CNN
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At least one tourist has been killed and 13 others injured in a suspected terror attack in the disputed Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, authorities said.

The attack took place in a popular tourist destination in Pahalgam, in the mountainous Anantnag district.

A group of tourists were fired on by suspected militants and the injured were taken to the district’s main hospital for treatment, authorities said.

“Because it is a non motorable area, rescue teams are taking a while to reach (it), but among those that have been brought to the hospital so far one has succumbed. We’ll get a clearer picture soon,” V K Birdi, inspector general of police in Kashmir, told CNN.

The attack took place in the Baisaran Valley, which is only accessible by foot or on horseback.

One eyewitness told the Indian news agency PTI that unidentified gunmen opened fire on the tourists from close range.

“My husband was shot in the head while seven others were also injured in the attack,” one woman survivor said, according to PTI.

Jammu and Kashmir’s chief minister Omar Abdullah called the attack “much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years.”

The picturesque Himalayan region, which is administered in part by India and Pakistan, is no stranger to violence – but tourist-targeted attacks are rare.

For more than two decades, several domestic militant groups, demanding either independence for Kashmir or for the area to become part of Pakistan, have fought Indian security forces, with tens of thousands of people killed in the violence.

Violence surged in 2018, and the Indian government took greater control of the region in 2019 amid a heavy military presence and a monthslong communications blackout.

While the Indian government has said that militancy has since reduced, attacks continue to plague the region.

On Tuesday, a regional spokesperson from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Pakistan of fueling terrorism in the region and called the attack an “outcome of Pakistan’s frustration.”

“Pakistan and its proxies are unable to digest the return of peace and tourism in Jammu and Kashmir. They want to stifle growth and plunge the region back into fear. But we won’t allow that to happen,” Altaf Thakur said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned the attack and sent his condolences to those who had been affected in a statement posted to X.

“Those behind this heinous act will be brought to justice… they will not be spared! Their evil agenda will never succeed. Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakable and it will get even stronger,” he said.

Pahalgam lies on a major pilgrimage route, known as the Amarnath Yatra, which takes place every year and has been exposed to previous attacks.

Thousands of tourists flock to Kashmir during its peak season each year, which runs from March to August.

The last major tourist attack in the region took place in June, when at least nine people were killed and 33 others were injured after a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims plunged into a gorge after suspected militants fired on the vehicle.

Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

As the world rushed to pay tribute to Pope Francis following his death, the response has been comparatively muted in China – an officially atheist state with millions of Catholics whose government has had a difficult and complex relationship with the Vatican.

In the passing of Pope Francis, Beijing loses a well-respected global leader who had pushed the Vatican closer to China’s Communist Party leadership than any of his predecessors.

Nonetheless, Chinese state-controlled media’s coverage on his death has been terse, and more than 20 hours after the Vatican’s announcement of his passing neither Beijing nor China’s own state-sanctioned Catholic Church had issued an official statement.

While condolences from the government are ultimately expected – likely via a foreign ministry spokesperson per precedent – China’s minimalist response underscores the sensitivity of ties between the atheist ruling Communist Party and the Holy See.

The Vatican has not maintained formal diplomatic relations with China since 1951, when the newly established communist regime broke ties and expelled the papal nuncio, the Holy See’s envoy.

Instead, the Vatican remains one of a dwindling number of countries – and the only one in Europe – that recognizes the sovereignty of Taiwan, a self-governing island democracy Beijing claims its own.

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te offered “sincerest condolences on behalf of the people of Taiwan” over the Pope’s death soon after the Vatican’s announcement, while the island’s foreign ministry said Taipei would send an envoy to the pontiff’s funeral.

That diplomatic allegiance to Taiwan has remained a sore point for Beijing as it feuded with the Vatican for decades over who gets to appoint Catholic bishops in China. Pope Francis had attempted to address the issue with a landmark – although controversial – deal with the Chinese government as he pushed for better ties.

In China, the ruling Communist Party keeps a tight grip on religion, fearing challenges to its authority, and allows worship only at state-controlled churches.

For decades, China’s state-sanctioned Catholic churches had been run by bishops appointed by Beijing, until the two sides reached an agreement under Pope Francis in 2018. Details of the controversial accord have never been made public and many within China’s underground congregations who have remained loyal to Rome and long faced persecution fear being abandoned.

The deal, which is part of Pope Francis’s vision to expand the Catholic Church’s following across the world, aimed to help the Vatican gain access to potentially millions of converts across China. It was renewed in 2020 and 2022, and in October last year, both sides agreed to extend it for another four years.

But critics have questioned why the church, historically a defender of human rights and Christian values, would willingly join forces with the Chinese government, which under leader Xi Jinping has further curtailed religious freedom. Much of that criticism of the deal has come from within the Catholic Church itself.

The Vatican insists the deal is already paying off and hopes to open a permanent office in China. That has left Catholics in Taiwan wondering what will happen to them should the Vatican ever switch recognition.

Catholicism is one of five state-recognized faiths in China, where religious practice is strictly controlled by the Communist Party, which asserts its supremacy over all aspects of life.

By official count, there are about 6 million Catholics in China, but the number may be higher when counting those who practice at underground churches to avoid Beijing’s watchful eye.

Francis had repeatedly expressed his wish to make a trip to China – a country no pope has ever visited. Chinese Catholics will remember him as the first pope to have ever been authorized to fly over Chinese airspace.

On his way to South Korea in 2014, Pope Frances sent a radio message to Xi when flying over China: “Upon entering Chinese airspace, I extend my best wishes to your excellency and your fellow citizens, and I invoke divine blessings of peace and wellbeing upon the nation.”

In 2023, during his visit to neighboring Mongolia, Francis made a rare move to send a “warm greeting to the noble Chinese people.”

“To the entire people I wish the best, go forward, always progress. And to the Chinese Catholics, I ask you to be good Christians and good citizens,” he said at the end of his Sunday Mass in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar.

Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

Hong Kong’s oldest and largest pro-democracy political party is moving to disband as Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on the city leaves even moderate opposition groups with no room to operate.

The Democratic Party, one of the leading voices of opposition in the semi-autonomous city for the past three decades, has started the process of dissolution following recent warnings from Chinese government officials, two of its veteran members told CNN.

“The message was that the party has to be disbanded or there will be consequences,” said one of them, Yeung Sum, a former Democratic Party chairman.

Fred Li, a former lawmaker, said a Chinese official told him that the party should not remain until the end of this year, when an election will be held.

Founded by liberal lawyers and academics three years before the former British colony’s 1997 handover to China, the Democratic Party had campaigned for universal suffrage and on matters from labor rights to conservation during a period when such issues were openly discussed in the city.

Widely seen as moderates willing to work with Beijing, Democratic Party leaders had spearheaded a significant voting bloc in the city’s legislature and were regularly afforded space to critique local government policy, until mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 ushered in a new and more restrictive political era.

Beijing’s crackdown in the years since, including the prosecution and jailing of pro-democracy leaders, has left the once-influential party rudderless as it contends with sweeping national security legislation and “patriots only” electoral reforms enacted in 2021 that make it nearly impossible for opposition candidates to stand for the city’s legislature.

Democratic Party chairman Lo Kin-hei told a news conference last Sunday that 90% of about 110 party members had voted to delegate power to a committee to start the dissolution process, adding he hoped a final vote would take place in the coming months.

“I hope Hong Kong’s political parties… will continue to work for the people,” Lo said. “We have always hoped to serve the Hong Kong people, and to do things that are good for society.”

The Democrats’ move to disband demonstrates Beijing’s unwillingness to allow even the mildest of dissenting voices to be heard in Hong Kong, say analysts.

John Burns, emeritus professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), said the party had “symbolized the promise of some kind of democratic development in Hong Kong, leading to universal suffrage as promised in the Basic Law,” referring to the city’s mini-constitution.

“A dissolution of the party reflects official Hong Kong’s turn away from popular participation, locally accountable government, and increased transparency toward more authoritarian rule,” Burns said.

Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said the Democrats’ move “shows there are no more feasible ways for groups to exist as an opposition party.”

“It’s self-conflicting for the government to suggest that nothing has changed,” he said.

In a statement to CNN, a city government spokesperson said decisions by individual groups “to disband or suspend operation are completely unrelated to the freedom or rights enshrined in Hong Kong law.”

Criticism of the government remains permitted in Hong Kong, “however strong, vigorous or critical” it may be, so long as it is “based on facts,” the spokesperson said. The Hong Kong government would “continue to resolutely discharge the duty of safeguarding national security,” they added.