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LONDON � More than 9,400 undocumented Afghans have returned home from Iran and Pakistan in the first week of 2017, raising concerns over how the war-torn Asian nation will cope with the rising influx, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The vast majority were young men crossing the border from Iran.

Although repatriation is not compulsory, the Pakistani government has stepped up pressure to send people back amid growing local animosity towards Afghan refugees.

The United Nations migration agency - the International Organization for Migration (IOM) - said most returnees from Iran were young men deported while looking for work, or on the migration route to Europe. Future patterns were hard to predict.

"It can be very unpredictable as there are a lot of factors at play that could push returns up at any day," said Matthew Graydon, a U.N. spokesman in Afghanistan.

Graydon said unregistered Afghans face greater challenges than returnees who are officially logged as refugees because they are not entitled to cash grants from aid agencies, nor other benefits such as education or government-allocated land.

In the first week of 2017, 1,643 unregistered Afghans chose to return or were deported from Pakistan, and 7,776 returned from Iran, according to the IOM, with more expected as the weather improves in the next two months.

Another half a million undocumented Afghans are expected to be repatriated from Pakistan by the end of 2017. Numbers of returnees have been steadily rising over the past two years, with no letup in sight.

Since January 2016, more than 700,000 unregistered Afghans have returned from Pakistan and Iran, up 50,000 on the year before, the IOM said, stretching limited resources in a country still under threat from the Taliban, al Qaeda and Islamic State.

In 2016, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, officially repatriated 372,577 registered Afghans. The rise in returnees comes amid a precarious security situation in Afghanistan, which has seen a steady increase in attacks since international troops ended combat operations in 2014, with record numbers of civilian casualties.

"There's still a lot of fighting here and it's put a lot of strain on the services and economy," said Graydon.

"We're ramping up and scaling up our facilities at the borders to be able to support a lot more families and we are anticipating that a lot more people will come," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.

After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, more than 6 million Afghans crossed into neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

IOM transit centers near the borders are providing basic accommodation, protection for unaccompanied minors, health care, household items such as pots and pans, as well as transport for families to resettle in their desired location.

"It's going to take a concerted effort within the humanitarian community and the government to make sure that their reintegration needs are met," said Graydon.

Source: Voice of Pakistan

NEW YORK � Beth Morrison is determined to make opera as popular in the 21st century as it was in the 19th, when the form was led by visionaries like Verdi, Wagner and Puccini. This modern impressaria has been commissioning new works from some of the hottest young composers for a decade. This is a new golden age of American opera," she insists. "And I truly believe that. I think it is a great moment in America for opera.

Her passion for this passionate art form is palpable. She says she has one rule of thumb when it comes to commissioning a new project.

It always, for me, starts with the composer," she explains. "So, I will not do anything unless I am, like, mad crazy about the music and the composer and really feeling like they are contributing something to the field that is different than what somebody else is contributing. And their voice is 100 percent true and unique.

And those voices are contemporary. The operas Morrison commissions reflect the times, telling wide ranging tales, from a dystopian future to politics in Pakistan.

Beth Morrison is interested in relevance and the current, you know, topics of the day," says composer Mohammed Fairouz, who finds musical inspiration in literary and philosophical sources from around the world. "So, that is, I think, part of what appeals to her.

The Arab-American artist is currently working with Morrison on an opera about the life of assassinated Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The story itself is so larger than life that only the, sort of, ridiculous spectacle of the operatic theater seems to be able to contain it, he says. His opera, Bhutto, will premiere at the Pittsburgh Opera next year.

Partnerships

Morrison collaborates with producers as well as composers. She runs her non-profit from her apartment in Brooklyn, but partners with arts organizations throughout the United States to present new work.

David T. Little's post-apocalyptic opera Dog Days has played in venues across the country. It was one of several pieces he developed under Beth Morrison's collaborative eye.

She really trusts the artists to know what they need, first of all, from a development process, and to know what the work needs to be. And views her position as supporting that vision and offering feedback on that vision, but really trusting that the artist has the correct vision that needs to be brought to life.

Every January, Morrison co-produces an opera festival called "Prototype" in New York City. One of the works featured this year was Missy Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves, based on Lars von Trier's 1996 film about a couple struggling with disability and intimacy.

I feel like Beth creates the conditions for us to create our best work, Mazzoli says, noting that the film was ripe for operatic treatment, with its potent combination of sex, religion and transgression.

Breaking the Waves ... is a story that is about big ideas; it is about the nature of goodness, the nature of loyalty, the nature of faith. And what happens when all these things sort of contradict each other, or get in the way. What do you do in that impossible situation to still be a good person?

A full season

Beth Morrison may well be one of the busiest producers in the opera world. This year we have five world premieres," she says, "we are doing nine tours and our Festival, and then, some workshops for some things coming up.

But that is not enough for her. Even as she has six new works in various stages of development, Morrison is also actively looking for as yet unknown composers to produce.

I think my challenge now is to identify the next generation. And that is exciting, and we are working on that. So the golden age can continue.

Source: Voice of America

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WASHINGTON � Instead of a slowdown in fighting during Afghanistan's harsh winter, government security forces say they will press their operations against the Taliban and Islamic State group despite heavy snow and bitter cold.

"Taliban and other terrorist groups will not be allowed to claim territory over the next few months," Mohammad Radmanesh, a deputy spokesperson for the Afghan defense ministry, told reporters in Kabul this week.

Winter in mountainous Afghanistan, with extremely cold temperatures and deep snow, generally makes military offensives difficult and a reduced level of fighting during the winter is customary. In past years, Taliban fighters often shifted their bases to western areas of Pakistan to wait for spring thaws before returning to fight in Afghanistan.

This year, however, analysts say the Taliban is hoping to capitalize on its gains during 2016, when it opened several fronts across the country, overran government-held districts and threatened to take control of several provincial capitals.

U.S. sending 2,300 more troops

Fighting between Taliban and government forces increased during December in southwestern Helmand province, where insurgents are active in two key districts. The upsurge in fighting is believed to be the main factor behind U.S. military officials' recent announcement that 2,300 additional American soldiers are being deployed in Afghanistan, bringing the total U.S. forces there to around 9,800.

Overall, defense and interior ministry officials in Kabul say that counter-insurgency operations during 2016 by Afghan police and military forces throughout the country killed more than 18,500 enemy fighters and wounded another 12,000.

The Afghan national army last month announced the second phase of a campaign called Operation Shafaq, which began as a summer offensive. Afghan forces are concentrating on 13 of the country's 34 provinces where Taliban fighters and the so-called Khorasan branch of the Islamic State group are stronger.

Afghan provincial authorities say the focused effort by the national army has begun to pay off. They cite their recent experience in a remote eastern district of the country where hundreds of men signed up to join a government-sponsored militia after the IS fighters occupying their villages were driven off.

25 percent of Afghan territory is 'contested'

Government spokesman Radmanesh said the army has launched offensives in several insecure provinces to eliminate Taliban hideouts and regain control of areas and districts recently lost to the Taliban.

Taliban militants came close to capturing the strategic northeastern city of Kunduz in October, before Afghan forces pushed them back. The government currently controls nearly two-thirds of the country's 407 districts. The Taliban controls 33 districts, less than 10 percent of the national total, and a recent U.S. military assessment lists 116 districts � more than one-quarter of the country � as "contested" areas.

Afghanistan claims its counterterrorism offensives have been successful, although progress has been slowed by the insurgents' tactics. Taliban fighters frequently use civilians as human shields to protect themselves, and they have staged surprise attacks at times when winter weather cloaks their movements.

Fierce battles have been underway recently in eastern Nangarhar province, where Islamic State fighters have been active for the past two years.

Fighting in Nangarhar

IS militants have stormed Nangarhar's remote Pachiragam district, an area they lost during a government offensive in December. The offensive resulted in the death of dozens of villagers and displaced hundreds of families from their homes in bitter weather.

U.S.-led NATO forces also have targeted IS locations in Nangarhar, and military experts say the winter phase of the Shafaq campaign has yielded some positive results.

The second phase of the government's campaign has been successful, to some extent, Kabul-based military expert Abdul Wahed Taqat told VOA. It has also shown our troops' resilience, and the enemy has realized that Afghan forces are now capable of defending their country.

Still, the winter offensive has been challenging for the Afghan military, making it much more difficult for senior officers to plan attacks and to transfer wounded soldiers from the battlefield.

Source: Voice of America

BEIJING � Other investors are wary of Brazil, but when Duke Energy wanted to sell 10 hydroelectric dams there, a Chinese utility shrugged off the country's economic turmoil and paid $1.2 billion to add them to an energy empire that stretches from Malaysia to Germany to the Amazon.

State-owned China Three Gorges Group is spending heavily to buy or build hydro, wind and solar projects at a time when Western utility investors are pulling back and President-elect Donald Trump's pledge to revive coal use has raised doubt about U.S. support for renewables.

They're happy to invest wherever they see value or they can gain a foothold, said Andrew Shepherd, who follows the global utility industry for BMI Research.

Flush with cash and willing to tolerate risks that put off older rivals, CTG and other state-owned utilities including State Grid Corp., the world's biggest power supplier, are expanding abroad in search of new revenue sources as economic growth and electricity demand at home cool.

A decade ago, they built dams and power plants in Asia and Africa. Now, they also are taking on a longer-term role as operators of power companies in Europe and Australia and are looking at the U.S. market. They are providing welcome investment in troubled markets such as Brazil and southern Europe.

Set up in 1993 to run the vast Three Gorges Dam in central China, CTG is unusual in its status as a national-level Chinese power company with global ambitions but a reliance on non-fossil-fuels sources.

The company still gets most of its 60 gigawatts of generating capacity from dams. Its namesake 46-gigawatt facility on the Yangtze River competes with Brazil's Itaipu Dam for the title of world's biggest hydropower facility.

Such projects face a backlash over environmental damage and forced relocation of local communities.

In August, Brazil's environmental agency rejected a proposal by CTG and Portugal's national power company, Energias de Portugal, to build the 8-gigawatt Sao Luis do Tapajos Dam on the Amazon. The dam would have flooded land belonging to Munduruku Indians.

CTG, which says it is active in 40 countries, starting investing in wind power in 2007 and solar in 2011 - projects that are easier and more politically attractive.

In June, it bought a wind farm in Germany from Blackstone Energy Partners. A CTG-built dam in Malaysia started commercial generation in May. CTG has a joint venture with Australian startup RayGen Resources to set up solar projects in China.

In the past five years, CTG has spent more than $10 billion on hydro and wind assets in Brazil, Germany, Italy, Poland and Portugal, according to Dealogic, a financial data provider. It also has built a dam in neighboring Laos and a wind farm in Pakistan.

Three Gorges Group takes building an international first-rate clean energy group as a strategic goal, the company said in a written response to questions. It said its European presence is a development platform for North America.

The ruling Communist Party is spending heavily on renewable energy to curb reliance on imported oil and gas and on coal, reduce eye-searing smog and create profitable technologies.

Not including large-scale hydroelectric dams, China invested $103 billion last year in wind, solar and other renewable sources, according to the U.N. Environment Program. The U.S. spent $44 billion.

Beijing's spending is nurturing Chinese export industries. The country's solar panel makers are global industry leaders and its wind turbine manufacturers are stepping up exports.

In the United States, CTG and other Chinese investors may face tougher scrutiny under Trump, who castigated Beijing during his campaign and has appointed advisers favoring a more antagonistic stance on trade.

And when it comes to acquiring U.S. assets, that market is crowded with experienced, deep-pocketed potential rivals such as Duke, Southern Company and Dominion Resources.

Chinese power companies may be interested to look at opportunities in North America. However, so far there have been few, said Daniel Qiu, a managing director in Credit Suisse's Asia Pacific investment banking group.

As a springboard to new markets, CTG paid $3.5 billion in 2011 for 21 percent of Energias de Portugal, one of the biggest global investors in wind energy.

Their tie-up might help ease CTG's entry into the United States since EdP's Houston-based U.S. arm owns wind farms in New York, Iowa, Texas and other states.

This is an interesting way for Three Gorges to essentially get access to U.S. renewable projects through the back door, said Shepherd.

The two companies are building two hydropower projects in Brazil in addition to the dams CTG is buying from Duke Energy.

CTG has ample resources, with 563.7 billion yuan ($82.8 billion) in assets including 18.7 billion yuan ($2.7 billion) in cash - more than double the price of Duke Energy's Brazilian dams. The company earned 28.8 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) in profit in 2015 on revenue of 63.5 billion yuan ($9.3 billion).

Industrywide, China's state-owned utilities have spent more than $30 billion to buy all or parts of power suppliers in Brazil, Germany, New Zealand and other countries over the past five years, according to Dealogic.

The bulk of that came from State Grid, which has spent $22 billion in Brazil, Australia, Italy, Greece and Portugal. In 2013, it made China's biggest utility acquisition in a developed country, paying $6.7 billion for 60 percent of Australia's SGSP (Australia) Assets Pty. Ltd., an operator of gas and electric distribution networks.

They are much more aggressive and are more willing to take on risk, said Shepherd.

Source: Voice of America