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Afghanistan
FILE PHOTO: Afghan women walk after the recent earthquake in the district of Zinda Jan, in Herat, Afghanistan October 10, 2023.
2 million: The United Nations has called for an investigation into reports that Iran’s security forces opened fire last weekend on roughly 200 Afghan migrants who had entered the country illegally, killing an unknown number of them. Iran has threatened to deport as many as 2 million undocumented Afghan migrants who live in the country as refugees from decades of war and famine in their home country.
25: There’s no free lunch, they say – but if there were, you certainly shouldn’t use the money to buy acne treatment pads, wine glasses, or laundry detergent. Meta has fired around two dozen employees in its Los Angeles office after they were caught using the company’s $25 meal allowances to purchase household items.
5: Venezuela has arrested five foreigners, including three Americans, on charges of terrorism. Since winning a heavily disputed election this summer, President Nicolas Maduro has cracked down on the opposition, accusing it of collaborating with foreign intelligence operatives. The recent arrests bring to 12 the number of foreigners detained in Venezuela.
10: The US and NATO allies on Thursday marked 10 years since the start of their campaign to defeat Islamic State, often referred to as “ISIS.” On the plus side, the terror organization was rooted out of its modern “caliphate” strongholds in Syria and Iraq. On the minus side, it has shown a growing presence and capability in the Sahel, where some local governments are pushing out Western forces, and Central Asia, where Islamic State is at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan and has managed to carry out attacks in Russia.
Hard Numbers: Putin visits Mongolia, France hears horror case, Deadly Kabul blast, Half a million for a rager, Japan tries to kick back, Guyana makes record blow bust
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh attend an official welcoming ceremony in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on Sept. 3, 2024.
1: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday visited Mongolia, marking his first trip to an International Criminal Court member state since the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest over alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Putin’s visit included a meeting with Mongolia’s president and was met with protests demanding his arrest for war crimes related to the deportation of Ukrainian children. Instead of being arrested, Putin was welcomed with a lavish ceremony.
51: On Monday, a French court in Avignon began hearing a horrific sex abuse case involving 51 defendants, all of whom are accused of raping a woman who was routinely drugged by her husband (he is one of the defendants). The case is bringing to light severe problems with France’s laws surrounding rape, which don’t refer to consent explicitly and sometimes make it hard to convict abusers who use drugs to subdue their victims.
6: A suicide bomber killed at least six people in Kabul on Monday and injured at least 13 others. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Taliban government of Afghanistan is a major rival of the Islamic State, which has carried out past atrocities against civilians under Taliban control.
500,000: Fraternity brothers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill spent over $500,000 dollars raised on GoFundMe to throw a “rager” hosted by conservative country music star John Rich on Monday. The GoFundMe campaign went viral after photos emerged last April of UNC frat brothers holding up a US flag that pro-Palestinian protesters on campus had attempted to take down, instantly making the young men stars on right-wing media.
4: Japan is hardly the first country that comes to mind for work-life balance, with a notoriously grueling work culture that sees most employees working dozens of unpaid overtime hours each month. But Tokyo is looking to change that by encouraging four-day work weeks. The country’s labor department is offering grants and free consulting services targeted at small and medium-sized businesses to help them roll out shorter work weeks — but, so far, only three companies have asked for advice.
200 million: Authorities in Guyana said Sunday that they had seized a record 8,000 pounds of cocaine in a bust of a cache deep in the jungle, with a street value of at least $200,000,000. Guyana is not a producer of cocaine, but traffickers increasingly use its inhospitable jungle as covert staging areas to export the drug, sometimes via homemade submersibles.FILE PHOTO: Afghan women clad in burkas wait for transportation on a road in Kabul November 5, 2012.
On Sunday, the United Nations condemned new laws enacted by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue that prohibit the display of women’s faces and bodies in public and said that “even the sound of a female voice” outside the home constitutes “a moral violation” and can be grounds for arrest.
Since 2022, Afghan women have been barred from education beyond the sixth grade and from employment outside the home. They are now forbidden from singing, reciting, and reading aloud in public. They are also not allowed to laugh very loud, and their laughter should not be heard by men. Women cannot look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.
As for men, they must grow beards, eschew Western dress and hairstyles, pray and observe religious fasts.
Breaking these rules may result in warnings, confiscation of property, or detention for up to three days. The ministry has already detained thousands for similar violations, but the new codification represents a further crackdown that women say has made life in the country completely intolerable. Roza Otunbayeva, the UN’s envoy to Afghanistan, said it represents a “distressing vision” for the country’s future.
In response, Vice and Virtue Minister Mohammad Khaled Hanafi claimed the regulations protect women’s rights under Islamic law. We’ll be watching whether Otunbayeva’s report to the UN, scheduled for Sept. 18, makes any difference, and whether the rest of the international community will join the condemnation — though serious action to help Afghan women and girls is unlikely.Talibans and their supporters gather in front of the American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 14, 2024, to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the take over. They decided to celebrate according to the Afghan calendar.
281: Taliban security forces have found themselves in a hairy situation: 281 of them have been dismissed for failing to grow beards, which the fundamentalist religious group says is in accordance with Islamic laws. The crackdown came from Afghanistan’s morality ministry, which has detained more than 13,000 people for “immoral acts” over the last year.
19: The European Commission said Tuesday it will place a 19% tax on sales of Tesla automobiles manufactured in China — a steep surcharge, but far from the worst-case-scenario. Though the proposed tax is 9 percentage points higher than the levy applied to most foreign-made cars, it is far less than the 47% rate Brussels applies to Chinese EV manufacturers.
5,000: Legaliiiize it! Moroccan King Mohammed VIpardoned roughly 5,000 people convicted or wanted for illegal cannabis cultivation. Morocco is an odd bird in the weed world, as it is a major producer of marijuana, and cultivation, export, and medical use are all legal — but recreational use and cultivation for such use are not. The King hopes the pardons will encourage farmers to stick with legal cultivation efforts.
29: Panama on Monday began deporting undocumented migrants on US-funded flights, sending home 29 Colombians with criminal records. Panama and the US agreed in July to work together to stem the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing northward through the perilous Darien Gap, which lies along the Colombia-Panama border.
110,000: Fringe presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in hot water in Arizona after the revelation that the 110,000 signatures meant to give him ballot access in that state were not collected by his own campaign. Rather, they were gathered by a PAC backing Kennedy, which may violate laws forbidding PACs and campaigns from coordinating.Hard Numbers: New PM in Bangkok, New elections in Kashmir, New copper in Afghanistan, New kidnappings in Nigeria, New fines for X in Brazil
Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra attends a press conference at the Pheu Thai party headquarters after the royal endorsement ceremony. Paetongtarn Shinawatra become the 31th Prime Minister and the second female Prime Minister of Thailand after her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra.
37: Thailand now has its youngest-ever prime minister, with 37-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter and niece of former PMs Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra, respectively, at the helm. Paetongtarn – who received the royal endorsement on Sunday – faces a tough road ahead, with Thai voters struggling amid a sluggish economy and chaffing after nearly a decade of military meddling in politics, including for her appointment.
10: Voters in Indian-controlled Kashmir will vote for a state assembly for the first time in 10 years starting next month, Indian authorities announced Friday. But the news isn’t going over well in Srinagar, with one local politician saying “This isn’t democracy, it’s a mockery.” The new local assembly will only have nominal control over education and cultural policy, while all other legislation will continue to come from New Delhi. Kashmiri militants, with backing from Pakistan and international terrorist networks, have resisted Indian occupation since 1989, and Kashmir lost its state status in 2019 during a massive crackdown.
16: A joint copper mining venture in Afghanistan between China and the Taliban reportedly broke ground last month after 16 years of delay. Kabul is hanging major economic hopes on the project, which aims to exploit the second-largest untouched copper reserve in the world. But it has also accused Beijing of reneging on key elements of the deal.
20: Nigerian authorities are urgently working to secure the release of 20 medical students who were abducted in Benue State late Thursday. The national police have deployed drones and helicopters in their search, and the Nigerian Medical Association indicated it had received ransom demands. But paying them would be illegal under an anti-kidnapping law passed in 2022.
100,000: Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered X, formerly known as Twitter, to pay 100,000 reais (~$19,774) per day for each account of far-right figures it re-opened in violation of court orders while those figures are under investigation. Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes also placed X CEO Elon Musk under investigation for charges including obstruction of justice. The order has prompted X to close its offices in Brazil, but Brazilians can still access the platform.
Hard Numbers: Devastating floods, COVID reporter released, Catalonia votes, Swiss contestant wins Eurovision
Municipality workers remove debris from the streets after flooding in Sheikh Jalal district, Baghlan province, Afghanistan May 12, 2024.
315: At least 315 people in northern Afghanistan have died in severe floods that also injured over 1,600 others, wiped out thousands of homes, and devastated livestock herds that feed the region. Aid agencies expect chaos. It’s been a bad month for floods worldwide — similar inundations in southern Brazil and Kenya have killed hundreds in recent weeks.
4: Lawyer and journalist Zhang Zhan has been released from prison in China four years after being detained for her reporting on the government’s draconian response to the COVID-19 outbreak. In jail, Zhang’s health suffered severely, with her weight dropping to below 90 lbs at one point. Her former lawyer says Zhang will either be returned home or sent somewhere to do a few months of “soft prison” time while cloistered from the rest of the world.
9: Candidates from nine parties competed for seats in local elections in the wealthy, independence-leaning Spanish region of Catalonia on Sunday, and the Socialist candidate supported by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is expected to squeak out a win. If no party wins a majority outright, the Socialists will likely need to hammer together a coalition to maintain control.
2: Students walked out on two major commencement speakers this weekend. Dozens of Duke graduates turned their backs on comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and Virginia Commonwealth University grads gave the same treatment to Gov. Glenn Youngkin. In addition to the walkouts, several more campuses saw major demonstrations surrounding their commencement activities.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses Ukrainian people with Orthodox Easter message, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, at the Saint Sophia cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine April 23, 2022. Picture taken April 23, 2022.
3: On Sunday, Ukraine marked its third Orthodox Easter under Russian attack, as Moscow’s forces targeted villages in the East with a drone barrage that killed six people. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (of Jewish descent) asked his compatriots to be “united in one common prayer” on the steps of Kyiv’s St. Sophia Cathedral.
1,500: “Pink Floyd” 用中文怎么说? China launched a mission to the literal dark side of the moon on Friday to extract surface samples in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, a vast depression over 1,500 miles wide. It is the first of three unmanned lunar launches Beijing plans for this decade, culminating in an assessment of the feasibility of a permanent lunar base.
0: Afghanistan now has no female diplomats in its foreign ministry following the resignation of Zakia Wardak, who resigned after reportedly being detained in India on gold smuggling allegations. She was appointed in 2021, before the Taliban takeover,and denies the allegations.
1.6 million: Over 1.6 million people turned out to see Madonna play in a free open-air concert on Rio’s Copacabana Beach on Saturday night. And it wasn’t just Cariocas — the city’s airport handled over 170 additional flights to accommodate pop fans from all over the world.35: Panamanians elected José Raúl Mulino, the stand-in for former President Ricardo Martinelli, to be their next leader on Sunday, with 35% of the vote. The race had been in uncertain territory until Friday morning, when the Supreme Court decided to allow Mulino to run despite not having been made a candidate through a primary election process. Read more from GZERO here.