ISLAMABAD: The UN children’s agency on Saturday urged Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to immediately lift a lingering ban on girls’ education to save the future of millions who have been deprived of their right to education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
The appeal by UNICEF comes as a new school year began in Afghanistan without girls beyond sixth grade. The ban, said the agency, has deprived 400,000 more girls of their right to education, bringing the total to 2.2 million.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education, with the Taliban justifying the ban saying it doesn’t comply with their interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law.
“For over three years, the rights of girls in Afghanistan have been violated,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director, said in a statement. “All girls must be allowed to return to school now. If these capable, bright young girls continue to be denied an education, then the repercussions will last for generations.”
A ban on the education of girls will harm the future of millions of Afghan girls, she said, adding that if the ban persists until 2030, “more than four million girls will have been deprived of their right to education beyond primary school.” The consequences, she added, will be “catastrophic.”
Russell warned that the decline in female doctors and midwives will leave women and girls without crucial medical care. This situation is projected to result in an estimated 1,600 additional maternal deaths and over 3,500 infant deaths. “These are not just numbers, they represent lives lost and families shattered,” she said.
The Afghan Taliban government earlier this year skipped a Pakistan-hosted global conference where Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai condemned the state of women’s and girl’s rights in Afghanistan as gender apartheid.
UNICEF calls on the Taliban to lift ban on girls’ education as new school year begins in Afghanistan
https://arab.news/v7zx6
UNICEF calls on the Taliban to lift ban on girls’ education as new school year begins in Afghanistan
- Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education, with Taliban justifying ban
- The ban has deprived 400,000 more girls of their right to education, bringing the total to 2.2 million, the UN agency says
Spain arrests suspect over murder of US priest
Officers arrested a 40-year-old French national on Tuesday in the southern city of Seville, Spain’s national police said
MADRID: Spanish police said on Wednesday they had arrested a man suspected of strangling an 80-year-old US Catholic priest during a robbery in the southern city of Malaga.
Father Richard Gross, who was from the US city of Boston, was found dead in January inside a holiday apartment he had rented in the center of the city, where he was preparing to embark on a cruise.
Officers arrested a 40-year-old French national on Tuesday in the southern city of Seville, Spain’s national police said in a statement. They said he was detained on suspicion of murder.
Another suspect was already in custody: a 27-year-old North African man arrested in late January. Police said they believed he acted as a lookout during the attack. Both men have criminal records related to theft.
Police suspect the two men followed Gross as he got out of a taxi the day he arrived in Malaga and followed him to the entrance of his holiday apartment, where the attack took place.
“The priest was approached by surprise and that the assailant used great violence in response to the victim’s resistance, compressing his airways until he died,” the police statement said.
It added that it was believed the suspects targeted Gross because he was “vulnerable.”
The two suspects then fled the scene with the priest’s belongings, including his suitcase.
An autopsy concluded the cause of death was “asphyxia through suffocation,” the statement said.
The US chapter of the Roman Catholic Church’s Jesuit order to which Gross belonged hailed his “independent and adventurous spirit” and “high energy.”
Gross, who had taught at several schools in the United States, was scheduled to serve as a chaplain on the cruise he was preparing to embark upon in Malaga.
Fear of more war haunts Kursk as Russia expels Ukrainian troops
- “We want peace but it is very important that the peace is long term and durable,” town Mayor Sergei Kurnosov told Reuters
- Just like Ukrainians, many Kursk residents crave a return to normality
RYLSK, Russia: In the Russian region of Kursk, where Ukraine has been fighting for more than seven months, people say they want peace but fear there will be more war.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory was launched in August — more than two years into a major war triggered by Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor — shocking a border region that hadn’t seen conflict since World War Two.
Now, with Russia close to expelling the last Ukrainian troops, Kursk’s populace is counting the cost.
For some residents like Leonid Boyarintsev, a veteran of the Sino-Soviet border conflict of 1969, the surprise enemy offensive served as justification for Russia to double down on its military activities in Ukraine.
“When we are victorious there will be peace because no one will dare to come crawling in again,” the 83-year-old told Reuters in the town of Rylsk, adding that he blamed the West for stoking the conflict in Ukraine. “They will be too afraid to.”
The damage that has been unleashed on towns and cities in the Russian region has brought home the horrors of war long suffered by Ukrainians.
In ancient Rylsk, 26 km (16 miles) from the border, the scars are everywhere — from the smashed merchant buildings from Tsarist Russia to the families still struggling with children living apart in evacuation.
“We want peace but it is very important that the peace is long term and durable,” town Mayor Sergei Kurnosov told Reuters in the ruins of a cultural center that was destroyed in a Dec. 20 Ukrainian attack.
Six people were killed and 12 injured in the attack, Russia said. Russia said the cultural center was destroyed by US-made HIMARS missiles. Abandoned music books lay beside silent pianos and a theater stage showing a shattered scene of rubble and glass.
Reuters is among the first international news outlets to gain access to the Kursk region since Russia began a lightning offensive to expel Ukrainian troops this month. While Russian officials did not check reporting material, the Reuters team was informed in advance that it could not report about the Russian military in the region or gather visuals of Russian forces.
Just like Ukrainians, many Kursk residents crave a return to normality
Here too, air-raid sirens have become the daily soundtrack of life. While Russia has now pushed out almost all Ukrainian forces from Kursk, the area has been heavily mined and drones continue to attack. Many civilian cars speeding along a road near the vast Kurchatov nuclear power plant had drone jamming devices strapped onto their roofs. Residents shopped for food and vapes as artillery boomed in the distance.
“It’s all very scary indeed,” said Rimma Erofeyeva, a music teacher in Rylsk who said people in the town wanted the fighting to stop though believed that God was protecting them. “The really scary thing is that people have got so used to this that they don’t even react to the sirens anymore.”
SWARMS OF DRONES
Ukrainian forces smashed into the Kursk region on August 6, supported by swarms of drones and heavy Western weaponry, and swiftly seize almost 1,400 sq km of territory, according to Russian generals. But within weeks the area under Ukraine’s control shrank as Russia piled in forces.
The latest battlefield map from Deep State, an authoritative Ukrainian site that charts the frontlines from open-source data, showed Ukraine controlled less than 81 sq km as of March 23.
By contrast, Russia controls about 113,000 sq km, or about 20 percent, of Ukraine.
The strategic fortunes of the Kursk incursion are disputed.
Ukraine said the incursion was aimed at bringing the war to Russia, diverting Russian troops from advances in eastern Ukraine, embarrassing President Vladimir Putin and gaining a bargaining chip in potential future talks on ending the war. The operation “achieved most of its goals,” the armed forces’ General Staff told Reuters this week.
The chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov told Putin, in a televised exchange during a trip by the president to a command post in the Kursk region on March 12, that Ukraine had lost tens of thousands of its best troops in a failed bid to distract Russian forces from the Donbas, in eastern Ukraine.
“The Kyiv regime aimed to create a so-called strategic foothold in the Kursk region for later use as a bargaining chip in possible negotiations with Russia,” Gerasimov said. “These plans of the enemy have completely failed.”
Russia’s defense ministry says Ukraine has lost 69,700 troops dead or injured in Kursk, along with 5,700 tanks, armored cars and many Western-supplied vehicles. Russia has not given its own casualty figures. Ukraine has given no casualty figures but dismisses Russian estimates as fake.
New US President Donald Trump has vowed to end the three-year war in Ukraine, yet many people in the Kursk region are skeptical of any lasting peace because of deep-seated geopolitical tensions and distrust between Russia and the West.
“I don’t think that there will be peace in our region in the near future,” said a resident of the city of Kursk who gave her name only as Yekaterina, citing resentment toward Russia from Ukraine and the West. “There will be some hostility toward our people, toward our land for a very long time.”
Tufts says international student taken into US custody, visa revoked
- Tufts said the graduate student was taken into US custody from an off-campus apartment building in Somerville
- Trump and his top diplomat Marco Rubio in particular have pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters, accusing them of supporting Hamas militants
WASHINGTON: Federal authorities have detained an international student studying at Tufts University near Boston and have revoked their visa, the university said in a statement Tuesday night.
Tufts said the graduate student was taken into US custody from an off-campus apartment building in Somerville, Massachusetts and that it had no further details about the incident or the circumstances surrounding the student’s status.
Representatives for the US Department of Homeland Security, US Customs and Border Protection and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not be immediately reached for comment on the university’s statement.
A lawyer representing the student could also not be immediately reached.
The detention is the latest move by Republican US President Donald Trump’s administration targeting international students as it seeks to crack down on immigration, including ramping up immigration arrests and sharply restricting border crossings.
Trump and his top diplomat Marco Rubio in particular have pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters, accusing them of supporting Hamas militants, posing hurdles for US foreign policy and being antisemitic.
At Columbia University, student protester and lawful permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil was arrested this month. He is legally challenging his detention after Trump, without evidence, accused him of supporting Hamas, which Khalil denies.
Federal immigration officials are also seeking to detain a Korean American Columbia University student, who is a legal permanent US resident and has participated in pro-Palestinian protests, a move blocked by the courts for now.
Earlier this month, a Lebanese doctor and assistant professor at Brown University in Rhode Island was denied re-entry to the US and deported to Lebanon after Trump’s administration alleged her phone contained photos “sympathetic” to Hezbollah. Dr. Rasha Alawieh said she does not support the militant group but held regard for its slain leader because of her religion.
Trump’s administration has also targeted students at Cornell University in New York and Georgetown University in Washington.
Funding shortages may halt global child malnutrition programs, WFP warns
- “If we fail to act, we are condemning millions of children to a lifetime of suffering,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain
- The US provided $4.5 billion of the $9.8 billion budget last year for the WFP
GENEVA: Programmes to help prevent malnourishment in children in Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria could be suspended within months if urgent funding is not found, the UN’s World Food Programme warned on Wednesday.
“If we fail to act, we are condemning millions of children to a lifetime of suffering,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain in a statement ahead of a summit in Paris on Wednesday where governments and charities will discuss tackling growing global malnutrition and hunger.
The WFP has suffered severe financial setbacks after the US, its single largest donor, announced a 90-day pause on foreign aid assistance while it determines if programs are aligned with the Trump administration’s “America first” policy.
The US provided $4.5 billion of the $9.8 billion budget last year for the WFP, which gives food and cash assistance to people suffering from hunger due to crop shortages, conflict and climate change worldwide.
The organization called on Wednesday for $1.4 billion to deliver malnutrition prevention and treatment programs for 30 million mothers and children in 56 countries in 2025, saying malnutrition is worsening worldwide due to war, economic instability and climate change.
It did not give details on its financial shortfall or mention the US
Prevention programs in Yemen, where one-third of children under the age of 5 are malnourished, could stop from May if additional funding was not received, the WFP said. The UN children’s agency UNICEF said on Tuesday that western coastal areas of Yemen are on the verge of a catastrophe due to malnutrition.
McCain said that the WFP is being forced to make tough choices such as prioritising treatment over prevention due to lack of funds. Programmes in Afghanistan could also be stopped by May, while in Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo programs could be reduced from June unless money is found.
Earlier this month, the WFP announced potential cuts to food rations for Rohingya refugees, raising concern among aid workers of rising hunger in the overcrowded camps.
The WFP said the reduction was due to a broad shortfall in donations, not the Trump administration’s move to cut foreign aid globally.
But a senior Bangladeshi official told Reuters that the US decision most likely played a role, as the US has been the top donor for Rohingya refugee aid.
Atlantic releases entire Signal chat showing Hegseth’s detailed attack plans against Houthis
- Magazine said it was now publishing details after the Trump administration confirmed it was genuine and denied any classified information had been included
WASHINGTON: The Atlantic magazine on Wednesday published what it said was the entire text of a chat group mistakenly shared with a journalist by top US national security officials laying out plans of an imminent attack on Yemen.
The stunning details, including the times of strikes and types of planes being used, were all laid out in screenshots of the chat, which the officials had conducted on a commercial Signal messaging app, rather than a secure government platform.
The magazine, which initially only published the broad outlines of the chat, said it was now publishing the details after the Trump administration confirmed it was genuine and repeatedly denied that any classified information had been included.
The scandal has rocked President Donald Trump’s administration, which for now is reacting defiantly — attacking The Atlantic and denying any wrongdoing.
National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes had said Monday the chain cited by The Atlantic appeared to be “authentic.”
However, Vice President JD Vance, who was on the Signal chat, said The Atlantic had “oversold” the story, while White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said “the entire story was another hoax.”
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz likewise insisted on X that the Signal chain revealed “no locations” and “NO WAR PLANS.”
However, the depth of detail in the now published chat will fuel a furious outcry from Democrats in Congress who are accusing the Trump officials of incompetence and putting US military operations in peril.
The House of Representatives was set to discuss the scandal in a hearing Wednesday.
The story first broke Monday when Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information in the Signal chat about imminent strikes against the Houthi rebels on March 15.
For reasons unknown, Goldberg’s phone number had been added to the group, also including Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, among others.
Goldberg also revealed disparaging comments by the top US officials about European allies during their chat.
The Atlantic initially did not publish the precise details of the chat, saying it wanted to avoid revealing classified material and information that could endanger American troops.
But on Tuesday, Ratcliff and other officials involved in the chat played down the scandal, testifying before Congress that nothing critical had been shared or laws broken — and that nothing discussed was classified.
Trump himself brushed the breach off as a “glitch” and said there was “no classified information” involved.
The Atlantic said on Wednesday that it therefore asked the government whether in that case there would be any problem in publishing the rest of the material. It got no firm indications to the contrary.
The Atlantic said its full publication Wednesday included everything in the Signal chain other than one CIA name that the agency had asked not to be revealed.
The text discussion includes Hegseth laying out the weather conditions, times of attacks and types of aircraft being used.
The texting was done barely half an hour before the first US warplanes took off and two hours before the first target, described as “Target Terrorist,” was expected to be bombed.
The details are shockingly precise for the kind of operation that the public usually only learns about later — and in vaguer terms.
“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package),” Hegseth writes at one stage.
“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets).”
A short time later, Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Waltz sent real-time intelligence on the aftermath of an attack, writing “Building collapsed. Had multiple positive ID” and “amazing job.”
The Houthis, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the “axis of resistance” of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the US.
The Trump administration has stepped up attacks on the group in response to constant Houthi attempts to sink and disrupt shipping through the strategic Red Sea.
