巴基斯坦议会选举投票站外爆炸致70多人死伤
巴基斯坦西南部的一个投票站外7月25日星期三发生爆炸，造成至少31人死亡，40人受伤。几个小时之前，巴基斯坦数百万选民刚开始举行议会选举的投票。
警方的一名高官对美国之音说，一个骑摩托车的自杀式炸弹手攻击了奎达市一个投票站外的人群。受害者包括选民、警察和政党活动人士。
激进的伊斯兰国宣称对星期三的爆炸事件负责。奎达是西部俾路支省的首府，本月早些时候在那里举行的一次选举集会上曾发生威力巨大的自杀式炸弹攻击，造成151人死亡，包括一名省议会的候选人。伊斯兰国也宣称阴谋策划了这次大屠杀。
这次选举主要在两个政党之间展开，他们是前总理谢里夫领导的执政党巴基斯坦穆斯林联盟-谢里夫派，以及前板球明星伊姆兰·汗领导的巴基斯坦正义运动党。伊姆兰·汗承诺要消除腐败，创建一个“伊斯兰福利国家”。
巴基斯坦穆斯林联盟-谢里夫派指责军方帮助伊姆兰·汗和巴基斯坦正义运动党赢得选举。不过，汗和军方对此予以否认。在巴基斯坦70年的历史中，军人统治这个以穆斯林为主的2亿多人口的国家近30多年。
在342个国民议会席位中，预计巴基斯坦穆斯林联盟-谢里夫派，或巴基斯坦正义运动党，都不可能赢得多数席位。因此，获胜一方必须要同小党派协商组建联合政府。
选民将选举国民议会（下院）中的272个席位，另外70个席位留给妇女和少数民族，并根据获选席位的百分比分配给各个不同政党。
星期三的选举是巴基斯坦第三次政权和平过渡。
Deadly Explosion as Voting Begins in Pakistan General Election
At least 31 people were killed and 40 wounded in an explosion outside a polling station in southwest Pakistan Wednesday, just hours after millions of voters began casting their ballots in parliamentary elections.
A senior police official told VOA that a suicide bomber on a motorcycle attacked a crowd outside a polling station in Quetta. The victims included voters, police personnel and political party activists.
The radical Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's blast. Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, where a powerful suicide bombing at an election rally earlier this month killed 151 people, including a provincial assembly candidate. The radical group Islamic State also took credit for plotting the carnage.
The election has narrowed to a contest between ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s former ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz ((PML-N)) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf ((PTI)), led by former cricket star Imran Khan, who has pledged to eliminate corruption and create a "Islamic welfare state."
The PML-N has accused the military of helping Khan and the PTI to win the election, a charge Khan and the military have strongly denied. The military has ruled the Muslim-majority nation of more than 200 million people for nearly half of the country's 70-year-history.
Neither the PML-N nor the PTI are expected to win a majority in the 342-seat National Assembly, lower house of parliament, meaning whoever wins will have to enter into negotiations with smaller parties to form a coalition government.
Voters elect 272 members to the parliament while the other 70 are reserved for women and minorities and are given to various political parties based on their percentage of winning seats.
Wednesday's election is just Pakistan's third peaceful transition of power.
美驻UN大使猛批阿拉伯和穆斯林国家
美国常驻联合国代表妮基·黑利大使指责阿拉伯和穆斯林国家有关巴勒斯坦局势的讲话，以及这些国家没有为缓和人道困境和支持和平进程做出具体行动。
黑利星期二在联合国安理会上说，不要停留在口头，她指出很多国家包括美国的盟友科威特、土耳其以及阿联酋等国都没有或是很少资助联合国援助巴勒斯坦难民的机构“联合国近东救济工程”(UNRWA)。
她说： “下次我们开会，不论是安理会还是联合国大会，如果我们再听到对巴勒斯坦人困境一个接一个的发言，我就会要求发言者审查一下，你们国家除了发言以外，有哪些实际行动。”
去年，美国援助巴勒斯坦人3.64亿美元，但黑利没有说，今年1月川普政府将2018年的援款削减了3亿美元，使联合国援助巴勒斯坦人的机构面临前所未有的财政危机。
今年1月以来，这个机构举行了两次紧急筹款会议，筹得资金2.38亿美元，但仍有2.17亿资金缺口, 该机构警告说，今年9月的学年可能不得不推迟开学。联合国巴勒斯坦难民援助机构开办的学校在巴勒斯坦领土和中东地区负责50多万巴勒斯坦儿童的教育。
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley has blasted Arab and Muslim states
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley has blasted Arab and Muslim states for their rhetoric on the Palestinian situation and for not taking more concrete action to alleviate humanitarian suffering and supporting the peace process.
Haley told the U.N. Security Council Tuesday that “talk is cheap, calling out many countries, including U.S. allies Kuwait, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, for their lack of or small contributions to the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.
"So the next time we have a meeting like this in the Security Council or the General Assembly and we hear speech after speech about the plight of the Palestinian people I would ask those who are making the speeches to examine what your country is doing to help other than speech making."
Last year,the United States gave $364 million to help Palestinians, but Haley failed to add that in January the Trump administration slashed its 2018 funding by $300 million, leaving UNRWA in an unprecedented financial crisis.
Since then, the agency has held two emergency pledging conferences and raised $238 million, but still faces a $217 million shortfall and has warned that it may have to delay the start of the September school year. UNRWA schools educate more than half-a-million children in the Palestinian territories and across the region.
