Afghan girls football team will be allowed to resettle in UK after fleeing Taliban

Members of Afghanistan's national girls football team arrive at the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) in Lahore. (File/AFP)
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Updated 06 October 2021
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Afghan girls football team will be allowed to resettle in UK after fleeing Taliban

  • The girls faced being sent back to the Taliban once their asylum period ran out in Pakistan
  • “Every single visa is a life enhanced, the right to education protected and the freedom to play football preserved”: Siddiqi

LONDON: Afghanistan’s girls football team will be allowed to resettle in the UK after fleeing the Taliban to Pakistan where they currently hold temporary visas.

The UK’s Home Secretary Priti Patel has authorized the issuing of visas to the girls’ squad, their coaches and families, British newspaper The Sun reported. 

The girls faced being sent back to the Taliban once their asylum period ran out in Pakistan. 

A source close to Patel told The Sun that “the protection of women and girls” is at the “heart of Priti’s new Afghan resettlement scheme.”

The source added that the football team “will be able to make the UK their home, free from fear and persecution.”

Last month, the chairman of Leeds United Andrea Radrizzani offered to place all the players in the club’s youth development teams.

He said that the football club was prepared to “give the girls a prosperous and peaceful future.”

Kashif Siddiqi, co-founder of charity Football for Peace, thanked UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Patel for the visas.

“We’re still waiting to hear, but if confirmed it means 111 Afghan girls, family and coaches have had their lives changed forever by Britain,” Siddiqi said. 

“Every single visa is a life enhanced, the right to education protected and the freedom to play football preserved.”

“Without Britain they faced a return to the nightmare that is Afghanistan; this decision gives them futures potentially playing for Leeds United and other clubs,” he said.


North Korea’s Kim Jong Un inspects munitions plants, lauds increased shell production

Updated 9 sec ago
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North Korea’s Kim Jong Un inspects munitions plants, lauds increased shell production

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected munitions factories that make shells and machinery, state media KCNA said on Wednesday.
Kim lauded the shell factory for increasing production to “four times the average-year level” and playing “an important role in increasing the basic combat power” of North Korea’s armed forces, KCNA said.
North Korea has provided “billions of dollars worth of missiles and shells” to Russia in its invasion of Ukraine as well as deploying about 15,000 troops, South Korean lawmakers said last week citing the country’s spy agency.
This gave Russia a battlefield advantage in the western Kursk region and has brought the two economically and politically isolated countries closer.


Pakistan says civilians killed in Indian strikes, vows revenge

Updated 5 min 1 sec ago
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Pakistan says civilians killed in Indian strikes, vows revenge

  • Military spokesman says Ahmedpur East, Muridke, Bagh, Kotli, Muzaffarabad cities hit, one killed in Bahawalpur, two in Kotli
  • Indian military says nine sites targeted from where Apr. 22 attack in Indian-administered Kashmir had been planned

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s military spokesman said on Wednesday India had fired missiles at five locations, vowing that the country would respond to the attacks at a “time and place of its own choosing.”
The development comes amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors in the aftermath of an attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month in which 26 men were killed.
India, without providing evidence publicly, has accused Pakistan of involvement in the attack in the hill station of Pahalgam and vowed to respond. Pakistan has denied involvement and several top officials have spoken since of intelligence that India was planning to attack.
“Five places, Kotli, Ahmedpur East, Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Muridke, have been attacked,” Pakistan military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told local broadcaster Geo News. 
“Two civilians have been killed in Kotli and one child has been killed and 12 injured in Ahmedpur East.”
Ahmedpur East is a historic city located in the Bahawalpur District of southern Punjab, while Muridke is also located in Punjab. Bagh, Muzaffarabad and Kotli are in Azad Kashmir, which is part of the disputed Himalayan region governed by Pakistan. 
Speaking separately to ARY News, Chaudhry said Pakistan had scrambled jets in response to the Indian attacks, adding that no Indian planes had entered Pakistan’s airspace.
“Let me say unequivocally that Pakistan will respond at a time and place of its own choosing to this cowardly attack, this heinous provocation will not go unanswered,” the military spokesman added. 
According to an Indian government statement, its armed forces launched “Operation Sindoor,” hitting nine sites in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir from where it said the Pahalgam attack had been “planned and directed.” 
No Pakistani military facilities had been targeted, the statement added.
Kashmir has been disputed between India and Pakistan since 1947. Both rule it in part and claim it in full.


India attacks 9 sites in Pakistan, Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Updated 25 min 1 sec ago
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India attacks 9 sites in Pakistan, Pakistan-administered Kashmir

MUZAFFARABAD/NEW DELHI: India said it attacked nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir on Wednesday where strikes against it had been planned, and Pakistan reported at least three people died and 12 were injured, according to an initial assessment.
The offensive occurred amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors in the aftermath of an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month.
Pakistan said India launched missiles at three places, but an Indian government statement did not detail the nature of the strikes.
“A little while ago, the Indian armed forces launched ‘OPERATION SINDOOR’, hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed,” the Indian statement said.
“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” it said.
A Pakistani military spokesman told broadcaster Geo that Pakistan’s response was under way, without giving details. The spokesman said five places were hit including two mosques and reported three deaths and 12 people injured.
After the explosions, power was blacked out in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, witnesses said.
Witnesses and one police officer at two sites on the frontier in Indian Kashmir said they heard loud explosions and intense artillery shelling as well as jets in the air.
India blamed Pakistan for the violence last month in which 26 men were killed and vowed to respond. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the killings and said that it had intelligence that India was planning to attack.
After India’s strikes, the Indian army said in a post on X on Wednesday: “Justice is served.” 


Germany’s Merz voices ‘concern’ on Gaza, to send foreign minister to Israel

Updated 06 May 2025
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Germany’s Merz voices ‘concern’ on Gaza, to send foreign minister to Israel

  • Friedrich Merz said FM Johann Wadephul would travel to Israel at the weekend and that ‘we are currently preparing this trip together’
  • Friedrich Merz: ‘Israel must remain a country that lives up to its humanitarian obligations’

BERLIN: Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday voiced “considerable concern” about the Gaza conflict and said he would send his foreign minister to Israel this weekend.

The conservative Merz, 69, long a strong supporter of Israel, said that Israel has a right to fight the Palestinian militant group Hamas but must follow international law.

Merz, who took office on Tuesday, said Germany’s new Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul would travel to Israel at the weekend and that “we are currently preparing this trip together.”

Israel’s security cabinet has approved plans for the “conquest” of Gaza, an official said Monday, and Israel’s military has said expanded operations would entail displacing “most” of its residents to the southern part of the territory.

Merz, speaking to public broadcaster ARD, said: “We view the developments of the last few days with considerable concern.”

“Israel has the right to defend itself against the brutal attack by Hamas terrorists on October 7 and everything that followed,” said Merz.

“But Israel must also remain a country that lives up to its humanitarian obligations, especially as this terrible war is raging in the Gaza Strip, where this confrontation with Hamas terrorists is necessarily taking place.”

He added that “it must be clear that the Israeli government must fulfil its obligations under the international law of war and that humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip must be provided.”


Belarus opens case against a 78-year-old activist who became a symbol of the pro-democracy movement

Updated 06 May 2025
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Belarus opens case against a 78-year-old activist who became a symbol of the pro-democracy movement

  • Retired geologist Nina Bahinskaya was charged with repeatedly violating Belarus’ laws
  • Bahinskaya is one of the most recognizable faces of Belarus’ pro-democracy movement

TALLINN: Authorities in Belarus opened a criminal case against a 78-year-old activist who became the face of the country’s pro-democracy protests in 2020, a rights organization said Tuesday.
Retired geologist Nina Bahinskaya was charged with repeatedly violating Belarus’ laws on holding and organizing protests, Belarus’ Viasna human rights center said.
Authorities accused Bahinskaya of repeatedly walking the streets of the Belarusian capital displaying symbols striped with white, red and white: the same colors used by Belarus’ pro-democracy opposition. If found guilty, the activist faces up to three years in prison.
Bahinskaya is one of the most recognizable faces of Belarus’ pro-democracy movement, which reached its peak during mass protests in the summer of 2020, shortly after the country’s authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, was declared president for a sixth consecutive term.
Observers widely condemned the vote as rigged. In March, Lukashenko was sworn in to a seventh term.
Bahinskaya’s defiance and caustic tongue quickly has made her a popular opposition figure. When told by police in 2020 that she was violating a government ban on unauthorized demonstrations, she simply responded, “I’m taking a walk” — a snappy reply that was adopted by thousands and chanted at demonstrations.
“I noticed that the riot police more rarely beat protesters when they see elderly people among them,” she told The Associated Press at the time. “So I come out to protest as a defender, an observer and a witness. I’m psychologically and intellectually stronger than the police. Even among those who detained me, there were people who respected me.”
The 2020 protests triggered a wave of police violence from Belarusian security services, and political repression that has engulfed the country of 9.5 million people.
More than 65,000 people have been arrested, thousands have been beaten by police, and independent media and nongovernmental organizations have been shut down and outlawed, prompting condemnation and sanctions from the West.
Belarus holds about 1,200 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski. At least six political prisoners have died in prison, according to human rights activists.
Bahinskaya has been previously detained on multiple occasions, collecting fines totaling 7,200 Belarusian rubles (about $2,400).
As part of the case against her, Bahinskaya was detained in early May and taken for a forced psychiatric examination, Viasna said. In April, UN experts reported that Belarusian authorities had resumed the Soviet practice of forced psychiatric treatment as a punishment for political dissent, and that at least 33 cases of punitive psychiatry had already been recorded against political prisoners.
“Bahinskaya is a symbol of resistance to totalitarianism within the country, and it is important for the authorities to break her,” Viasna representative Pavel Sapelka told the AP. “This is a show case against an elderly person who has dedicated her entire life to the fight for freedom.”
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who lives and works in exile in Lithuania, also condemned the case.
“Today, the regime is still afraid of Nina Bahinskaya’s courage,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “For decades, Nina has stood up to tyranny.”