UNITED NATIONS: The International Criminal Court should prosecute Taliban leaders for a crime against humanity for denying education and employment to Afghan girls and women, the UN special envoy for global education said.
Gordon Brown told a virtual UN press conference on the second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on Tuesday that its rulers are responsible for “the most egregious, vicious and indefensible violation of women’s rights and girls’ rights in the world today.”
The former British prime minister said he has sent a legal opinion to ICC prosecutor Karim Khan that shows the denial of education and employment is “gender discrimination, which should count as a crime against humanity, and it should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.”
The Taliban took power in August 2021, during the final weeks of the US and NATO forces’ pullout after 20 years of war. As they did during their previous rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban gradually reimposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, barring girls from school beyond the sixth grade and women from most jobs, public spaces and gyms and recently closing beauty salons.
Brown urged major Muslim countries to send a delegation of clerics to Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar, the home of Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, to make the case that bans on women’s education and employment have “no basis in the Qur’an or the Islamic religion” — and to lift them.
He said he believes “there’s a split within the regime,” with many people in the education ministry and around the government in the capital, Kabul, who want to see the rights of girls to education restored. “And I believe that the clerics in Kandahar have stood firmly against that, and indeed continue to issue instructions.”
The Taliban’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, brushed aside questions about restrictions on girls and women in an Associated Press interview late Monday in Kabul, saying the status quo will remain. He also said the Taliban view their rule of Afghanistan as open-ended, drawing legitimacy from Islamic law and facing no significant threat.
Brown said the Taliban should be told that if girls are allowed to go to secondary school and university again, education aid to Afghanistan, which was cut after the bans were announced, will be restored.
He also called for monitoring and reporting on abuses and violations of the rights of women and girls, sanctions against those directly responsible for the bans including by the United States and United Kingdom, and the release of those imprisoned for defending women’s and girls’ rights.
Brown said 54 of the 80 edicts issued by the Taliban explicitly target women and girls and dismantle their rights, most recently banning them from taking university exams and visiting public places including cemeteries to pay respects to loved ones.
He announced that the UN and other organizations will sponsor and fund Internet learning for girls and support underground schools as well as education for Afghan girls forced to leave the country who need help to go to school.
“The international community must show that education can get through to the people of Afghanistan, in spite of the Afghan government’s bans,” he said.
Brown said there are a number of organizations supporting underground schools and there is a new initiative in the last few weeks to provide curriculum through mobile phones, which are popular in Afghanistan.
He wouldn’t discuss details over concerns for the safety of students and teachers, “but there is no doubt that girls are still trying to learn, sometimes risking a lot to be able to do so.”
During the 20 years the Taliban were out of power, Brown said 6 million girls got an education, becoming doctors, lawyers, judges, members of parliament and cabinet ministers.
Today, he said, 2.5 million girls are being denied education, and 3 million more will leave primary school in the next few years, “so we’re losing the talents of a whole generation.”
Brown urged global action and pressure — not just words — to convince the Taliban to restore the rights of women and girls.
“We have not done enough in the last two years,” he said. “I don’t want another year to go by when girls in Afghanistan and women there feel that they are powerless because we have not done enough to support them.”
UN envoy urges ICC to prosecute Taliban for crimes against humanity for denying girls education
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UN envoy urges ICC to prosecute Taliban for crimes against humanity for denying girls education
Two French prison officers killed in inmate's escape
The inmate was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy
ROUEN, France: Gunmen on Tuesday attacked a prison van at a motorway toll in northern France, killing at least two prison officers and freeing a convict who had been jailed last week.
President Emmanuel Macron vowed that everything would be done to find those behind the attack as hundreds of members of the security forces were deployed for a manhunt to find the attackers and the inmate who were all still at large.
Two prison officers were killed in the attack and two others are receiving urgent medical care, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
The incident took place late morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France, a source close to the case added.
The inmate was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy.
A police source said several individuals, who arrived in two vehicles, rammed the police van and then fled.
One of them was wounded, the police source said.
It was not immediately clear how many attackers there were in total.
"Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime," Macron wrote on X.
"We will be uncompromising," he added, describing the attack as a "shock".
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti immediately headed to a crisis cell at his ministry.
"These are people for whom life counts for nothing. They will be arrested, they will be judged and they will be punished according to the crime they committed," he said.
Both the officers killed were men and they were the first prison officers to be killed in the line of duty since 1992, he added.
One of them was married and had two children while the other "left a wife five months pregnant", he said.
"I am frozen with horror at the veritable carnage that took place at the Incarville toll," said Alexandre Rassaert, the head of the Eure region council.
"I hope with all my heart that that the team of killers which carried out this bloody attack will be arrested quickly."
A unit of the GIGN elite police force has been despatched to apprehend the suspects.
Traffic was stopped on the A154 motorway where the incident took place.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X he had ordered the activation of France's Epervier plan, a special operation launched by the gendarmerie in such situations.
"All means are being used to find these criminals. On my instructions, several hundred police officers and gendarmes were mobilised," he said.
Prosecutor Beccuau named the inmate as Mohamed Amra, born in 1994, saying that last week he had been convicted of aggravated robbery and also charged in a case of abduction leading to death.
The case has been handed to prosecutors from France's office for the fight against organised crime known by their acronym JUNALCO.
Law and order is a major issue in French politics ahead of next month's European elections and the incident sparked fierce reactions from politicians, especially the far right.
"It is real savagery that hits France every day," said Jordan Bardella, the top candidate for the far-right National Rally (RN) which is leading opinion polls for the elections.
Indonesia’s president-elect seeks to boost defense ties with UAE
- Prabowo Subianto is set to succeed President Joko Widodo in October
- His visit to Abu Dhabi seen as a strategic move ahead of presidency
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s President-Elect Prabowo Subianto wants to boost defense ties with the UAE, his office said on Tuesday, as he made the first official trip to Abu Dhabi since winning the general vote.
Indonesia-UAE relations grew under incumbent Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who in 2021 secured an over $46 billion investment commitment from the Gulf state. A year later, the two countries signed a free trade deal, which came into force last September.
Subianto, a former special forces commander and Indonesia’s current defense minister, is set to succeed Widodo and take office in October following his landslide victory in the presidential election in February.
On Monday, he was in Abu Dhabi to receive the UAE’s highest civilian honor, the Order of Zayed, in recognition of his efforts in enhancing bilateral ties.
“I hope Indonesia-UAE relations will continue to develop and grow in accordance with the ambitions of the two countries in strengthening cooperation across various fields, including in defense,” Subianto said in a statement after meeting UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.
During Subianto’s time in office as minister, Indonesia and the UAE agreed to strengthen defense ties with the signing of a memorandum of understanding in 2020, followed by a protocol agreement on the development of their defense industries in 2022.
Subianto’s visit to the UAE can be seen as a strategic move ahead of his presidency.
“As we get closer to his inauguration, Prabowo has gained a boost in confidence to directly meet with MBZ and discuss strategic issues at the bilateral, regional and global level,” said Teuku Rezasyah, an international relations expert from Padjadjaran University in West Java.
“It’s only natural that Prabowo is visiting Abu Dhabi because it’s one of the world’s biggest sources of foreign investments … Certainly, Prabowo wants to seriously guarantee that investments from Abu Dhabi will be very strategic in the development of Indonesia.”
India sets sights on Iranian port as gateway to Afghanistan, Central Asia
- New Delhi signed a 10-year deal to operate Chabahar port on Monday
- India began helping Iran to develop Chabahar in 2016
NEW DELHI: India’s newly signed deal to operate the Iranian port of Chabahar is expected to provide it a gateway to landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia, offering possible competition to Pakistan’s Gwadar.
The 10-year contract, under which India will invest $120 million in Chabahar’s infrastructure, was signed in Tehran on Monday between the state-owned Indian Ports Global Ltd and the Port & Maritime Organization of Iran.
India’s Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal welcomed the deal, saying the development of Chabahar was an “India-Iran flagship project” and that the port would be a “gateway for trade with Afghanistan and broader Central Asian countries.”
New Delhi’s commitment to Chabahar started in May 2016 when Iran, India, and Afghanistan signed a trilateral transit agreement to develop the port into a regional trade hub.
“The signing of the deal signifies the strength of bilateral ties between India and Iran,” said D.P. Srivastava, who was India’s ambassador to Iran when talks on the project started.
“The present agreement will build on progress achieved so far.”
India’s 2016 involvement in Chabahar came after the US eased sanctions on Iran. The sanctions were reimposed by Donald Trump’s administration in 2018.
After the signing of Monday’s agreement, US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters that the sanctions on Iran remained in place, and that Washington would enforce them.
Prof. Sujata Ashwarya from the Centre for West Asian Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi said it was not likely that sanctions would affect India, as its presence was helping deter China — the main rival of the US — from becoming involved in the Iranian port.
“(India) will effectively keep China out of the project,” Ashwarya said. “If we are there, then China won’t be there, and the US would not impose sanctions.”
Located in Iran’s southeast, Chabahar is less than 100 km from Gwadar in southwestern Pakistan — a flagship project of the multibillion-dollar China–Pakistan Economic Corridor under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Ashwarya said the Iranian port is Gwadar’s potential competitor.
“It is an investment in trade facilitation with an eye on making Chabahar a hub,” she said.
“It provides competition to Gwadar, it could potentially lead to a secured corridor to Afghanistan and Central Asia, which means that India’s trade with these regions can flourish and broaden.”
Haldiram’s: India’s beloved snack maker eyed by foreign investors Blackstone, UAE wealth fund
- Haldiram’s started in 1937 from “tiny shop” in Bikaner in desert state of Rajasthan
- Haldiram’s has almost a 13% share of India’s $6.2 billion savoury snacks market
From fried Indian snacks to local sweet delicacies, family-run Indian snack maker Haldiram’s has long been one of the country’s most popular food brands. Now, foreign investors like Blackstone and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority want a big bite of it.
Haldiram’s was last year also an acquisition target for India’s Tata Group, one of the country’s biggest conglomerates.
Here are some facts about the popular Indian brand:
* Haldiram’s started in 1937 from a “tiny shop” in Bikaner in the western desert state of Rajasthan. It later expanded to New Delhi in 1983.
* The company’s website says it has 1,000 distributors and its products are available in 7 million outlets. It also exports to many foreign countries including Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and Australia.
* One of its most popular snacks is “bhujia,” a crispy fried Indian snack made with flour, herbs and spices and sold for as little as 10 rupees (12 US cents) across mom-and-pop stores. Haldiram’s calls it “an irresistible Indian snack” which can “captivate your taste buds.”
* Haldiram’s started exporting products in 1993. The US was its first market, where it began with 15 savoury products, and later, in 2016, opened its first overseas factory in the UK.
* Beyond snacks, Haldiram’s also sells ready-to-eat and frozen foods such as Indian curries and rice items. It also runs more than 150 restaurants which sell street-style Indian food, as well as Chinese and western cuisine.
* Last year, during deal talks with Tata, Haldiram’s was seeking a $10 billion valuation. Reuters has previously reported Haldiram’s annual revenues are around $1.5 billion.
* Haldiram’s has almost a 13% share of India’s $6.2 billion savoury snacks market, Euromonitor International estimates.
($1 = 83.5200 Indian rupees)
Internally displaced people reached 76 million in 2023 – monitoring group
- Almost 90 percent of the total displacement was attributed to conflict and violence
- The group reported a total of 3.4 million movements within Gaza in the last quarter of 2023
GENEVA: Conflicts and natural disasters left a record nearly 76 million people displaced within their countries last year, with violence in Sudan, Congo and the Middle East driving two-thirds of new movement, a top migration monitoring group said Tuesday.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center report found that the number of internally displaced people, or IDPs, has jumped by 50 percent over the past five years and roughly doubled in the past decade. It doesn’t cover refugees — displaced people who fled to another country.
The report tracks two major sets of information. It counted 46.9 million physical movements of people in 2023 — sometimes more than once. In most of those cases, such as after natural disasters like floods, people eventually return home.
It also compiles the cumulative number of people who were living away from their homes in 2023, including those still displaced from previous years. Some 75.9 million people were living in internal displacement at the end of last year, the report said, with half of those in sub-Saharan African countries.
Almost 90 percent of the total displacement was attributed to conflict and violence, while some 10 percent stemmed from the impact of natural disasters.
The displacement of more than 9 million people in Sudan at the end of 2023 was a record for a single country since the center started tracking such figures 16 years ago.
That was an increase of nearly 6 million from the end of 2022. Sudan’s conflict erupted in April 2023 as soaring tensions between the leaders of the military and the rival Rapid Support Forces broke out into open fighting across the country.
The group reported a total of 3.4 million movements within Gaza in the last quarter of 2023 amid the Israeli military response to the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. That means that many people moved more than once within the territory of some 2.2 million. At the end of the year, 1.7 million people were displaced in Gaza.
Group director Alexandra Bilak said the millions of people forced to flee in 2023 were the “tip of the iceberg,” on top of tens of millions displaced from earlier and continuing conflicts, violence and disasters.
The figures offer a different window into the impact of conflict, climate change and other factors on human movement. The UN refugee agency monitors displacement across borders but not within countries, while the UN migration agency tracks all movements of people, including for economic or lifestyle reasons.
