World

Millions of people in South Asia are being pushed into extreme poverty as the region, where a quarter of humanity lives, suffers its worst-ever recession due to the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Bank said on October 7.

The multilateral lender forecast a record economic contraction of 7.7 percent for South Asia this year, and said workers in the informal sector were being hit hardest and private consumption was unlikely to recover quickly from the blow.

"The impact on livelihoods will even be larger than the GDP forecast suggests. ... This implies that the region will experience a sharp increase in the poverty rate," the bank said in its biannual report.

India, the region's biggest economy, is likely to see its economy contract 9.5 percent this year, the report said.

The report warned that South Asia's economies could end up worse than the forecast as the pandemic continues to surge, making foreign investors more wary, limiting governments' ability to increase spending, and putting more strain on banking systems already heavily burdened with bad loans.

With 6.84 million people infected, including 105,000 dead, India's COVID-19 caseload is second only to the United States, despite the country going under the strictest lockdown in the initial phase of the pandemic in March.

Pakistan and Bangladesh have recorded over 317,000 cases each, while the rest of the countries in the region have a combined total of more than 149,000 cases.

The U.S. negotiator seeking to end Afghanistan's war voiced hope on October 7 that the Kabul government can reach a side deal with Pakistan, whose historic support of the Taliban has long tested relations.

The Taliban and Afghan government have opened slow-moving peace talks in Qatar as the United States starts withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan to end its longest war.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. pointman on Afghanistan, said both Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan and its powerful military chief, General Qamer Javed Bajwa, have been "helpful" in the diplomacy.

"We are seeking an agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan as an adjunct to an internal peace," Khalilzad told a forum at the University of Chicago's Pearson Institute by video from Doha.

Both countries would "agree that their territory will not be allowed to be used against the other by extremist groups or groups that would undermine the security of the other," he said.

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Pakistan had hailed the February 29 agreement between the United States and the Taliban, in which Washington declared that it would "facilitate discussions" between Kabul and Islamabad.

Critics, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan's historic rival India, see Islamabad as playing both sides and say its military and intelligence apparatus has still backed Taliban violence as a way to exert influence in its neighbor.

But Khalilzad, who visited Islamabad last month, said he saw economic incentives for Pakistan, which suffers severe power shortages and could import power from electricity-rich Central Asia if the Afghan government and Taliban reach a deal.

"There are economic reasons that would be transformative for the region should peace in Afghanistan come," Khalilzad said.

The upbeat tone by Khalilzad, who has tried to ensure that all key players support Afghan peace, comes after years of on-off tensions between the United States and its Cold War ally Pakistan.

President Donald Trump in 2018 slashed $300 million in U.S. security assistance to Pakistan, saying it was failing to fight extremists.