laborers, halt all oil subsidies and supplies, rescind any and all loans, and so on.
Khan was humiliated, but had to comply. He did not go to Kuala Lumpur.
Imran Khan came to power with the blessing of the Pakistani army. The commonsense understanding was that he and the military have a snug relationship and are on the same page – to the point that Khan was for a time portrayed as a puppet of the military establishment. That has turned out not to be true.
The military has always been in control of Pakistan’s national security and foreign policy. To the extent both Khan and the generals viewed things the same, all was fine.
However, Khan turned out to be no pushover. He has firmly asserted his right to be a part of any crucial national security issue – a right most previous civilian governments readily relinquished.
When the Pakistani media now incessantly reiterates “Khan has fallen out of favor with the military,” it simply means that the cat is finally out of the bag: Khan is no lackey of the men in khaki.
For Washington, this is a huge problem. Having militaries to “set things straight” when leaders of the Global South become disobedient has been standard American operating procedure.
One of the most important reasons why imperialist forces demand Imran Khan’s ouster is the obvious: his consistent and unequivocal support for the Palestinian struggle.
His position became all too well-known and “controversial” when an intense campaign of pressure and threats came Islamabad’s way in 2020 and 2021.
After several Gulf monarchies normalized relations with apartheid Israel, and the extent of their coziness was finally paraded publicly, what followed was painful arm-twisting of other Muslim countries to follow suit.
For Tel Aviv, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and of course Washington, Islamabad was the real prize.
For months, Pakistanis experienced an onslaught of information warfare geared to make the public more amenable to the idea of recognizing and accepting Israeli apartheid.
Very quickly, it became obvious that not only the major national political parties, but also significant sections of the military high command all conveyed a willingness to entertain the idea of normalization.
The motive of Pakistan’s ruling elite was obvious: such a step, they believed, would get them into the good graces of Washington, and enable their private coffers to exponentially grow.
But Prime Minister Khan did not give in.
By trying to lump indigenous Kashmiri freedom struggle as terrorism Trump siding with oppressor India as US supports oppressor in Palestine https://t.co/RfcU8q0W6M
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) June 29, 2017

Prior to the hoopla around normalization, in May 2020, Khan vocally condemned Israel’s war on Gaza. He did not mince his words: “We are with Palestine. We are with Gaza.”
At the OIC summit this March, even at the risk of embarrassing some of his guests (especially from the Gulf), Khan consistently spoke about the failure of Muslim countries to stop Israeli brutality against the Palestinians.
There is no doubt that if Khan had avoided touching the Palestinian question, he would not be in so much trouble.
While the reasons enunciated above explain why antagonistic global elites desire regime change in Islamabad, for the sake of clarity – especially for sincere liberal-progressive critics of Imran Khan – it is also worth acknowledging criticisms. Suffice to say, these are decidedly not reasons motivating this hybrid war on Pakistan:
1) Khan’s patriarchal views
2) Khan’s poor governance
3) Khan’s mismanagement of the economy
Whether any of the above is true or not – (and they certainly may be – it ought to be self-evident that these issues have never been the real motivations of global elites in their imperial interventions.
From the time that Khan first took power, we have been subject to an eerily familiar narrative. In the dirty war aimed at regime change in Syria, for years we heard the same refrain: the Assad regime is falling any day now.
We have been fed the same slogan for the past three-and-a-half years in Pakistan as well: the Imran Khan “regime” is just about to fall.
And since Khan has not “moderated” his views to be more palatable to the interests of Western capitals, the latter’s low-intensity hybrid war has been increased to full throttle.
The standard falsehoods recycled against all targets of regime change, including Latin American countries like Venezuela, now prevail in the narrative on Pakistan.
Claims that Khan is guilty of “increasingly authoritarian” rule, characterized by harsh repression of dissent and the media, fit an all too well-trodden script.
Yet it just so happens that the overwhelming majority of both the print and electronic media in Pakistan have been incessantly anti-Khan.
The hybrid warfare being waged against Pakistan – including information warfare, psyops, and the engineering of something like a “color revolution” – in no way means that there is not genuine opposition to the current government.
But in Pakistan we saw a coordinated campaign emerge this March, leading up to the opposition’s “no-confidence” motion in the parliament.
Virtually all of Pakistan’s media, dominant sections of elite civil society, and the opposition leaders and their moles in Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), all of a sudden united in a full-scale blitzkrieg against Khan.
That this came right at the moment when Western condemnations of the prime minister had reached their peak does not seem like a mere coincidence.
As we witness geopolitical transformations of a world-historical importance, the international fault lines in this interregnum are becoming more visible.
Pakistan’s growing proximity to China and Russia and the country’s commitment to the Eurasian integration project has activated the wrath of American ruling elites.
At this particularly precarious conjuncture, Washington views Islamabad as a, if not the, major Muslim capital that needs to be controlled and severely disciplined if an independent Khan-type leader arises.
The turmoil afflicting Pakistan is the outcome of a well-coordinated strategy to discipline and punish Khan.
The opposition demand for a no-confidence vote in the National Assembly reflects the amalgamation of domestic and foreign machinations.
This vote will be a reflection of the balance of forces, resulting either in a victory for Washington and its political quislings, or the retention of at least a quasi-sovereign Pakistan with Khan still in power.
The shenanigans of politicians and their maneuvering to be on the “right side” of the political winds are the games of corrupt, power-hungry elites.
None of this has anything to do with genuine grievances of Pakistanis, and is largely a diversion from the real global power play inside the country.
Hostile global elites are trying desperately to find a new, Pakistani version of Juan Guaidó (the Western minion chosen unilaterally by Washington to replace Nicolás Maduro as supposed “interim president” of Venezuela).
Whether or not Khan survives, anyone even vaguely familiar with global regime-change operations will see exactly what is going on.


Instruction: Write an article about: Pakistan’s coup regime tries to arrest Imran Khan – but faces massive popular resistance. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Imran Khan, Pakistan, PTI, Shehbaz Sharif

Output:
With staunch US support, Pakistan’s unelected “imported government” is trying to arrest former Prime Minister Imran Khan, the most popular politician in the country, to prevent him from running in elections. But protesters are protecting him.

If 2022 was the year of popular uprisings in Pakistan, raising hope for protesters fed up with a thoroughly corrupt and repressive civil-military regime, 2023 seems to be the year when the government is trying every dirty trick in the book to kill that hope.
After a US-backed regime-change operation removed elected Prime Minister Imran Khan from power in April 2022, Pakistan witnessed an unprecedented phenomenon in the nation’s history: For the first time, a civilian politician who was ousted from power didn’t simply end up in the dustbin of history, alongside interchangeable corrupt politicians who for decades played musical chairs, competing to plunder the country.
On the contrary, what occurred were massive outpourings of support for Khan and widespread opposition to the ancien régime put in power by Washington’s mercenaries in the military high command.
The enormous popular rejection of the current “imported government”, as Khan calls it, has made Pakistan’s elites increasingly desperate. They want him eliminated.
Assassination was their first method of choice – but they fumbled. At a rally in November, a gunman shot Khan in the leg, injuring but failing to kill him.
In the meantime, Plan B is being implemented: Arrest Khan on bogus charges and disqualify him from politics forever.
The former prime minister has been relentlessly holding peaceful demonstrations, demanding elections. The government knows that Khan would easily win, so it wants to prevent him from running.
A Gallup poll in March found that Khan is by far the most popular politician in Pakistan, with a 61% approval rating, compared to 37% disapproval.
The current, unelected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has the complete opposite: a 32% approval rating, compared to 65% disapproval.
The figures are clear: Nearly two-thirds of Pakistanis support Khan and oppose the unelected government.
Nearly 61 per cent of Pakistanis have a "positive impression" of PTI chief Imran Khan, while just 36 per cent do so of PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif and foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardarihttps://t.co/6j41OU5WZu
— WION (@WIONews) March 8, 2023

Faced with its deep unpopularity, on March 8, Pakistan’s regime initiated Plan B.
Khan was leading a peaceful protest – one of the countless rallies he has organized since the April 2022 regime-change operation.
This time, massive state security forces went on a rampage and tried to arrest Khan. But they could not do it. Standing between them and Khan were tens of thousands of his supporters.
The only way to get to Khan would have been a bloodbath. This was avoided – although one Khan supporter was killed.
We are heartbroken & outraged that PTI political worker Ali Bilal (Zille Shah), a person with disability, was murdered by the state in Lahore yesterday. He was only exercising his right to peaceful assembly  (which he often turned festive) & ? protest! #StopThisFascism pic.twitter.com/3AutOvTW32
— Aurat March – عورت مارچ (@AuratMarchKHI) March 8, 2023

Then again, on March 13, Khan called for a rally in the city considered to be the heart of Pakistan: Lahore.
Despite the entire state security machinery targeting him and his supporters, the rally in Lahore was one of the biggest the city has seen.
Khan and the protesters marched confidently and peacefully in every corner of the city, where they seemed unstoppable, greeted with joy by ordinary Pakistanis of all walks of life.
Pakistan's former PM Imran Khan stages a rally with thousands of supporters in Lahore as courts in Islamabad issue two more arrest warrants against him pic.twitter.com/fTKg2OW4t2
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) March 14, 2023

The former prime minister was undeterred, committed to holding demonstrations in the provinces of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), in the lead-up to what he hopes will be national elections.
On March 14, the regime escalated its crackdown. Police surrounded Khan’s house in Lahore and tried to arrest him.
In response, thousands of supporters gathered at Khan’s home, protecting him.
Current situation of Zaman Park Lahore now at 10:15pm. Massive rallies across the country are gathering there for the protection of Imran Khan.#زمان_پارک_پہنچو pic.twitter.com/Lyx6X0JdZO
— PTI Islamabad (@PTIOfficialISB) March 15, 2023

The police responded with extreme violence, wounding dozens of protesters.
From his house, Khan symbolically delivered a speech via video stream, sitting with the tear gas cannisters that had been fired outside.
Tear gas shells fired at Imran Khan’s residence in Zaman Park Lahore. pic.twitter.com/BipjKywcVH
— Shiffa Z. Yousafzai (@Shiffa_ZY) March 15, 2023

Khan’s determination to relentlessly participate in mass mobilizations has led the regime to try to ban him from public life.
Even Western organizations that are often biased, such as Amnesty International, have condemned the unelected Pakistani government’s authoritarian tactics, which have included prohibiting all speeches and rallies by Khan, as well arresting people who criticize the military on Twitter.
Authorities in Pakistan has placed a blanket ban on protests in Lahore. The authorities have used a draconian colonial-era law to crush dissent hours before several protests, including the #AuratMarch.#IWD2023 ?https://t.co/G4Z6Lz7Ujt
— Amnesty International (@amnesty) March 8, 2023

There are two main factors preventing an all-out assault to arrest Khan: the wrath of the population that would ensue, and fear that significant ranks within the armed forces would revolt and turn their guns on their superiors, à la Vietnam.
Indeed, it has been because of Khan’s popularity not just among ordinary Pakistani civilians but within the military ranks as well that the former prime minister has survived so far.
Khan’s popularity among some parts of the army is easy to explain. Rank-and-file soldiers and the majority of the junior and mid-rank officer corps are not keen on Washington dictating a War on Terror 2.0. They have always appreciated Khan’s principled opposition, since day one, to any military solution to the militancy in Afghanistan and the northwest of Pakistan.
Throughout 2022, Khan’s political party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, the “Movement for Justice”), exponentially rose in popularity, in contrast to the all-too-visible political shenanigans of the coalition of feudal family dynasties and other corrupt forces in power.
If it is true that Khan mismanaged both political and economic governance while in power, then the current lot has engendered a virtual implosion and collapse in the country.
It is difficult to overstate how incensed ordinary Pakistanis are with the political mafias, significant sections of the military top brass, and the chief mafia don: Washington.
One of the most disturbing aspects of what has been happening is the virtual connivance of liberal-left forces and the Pakistani deep state in attempting to eliminate Khan from the Pakistani political scene.
The visceral hatred of Khan by Pakistan’s comprador elites cannot be explained by simply having differences with Khan on various policies – something that Khan’s own critical supporters have as well.
No, for this elite class of the liberal, pro-Western Pakistani intelligentsia, Khan has committed the ultimate crime: socio-cultural class betrayal.
Khan lived abroad for so long during his impressive cricket career. He studied at Oxford, and speaks perfect English. Thus Pakistan’s Westoxicated elites thought that Khan would behave just like them.
Instead, Khan has rejected the condescending attitude that the country’s Western-educated elites show toward ordinary Pakistanis.
Khan has mobilized tens of millions because of his sincerity to reimagine a new Pakistan, prioritizing social justice and an independent foreign policy.
The fact that one small, sectarian leftist party or the other is not being given the credit of leading the revolt against the unpopular regime has made them neurotically envious of Khan.
It is clear for all to see: Khan and the critical supporters both in and outside of his political party have become the most dangerous threat to Pakistan’s status quo.
That is why we have seen very unusual and fast-paced meetings between US officials and Pakistan’s generals and regime officials: Washington’s “friends again”.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of relations between the U.S. and ?? Pakistan. It was my pleasure to host Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, to the Pentagon where we discussed our long-standing defense partnership and areas of mutual interest. pic.twitter.com/ptiZDiqc8I
— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) October 5, 2022

Elimination of Khan is absolutely necessary for the troika of these power centers: local comprador political elites, the military high command, and Washington.
Why? Because they know that Khan and his party will sweep any elections that are held.
In the meantime, Pakistan is enduring a deep economic crisis. The country has nearly exhausted its foreign exchange reserves.
The regime is in talks with the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) to save itself from bankruptcy. All of the corresponding policies of austerity and taxing the poor – “structural adjustment” – are to be expected.
CIA officer turned US State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a press briefing on March 8 that Washington wants Pakistan to “continue working with the IMF” to impose “reforms that will improve Pakistan’s business environment”, in order to “make Pakistani businesses more attractive and competitive”.
In other words, the US State Department wants Pakistan to double down on neoliberal economic policies, such as lowering wages and cutting social spending.
If hated before, the current “imported government” is now despised more than ever.
Khan’s foreign policy was anathema to Washington.
He refused to recognize apartheid Israel as a legitimate state.
He improved ties with Russia for straightforward reasons of economic necessity (as well as promoting the geostrategic stability in the broader Central Asian region).
Khan mended ties and cooperated with Iran, even praising its revolutionary “dignity”.
He strengthened ties with China.
At the same time, Khan repeatedly said he desired friendly relations with Washington, proposing that they work together in peacebuilding in Afghanistan and the wider region.
But these other foreign policy aims were utterly unacceptable to the mafia don, which seems to be set on a war path with Beijing (and others).
Pakistan has been a close ally of China since the 1960s. But Islamabad’s intense obsession with pleasing Washington is a flagrant slap in the face of Beijing.
The meetings that top Pakistani military officials, including the powerful Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, have held with officials in Washington and London are not being missed upon by Beijing or Moscow.
Though Pakistan is suffering through some of the worst economic woes in its history – thanks to the robber barons in power – the US still knows that the South Asian nation has one of the most formidable militaries in the world, and is a nuclear-powered country of 230 million.
Washington also knows that it can easily woo the military top brass by reminding them of how only the US and its weapons and fighter jets can allow Pakistan to stay apace with arch-rival India, trying to match its military supremacy in the region.
This is why the US is so keen on Pakistan participating in Joe Biden’s second “Summit for Democracy” in March 2023. (Despite the fact that Pakistan’s current government was not elected, and repeatedly resisted calls for holding a vote.)
As prime minister, Khan respectfully declined the invitation to the first summit in 2021, because he knew exactly what the intention was: A declining empire seeking to muster as many nations as it can to be a part of its “coalition of the willing” against official enemies like China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.
According to leaks by Pakistan’s own ambassador to the US (who has a soft spot for Khan), Washington wants to reestablish its old military base in Pakistan, which was closed down in 2011.
The US is also reportedly dictating to Pakistan which militant groups to go after and which ones should be left alone – such as the anti-China East Turkestan independence movement or the ISIS elements giving trouble to Beijing and the Taliban government in Kabul.
Most importantly, Washington wants to compel Islamabad to do everything possible to significantly reduce or halt any progress on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Moreover, Washington and the Persian Gulf monarchies are having a splendid time in convincing the new favorable military-civilian regime in Islamabad to undertake an political 180 that Khan would never agree to: gradually normalizing relations with Tel Aviv.
Nevertheless, what all of these power centers conspiring against Khan overlook is that they are dealing with a different Pakistani population now. The people’s political consciousness has exponentially risen with the ouster of Khan from power.
Hence, whether Khan is assassinated or somehow arrested or disqualified from politics, the powers-that-be might get a rude awakening, and be surprised that they are dealing with a new Pakistan, with or without Khan – one that will have zero tolerance for their venality, corruption, and subordination to Washington.


Instruction: Write an article about: US-backed Saudi coalition has bombed Yemen for 1 year, with little attention. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Output:
In a year of brutal bombing backed by the US and UK, Saudi Arabia has killed thousands of Yemeni civilians and displaced millions. Yet its atrocities get little coverage in the Western media.

Exactly one year ago today, on March 26, 2015, a Saudi-led coalition armed and backed by the US and UK began bombing Yemen.
In the past 365 days, more than 6,000 Yemenis have been killed, half of whom were civilians. For months, more than 80 percent of the population has needed humanitarian aid, and at least 2.5 million Yemenis — 10 percent of the country — have been displaced.
Amid US/Saudi war, 82% of Yemenis need aid, 55% are hungry, 10% displaced — latest UN reporthttps://t.co/iZqicYnAMG pic.twitter.com/ap77Uu5Zl0
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) March 23, 2016

Saudi forces — with the help of many billions of dollars worth of American, British, and French weapons and military equipment, along with the guidance of American and British military officials, who are physically in the room with Saudi bombers and have access to a list of all targets — have ruthlessly bombed civilian areas, including hospitals, homes, schools, weddings, refugee camps, and even an Oxfam humanitarian aid warehouse.
The UN has, on numerous occasions over a period of months, said the Saudi coalition is responsible for approximately two-thirds of civilian casualties.
Despite the enormity of the violent imperial powers they are facing, the Yemeni people have bravely resisted. On the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the airstrikes, tens of thousands flooded the streets of the capital Sanaa for massive protests against the Western-backed coalition’s war crimes.
Tens of thousands of Yemenis mark 1 year of Saudi bombing with mass protests https://t.co/BSTn0R56In pic.twitter.com/J8DIlmmYwY
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) March 27, 2016

Ultimately, the biggest winner of the war has not even been Saudi Arabia, but rather extremist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, who have exploited the chaos in order to grow and seize more territory as the Western-backed coalition continues to bomb the poorest country in the Middle East into oblivion.
There has been little press coverage of the destructive war, and even less discussion in the US political system of the countless atrocities.
The following is a kind of piecemeal and incomplete chronological documentation of the war crimes and destruction as they have slowly and painfully developed, based on stories I have written in the past year:


Instruction: Write an article about: US votes against peace in Gaza, defying vast majority of planet at UN. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Gaza, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, UN, United Nations, Venezuela

Output:
The United States voted against a proposed humanitarian truce in Gaza, opposing the vast majority of the world in the United Nations General Assembly and protecting Israel as it kills thousands of Palestinian civilians.

The vast majority of countries on Earth voted in the United Nations General Assembly for a proposed humanitarian truce in Gaza.
The United States was one of the few nations that voted against the measure.
Washington has protected and armed Israel as it has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians and carries out an ethnic cleansing operation in the densely populated Gaza strip.

On October 27, the UN General Assembly held a vote on a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities”.
The final vote was 121 countries in favor of the humanitarian truce, with 14 countries against and 44 abstentions.
When the results were first reported, there was a mistake. Iraq said there was a technical error on its machine; Baghdad made it clear that it had not meant to abstain and had actually voted in support of the resolution.
So the real number was 121 countries in favor, not 120.

The vast majority of the Global South voted for the humanitarian truce. The only large countries in the Global South that abstained were India and the Philippines, both of which have right-wing governments that are allied with the United States.
Most nations in Asia and Africa supported the proposal. In Latin America, only a small handful of right-wing, US-allied governments voted against it or abstained.
Even a few countries in Europe backed the measure, including France, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Switzerland.

The final vote would have been 122 if Venezuela were able to vote.
The South American nation has strongly supported Palestine. Venezuela does not have formal diplomat relations with Israel, and has accused Tel Aviv of genocide and apartheid, referring to it as the “murderer arm of the US empire”.
However, illegal US unilateral sanctions have prevented Venezuela from accessing its bank accounts and therefore paying its membership fees at the United Nations.
The illegal US blockade has therefore taken away Venezuela’s voice at the UN General Assembly.
In addition to this vote in the General Assembly, the United States used its veto power in the UN Security Council to kill a resolution calling for a ceasefire, which was drafted by Russia and voted on on October 16, as well as a measure proposing a humanitarian pause, which was introduced by Brazil and voted on on October 18.