Asia
OIC meeting in Pakistan: From embarrassing to intensifying pressure
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), hosted by Pakistan, has held a meeting titled “Education of Girls in Islamic Societies” for the two days in Islamabad. This meeting has brought different reactions due to the non-participation of the Taliban, even though they were invited.
Some former diplomats believe that Pakistan, considering its influence in this organization, is trying to use such meetings to put pressure on the Taliban and fulfill its demands. On the other hand, some human and women’s rights activists say that the Taliban have refused to participate in this meeting because they have no reason to defend their actions.
Malala Yousafzai, one of the speakers of this meeting, asked the participants to recognize the gender apartheid of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Union of Scholars of the Islamic World have emphasized in their statements that education for girls and boys is equally necessary and the conditions of education for girls in Islamic societies should be provided.
Pakistan has announced that the Taliban was invited to the meeting, but no representative attended the meeting. This meeting has provoked many reactions due to the discussion of Islamic countries about the education of girls, especially in the situation where the Taliban have banned the education of girls across Afghanistan.
Diplomats and political activists link the holding of this meeting by Pakistan and the absence of the Taliban to the recent tensions between Islamabad and the Taliban regime in Kabul. Zalamy Khalilzad, US former peace envoy for Afghanistan, also believes that Pakistan intends to embarrass the Taliban with this action.
Pakistan has a strong influence on OIC, likely the Taliban refused to participate.
Mohammad Ibrahim Ghafouri, the former representative of Afghanistan in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, had said recently that Pakistan has a strong influence in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and in this way wants to pressure the Taliban to comply with the demands of Islamabad.
According to him, most of the positions in the announcements and resolutions of this organization go back to the host countries. He emphasizes that after the escalation of tensions with the Taliban, Pakistan hosted the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to put pressure on this group and to show that Islamabad has a special position and influence in international organizations and Islamic countries.
The former representative of Afghanistan in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation adds that this organization is traditionally aligned with Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan also has a prominent role in this organization due to the support of Arab countries.
According to him, in this meeting, only Iran may defend the Taliban’s position on girls’ education, and other countries will react to the Taliban from Islamabad’s position. He also states that most of the decisions of these meetings are advisory and not mandatory.
In a tweet in X, Zalmi Khalilzad said that Pakistan should shame the Taliban leader who has imposed severe restrictions on women’s education by holding a meeting on the education of girls in Islamic societies. He also considered this meeting as a propaganda move in the framework of the recent tensions between the Taliban and Pakistan.
The Afghan women and girls say that Taliban ashamed to join OIC due to their anti-women actions and restrictions
However, a number of women and girls say that the Taliban could not participate in this meeting due to shame and lack of reason to continue their restrictions. According to them, not only Pakistan but any other Islamic country that hosts such a meeting, this group has nothing to say and no reason to defend its “misogynist” and “gender apartheid” practices.
Mohammad Al-Issa, the Secretary General of the Muslim World League and President of the International Islamic Scholars Organization condemned the denial of education to girls as both unjust and contradictory to Islamic teachings.
An Afghan girl who doesn’t want to be named due to security reasons, said that the Taliban have done everything in their power to suppress and eliminate women under various guises for the past three years.
According to him, the Taliban know that they cannot defend their “misogynist” and gender “apartheid” practices against women in Afghanistan, even in Islamic organizations. Therefore, they prefer to remain silent because they have nothing to say and no reason to defend their actions.
Also, some human rights activists say that the message of the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Pakistan is intellectual disarmament and the rejection of the Taliban’s “Sharia fatwa” on the education of girls and women. According to them, this meeting has clearly described the performance of the Taliban in conflict with religious values.”
Shima Azizi, a human rights activist had recently said that the Taliban’s focus is to show that they have all the religious fatwas in their possession. According to her, the Taliban try to legitimize all their policies by referring to “Sharia” rulings and religious fatwas, and therefore, they have banned the education of women in Afghanistan by citing their “Sharia” fatwas.
She furthered that the participants of the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation called the prohibition of education and training of women a “great sin” citing Sharia rules. She says that the message of this meeting is to claim the monopoly of “Sharia” Fatwa from the Taliban.
She emphasized that if Taliban representatives participated in this meeting, the impact of the conference’s message in disarming this group’s intellectual weapons would increase. According to him, the presence of the Taliban in such a meeting meant their direct participation in the process of disarming themselves from the claim of issuing “Sharia” fatwas.
Malala Yousafiza, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, called on Islamic world to identify the Taliban regime as the cause of “gender apartheid.”
On the other hand, Malala Yousafzai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, in her speech at this meeting, asked Islamic countries to identify the Taliban regime as the cause of gender apartheid.
He said that the Taliban cover their actions against women and girls with cultural and religious justifications. Referring to the Taliban’s decrees against women, Yousafzai asked the leaders of Islamic countries not to give legitimacy to the Taliban.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has expressed his concern about the situation of women, and emphasized that the Taliban are destroying a whole generation of girls by implementing their anti-women policies. She asked Muslim scholars and leaders to prevent the systematic elimination of women and girls in Afghanistan.
Yousafzai said: “The mission of the Taliban is clear. They want to remove women and girls from every aspect of public life and erase them from society. The Taliban have created a system of gender apartheid.”
Hossein Ebrahim Taha, Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, said that this organization is committed to guaranteeing and promoting the education of girls in Islamic societies. He added that the Islamabad meeting under the title “Education of Girls in Islamic Societies: Challenges and Opportunities” was jointly organized by Pakistan and the World Muslim League.
The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation said that educated women are a valuable asset for Muslim societies and their participation in development pursuits is very important. He added that the decisions and resolutions of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation at the summit level as well as the ministerial meetings unanimously and without any ambiguity emphasized the importance of girls’ education and prioritized the formulation of sustainable policies and the allocation of sufficient funds.
Education in Islam, is the right of both (men and women)
At the same time, Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Eisa, Secretary General of the Islamic World Union, said on the first day of the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on girls’ education, that some groups are hindering the education of girls by misusing the name of Islam.
According to him, such actions have no place in Islam, and efforts will be made to reject the considerations that hinder the education of girls in the name of Islam. He added that there are misconceptions in some Islamic societies, but Islamic scholars have gathered in this meeting to reject these beliefs and issue a joint statement.
He also stated that this statement emphasizes the necessity of women’s education for the progress of society and all scholars and Islamic schools agree on this. Moreover, the scholars of different religions agreed in this meeting that education is as necessary for women as for men.
Currently, Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls and women are denied the right to education, study and work.
In the past three years, the Taliban have issued more than 80 prohibition orders against women and girls, which have excluded them from many aspects of social, cultural and economic life. Despite internal and external pressures, this group continues to impose restrictions and intensify the suppression of women’s demands.
Beijing said it had conducted law enforcement patrols in waters east of Taiwan in response to a decision by Japan and the Philippines to launch talks on maritime boundary delimitation.
According to a statement from the China Coast Guard, a flotilla led by the vessel Daishan carried out law enforcement patrols “in accordance with the law” on Monday.
China Coast Guard spokesperson Jiang Lue said the operation was “a necessary action” in response to Japan and the Philippines “unilaterally announcing the start of negotiations on maritime delimitation in waters east of China’s Taiwan Island.”
“Such an announcement seriously infringes upon China’s territorial sovereignty and its maritime rights and interests,” Jiang said.
“We urge Japan and the Philippines to immediately cease all illegal actions that violate China’s sovereignty and rights,” he added.
Jiang also said the coast guard would continue strengthening its control and management of the relevant waters and that China would take concrete measures to “resolutely safeguard territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.”
The United States and most of its allies, including Japan and the Philippines, do not recognize Taiwan as an independent state and acknowledge it as part of China. The United Nations has also adopted resolutions reflecting this position. However, Washington continues to provide arms to Taiwan as part of its broader efforts to counter China and encourages its allies to do the same.
Following a summit in Tokyo between Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the two countries said in a joint statement issued on Thursday that they had agreed to begin “formal negotiations” to delimit their exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and continental shelves.
Beijing condemned the planned talks as “completely illegal and invalid” and swiftly lodged formal diplomatic protests with both Tokyo and Manila.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Friday: “The so-called delimitation negotiations are entirely illegal, invalid and void. They will have no impact whatsoever on China’s claims or on China’s exercise of its legitimate rights in the area east of Taiwan Island.”
The latest escalation comes at a time when relations between Beijing and both Tokyo and Manila are already strained. Japan and the Philippines are treaty allies of the United States, while China remains engaged in separate territorial disputes with Japan in the East China Sea and with the Philippines in the South China Sea.
As US attention and resources have increasingly shifted toward the war involving Iran, and as the White House has made the Western Hemisphere a strategic priority, Japan and the Philippines have stepped up diplomatic engagement in the region commonly referred to as the Indo-Pacific.
That effort has included building closer security and defence ties with other countries, prompting Beijing to accuse them of encouraging bloc confrontation in the region.
Japan and the Philippines do not share a maritime boundary. However, their seabed claims could overlap because both countries seek to extend their legal continental shelves beyond 200 nautical miles, equivalent to 370 kilometres or 230 miles.
The overlapping area lies east of Taiwan, southwest of Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and north of the Philippines’ Batanes Islands.
Yang Xiao, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China’s highest-ranking state-affiliated think tank, said Taiwan’s EEZ and continental shelf are part of the area under discussion.
“These are China’s rights and are not something that the two sides can negotiate among themselves,” Yang said.
In an interview published on Sunday by Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV, before the China Coast Guard announced the patrols, Yang said Beijing would take “historic and unprecedented” countermeasures against Tokyo and Manila.
“Since they are negotiating in a three-party overlapping zone, we can also take further steps to advance our jurisdiction in the waters east of Taiwan,” Yang said.
“If the other side insists on reckless and destructive actions, we will inevitably introduce new countermeasures.”
Yang described the waters east of Taiwan as a vital maritime area for the island’s economic activities.
“If these waters are divided between Japan and the Philippines, that would clearly harm the interests of the people living on Taiwan Island,” he added.
As artificial intelligence reshapes industrial structures in Japan and South Korea, stock market rankings are being redrawn. SoftBank Group has overtaken Toyota Motor to become Japan’s most valuable listed company.
SoftBank shares have surged as the global artificial intelligence rally gathers momentum, lifting the technology conglomerate’s market capitalisation above that of Toyota for the first time in more than two decades.
The shift reflects a broader reordering of Japan’s equity market. Automakers, alongside banks, steelmakers, energy companies and other traditional heavy industries, are losing ground to chipmakers and companies linked to artificial intelligence.
SoftBank shares jumped 14% on Monday, reaching a new record high. The company’s market value climbed to 48 trillion yen, or $301 billion, making it the most valuable company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Toyota had long held the top position, with a market capitalisation of approximately 45 trillion yen. The last time SoftBank surpassed Toyota was in March 2000, at the peak of the dot-com bubble.
SoftBank’s rapid rise has been driven by strong earnings performance and its substantial investment in ChatGPT developer OpenAI.
The Japanese company reported net profit of 1.82 trillion yen, or $11.4 billion, for the first three months of 2026, 3.5 times higher than in the same period a year earlier. The group is also increasing its investment in OpenAI, completing a $10 billion investment in April and committing to invest an additional $20 billion later this year. Total investment is expected to reach roughly $65 billion.
According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI plans to file for an initial public offering and aims to list in the United States as early as September. Some media reports suggest the company could seek to raise $60 billion through the offering, potentially valuing it at more than $1 trillion. Such a transaction could become the largest initial public offering in history.
Investors expect the IPO to significantly boost SoftBank’s investment gains. Those expectations have helped drive the technology group’s share price higher. SoftBank shares have risen about 127% since early April.
The company is also planning to invest up to 14 trillion yen in the construction of data centres in France.
Chinese President Xi Jinping met Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Beijing, where the two leaders discussed bilateral ties and oversaw the signing of multiple cooperation agreements. Xi also awarded Vucic the Friendship Medal of the People’s Republic of China.
The meeting between Xi Jinping and Aleksandar Vucic began with an official welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The two leaders then proceeded to formal talks. Xi said China and Serbia had achieved “positive results” since jointly launching the construction of a “China-Serbia community with a shared future in the new era” in 2024.
Xi said the partnership had not only benefited the two peoples but had also set an example for international relations.
The Chinese president described relations between China and Serbia as an “iron friendship” based on deep historical ties and mutual trust.
Calling on both sides to strengthen exchanges, deepen practical cooperation and continue supporting each other on issues concerning their core interests, Xi also said the two countries should align their development strategies and advance cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. In this context, he pointed to transport, energy and infrastructure projects.
Xi also called for expanding cooperation in emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence, the digital economy, green energy and advanced manufacturing.
Aleksandar Vucic congratulated China on the start of implementation of its 15th Five-Year Plan. Vucic also expressed confidence in China’s future development under Xi Jinping’s leadership.
The Serbian president said Belgrade attached great importance to relations with China and firmly supported Beijing on issues concerning China’s core interests.
Vucic thanked Chinese companies for their contributions to Serbia’s economic development and infrastructure construction.
Saying the two countries had made notable progress since establishing their comprehensive strategic partnership, Vucic added that cooperation had expanded across numerous sectors.
The Serbian president also praised China’s role in international affairs, saying Beijing approached smaller countries on the basis of equality and respect and defended international law.
Following the talks, the two leaders witnessed the signing of more than 20 cooperation agreements covering politics, trade, science and technology, education, legal affairs and culture.
The two sides also issued joint statements on steadily advancing the construction of a China-Serbia community with a shared future in the new era and jointly supporting the implementation of four global initiatives.
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