In August 2020, at the time of the deadly Beirut port explosion, Lebanon was already facing deepening hardship due to the financial crisis caused by decades of state corruption and waste. In the wake of the deadly blast, the country was faced with dual political and economic crises that took a devastating turn over the past year. And now the country is rife with poverty, instability, hopelessness and many Lebanese have been forced to flee. Yet Sara El Yafi, Political Analyst & Activist, is more than determined than ever to stay put and "bridge the action to the truth. We need to get rid of this political mafia," insists Ms. El Yafi. Ms. El Yafi points out how some of Lebanon's top officials were well aware of, and tacitly accepted, the lethal risks posed by ammonium nitrate, as documented in a new Human Rights Watch report. Reuters reported last August that Prime Minister Hassan Diab and President Michel Aoun were both warned in July last year that the chemicals posed a security risk and could destroy the capital if they exploded. Despite the worsening situation, Ms. El Yafi remains hopeful in the Lebanese people, "which is everything we're seeing today (through mass protests and demands for justice). For the first time, a people have found their voice again. Because for a long time, we were held hostage by the Mafia and the militia. (But now) we are sounding our voices like never before and that's going to be translated (into) change."

Pentagon Contradicts Itself on Origins of Iranian Drone

Walks back official's claim that attack on British tanker came from YemenA picture taken on August 3, 2021 shows the Israeli-linked Japanese-owned tanker MT Mercer Street, off the port of the Gulf Emirate of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. - On July 29, two crew members of the tanker MT Mercer Street, managed by a prominent Israeli businessman's company, were killed in what appears to be a drone attack off Oman, the vessel's London-based operator and the US military say, with Israel blaming Iran. (Photo by Karim SAHIB / AFP) (Photo by KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images)Jack Beyrer and Matthew Foldi • August 13, 2021 5:15 pm


The Biden administration is at odds with itself over the origins of an Iranian drone. The Pentagon’s spokesman contradicted a top defense official who told the Senate that an Iranian-built drone that killed two crewmembers on a British vessel in July was deployed from Yemen.

Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.) on Tuesday asked a top Pentagon official about weapons flowing from Iran to its Houthi allies in Yemen. "It’s been reported that the recent attack on the Mercer Street tanker in the Gulf of Oman originated from Yemen with Iranian-produced drones," Young said. "Can you confirm those public reports?"

Dana Stroul, the deputy assistant secretary of defense, was unequivocal that the drone came from Yemen. "Yes, I can confirm the reports," Stroul told Young. Stroul's testimony was backed up by British newspapers that reported that a United Kingdom special operations team is pursuing Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen who allegedly launched the strike.

Hours after the hearing, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby tweeted, "Dana Stroul did not confirm Mercer Street UAV attack emanated from Yemen."

State Department officials cut off aid to Saudi allies in their war against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in February, allowing the group to stage operations outside the country and brush back attempts from Saudi Arabia to corner the militants. The Houthis have waged a violent bombing campaign against targets within Saudi Arabia with the aid of Iranian weapons, and now appear to have extended their reach to maritime targets like Mercer Street. The attack comes months after the Biden administration de-listed the Houthis as a terrorist organization.

Kirby’s contradiction of Stroul’s testimony is the latest instance of the Biden administration's struggle to confront Iran for aggressive action in the region while it renegotiates a nuclear deal. The Washington Free Beacon reported on Monday that Biden’s nominee for a top arms control position has a track record of denying that Iran seeks to build nuclear weapons, contrary to Israeli intelligence and pledges from Iran’s leaders.

Young told the Free Beacon that while Biden’s Pentagon can try to clarify Stroul’s remarks, it "cannot walk back the clear threat Iran and its proxies pose to the region."

"The administration must be clear about the threats posed by Iran and its proxies throughout the region," Young said. "I pressed the witness about the threats to commercial shipping emanating from Iranian-backed groups in Yemen. The Pentagon can walk back the answers provided in hearings but they cannot walk back the clear threat Iran and its proxies pose to the region."

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

Booster jabs for rich countries will cause more deaths worldwide, say experts

Oxford Vaccine Group and Gavi say western leaders must not ‘reject their responsibility to the rest of humanity’

We shouldn’t be giving Covid boosters while millions wait for first dose

The UK, Germany, France and Israel are planning or already administering booster shots and the US is likely to follow. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA

Haroon Siddique
Fri 13 Aug 2021 

Many more people around the world will die of Covid if western political leaders “reject their responsibility to the rest of humanity” by prioritising booster shots for their own populations instead of sharing doses, the head of the Oxford vaccine group has warned.

Writing for the Guardian, Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, and Seth Berkley, the chief executive of Gavi, the vaccine alliance, say that the scientific and public health case for large-scale boosting has not been made and could have far-reaching consequences in other countries.

“This is a key moment for decision-makers,” they write. “Large-scale boosting in one rich country would send a signal around the world that boosters are needed everywhere. This will suck many vaccine doses out of the system, and many more people will die because they never even had a chance to get a single dose. If millions are boosted in the absence of a strong scientific case, history will remember the moment at which political leaders decided to reject their responsibility to the rest of humanity in the greatest crisis of our lifetimes.”

Andrew Pollard., director of the Oxford Vaccine Group

 Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

On Tuesday, Sajid Javid said plans were in place to offer all over-50s a Covid booster at the same time as they receive the flu jab. But Prof Adam Finn, who sits on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises the government, said such a mass rollout may not be needed, with it more likely boosters would only be needed to protect a small number of the most vulnerable people.

Germany, France and Israel are all planning, or already administering, boosters for older citizens, although the eligibility details vary by country. This is despite the World Health Organization saying that halting booster shots until at least the end of September would help ease the drastic inequity in vaccine distribution between rich and poor nations. The US also indicated it would not heed the WHO’s call, describing it as a “false choice”.

But Pollard and Berkley write that while vaccines have brought hope and will likely save millions of lives globally, thousands are still dying of Covid every week and many countries are still in despair, with their hospitals overwhelmed.

“The vast majority of people who will die of Covid this year could have been saved if we had got this right,” they say. “Vaccinating those at risk everywhere is in our self-interest. It may reduce the risk of new variants arising and will relieve pressure on health systems, open travel, resuscitate the global economy and raise the international authority of politicians prepared to take such moral leadership.”

They also stress that the level of antibody or T-cells required to prevent people from getting seriously ill cannot yet be measured. While the yellow fever vaccine, which provides lifelong protection with one dose, the flu jab is given annually. Somewhere in-between is the tetanus vaccine, which requires five to six doses for lifelong protection. Pollard and Berkley say it is unclear where the Covid vaccine sits on the spectrum but – so far – it is clear it is offering protection against severe disease, including that caused by the main variants.

“The focus of vaccination policy cannot be on sustaining very high levels of antibodies to prevent mild infection,” they write. If we focus on antibody levels alone, we could end up vaccinating everyone repeatedly to cope with a virus that keeps mutating. The point of vaccination isn’t to prevent people from getting mild infections; it’s to prevent hospitalisation and death.”

They say that it is not an “all or nothing” argument, with careful analysis of the data required to ensure there are no groups for whom boosters are already warranted. But they add that for those who do not respond well to vaccines – a group which some have suggested should get a booster – “more doses won’t help”.

The pair conclude: “Since we have the two-dose luxury of having time on our side, we should not rush into boosting millions of people, while time is running out for those who have nothing. First doses first. It’s that simple.”

A government spokesperson said: “We are preparing for a booster programme and the independent JCVI has published its interim advice on who to prioritise for a third vaccine from September 2021.

“The UK is committed to supporting a global recovery to the Covid-19 pandemic and improving access to vaccines – and we have committed to donate 100m doses by June 2022, with the first deliveries starting last week.”

 

‘We Were So Hungry, We Ate Our Fear’: The Uncertain Consequences Of Cuba’s Protests

Comment

11th August 2021Will Neill

Image description: Protestors marching in Cuba holding Cuban flags and signs reading “Freedom to Cuba!”

On Sunday 11th July, in the town of San Antonio De Las Banos on the outskirts of Havana, historic protests erupted against the Cuban government. In the following days the protests spread throughout the country, with protestors chanting ‘freedom’ and ‘down with the dictatorship’. The protests were fuelled by frustration with medicine and fuel shortages, the Cuban government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as a broader frustration with the status quo.

Videos spread across social media of protestors flipping over police cars, looting stores and throwing rocks, all capturing international attention. An anonymous protestor in San Antonio stated ‘we are not afraid. We want change, we do not want anymore dictatorship’. The Cuban government responded in kind: ’the order to fight has been given – into the street revolutionaries!’ Declared President Miguel Diez-Canal.

Similar protests have not been seen since the 1959 Cuban revolution. Amnesty International recorded at least 150 protestors being arrested by the government, while the Cuban organisation Movimento San Isdiro totalled at least 170 protestors being arrested as consequence of the protests. So unnerved was the Cuban government by the scale of these protests that ninety year-old Raul Castro, brother of Fidel Castro and the former head of state, was rolled out to attend a mass rally to stir support for the embattled regime.

Numerous factors are responsible for the timing and size of the protests. The Covid-19 pandemic is particularly crucial, with the Cuban economy contracting 11% in 2020. This sharp economic contraction was the result of the country’s increasing dependency on tourism which has collapsed in the last two years. Without any tourists, the Cuban government could not afford to pay any of its debts abroad, ensuring a lack of essential resources domestically.

The collapse of tourism was compounded by a collapse in sugar yields. Alongside tourism, the Cuban government has prioritised sugar production in recent years, but this production has similarly drained to a halt. Breakdown in machinery, a lack of fuel, and poor harvests coalesced to dry up sugar production, and tipped this economic downturn became a full blown crisis.

The protests present an existential threat to the Communist regime, with Cuban leftists feeling free to finally criticise the state.

The protests present an existential threat to the Communist regime, with Cuban leftists feeling free to finally criticise the state. Left-wing Cuban activist Luis Emilio Aybar argued that the actions of 11 July were the consequence of communists failing to counteract the ‘harmful practices of the state’. Aybar painted the Cuban government as a right wing, with its dependency on tourism the result of a ‘failure to pressure the government for the left’. This criticism of the Cuban state was equally advanced by socialist singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez, who has similarly turned on the communist government. He has been meeting with dissident protests and calling for all non-violent protestors to be released. All this criticism points to the waning authority of the Cuban government at such a critical juncture.

The July revolt raises further question about the nature of US-Cuban relations which has become increasingly strained in the last five years. Despite much clamour about the Obama administration’s so-called ‘Cuban Thaw’ in 2015, relations between the two countries remain hostile. The Trump administration reversed all of Obama’s policies, placing Cuba back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, attacked countries that traded with Cuba, and prevented Cuban nationals from sending money back home. These polices isolated Cuba internationally and added further strain to Cuba’s failing economy.

The Biden administration seems likely to follow this aggressive course. Despite the fact that Joe Biden pledged on reviving the ‘Cuban thaw’, recent policy decisions point to further aggression. Biden declared Cuba to be a ‘failed state’ and on 22 July announced new sanctions that specifically targeted a high-ranking official Alvaro Lopez Miera of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces and a unit within the Cuban state’s security department. This aggression and immediacy of the Biden administration’s response points to the unlikeliness of a return to a detente between the United States and Cuba.

Despite the fact that Joe Biden pledged on reviving the ‘Cuban thaw’, recent policy decisions point to further aggression.

On Thursday 22 July, President Biden declared in a speech that these sanctions were ‘…just the beginning’ and that his government would continue to ‘sanction the individuals’ that were oppressing the Cuban people were punished for their actions. Ryan C. Berg, an expert on South America at the Centre for the Strategic International Studies, argued that the sanctions will have minimal effect based on the fact that Miera would likely lack any practical assets within the United States. Nonetheless Biden’s rhetoric points to a turning point in international relations, with bipartisan support in the U.S. for hardening relations with Cuba. However the United States’ overall ambitions seek are far from certain. Carlos Alzugaray, the former Cuban ambassador to the EU, summed up this uncertainty distinctly: ‘Do they want major riots and the collapse of the Cuban government? Do they really want that? What happens next?’ Despite this shift in U.S. policy, the end goals lack crucial clarity.

The broader consequences for the Cuban revolt are also unknown. Commentators have compared the protests to those held in Venezuela and Nicaragua in the last decade. Despite both these nations facing a more effective and organised opposition, embodied particularly by Juan Guiado in Venezuela, the status quo remains the same in both nations. The ruling regimes retain control and both were able to prevent national protests from becoming full-blown revolutions.

Whether Cuba will endure a similar result, with a shaken but enduring communist regime, or whether this protest is the trigger of a broader movement is uncertain. Nevertheless, not since the founding of the one party state by Fidel Castro in 1959 has the Cuban government faced such a grave threat to its existence.

 

Image credits: lezumbalaberenjena via Flickr

'We were so hungry, we ate our fear': The uncertain consequences of Cuba's protests – The Oxford Student

As variant delays return to offices, many in US don't mind

Issued on: 15/08/2021 

Across the United States, a growing number of companies are delaying their employees' return to the office due to the Delta variant, meaning workers can continue to work from home Chris DELMAS AFP

Washington (AFP)

When Romain Daubec and his wife Monica left San Francisco last summer for Denver, Colorado, they thought their telework hundreds of miles from their offices would last no more than a half-year.

But the stunningly rapid spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19 has them settling in for a new way of life that now, they say, feels more "natural."

Across the United States, a growing number of companies are delaying their employees' return to the office out of concern over the new wave of disease.

But like the Daubecs -- he is French, she is American -- more and more people across the country have settled in for a second year of telework -- willingly this time, with little desire to return to the office, content and comfortable with their new personal and professional lifestyle.

The Delta variant, now dominant in the United States, has taken a heavy toll. An average of nearly 113,000 new daily cases of Covid-19 were registered over the previous seven days -- a 24 percent increase over the prior week, Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Thursday.

One employer taking note was Facebook, which on that same day announced that it would not require workers to return to the office before January 2022.

"Data, not dates, is what drives our approach for returning to the office," a Facebook spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry, saying the company's prime concern was "everyone's safety."

Only weeks earlier, the popular social network had been pushing for a quicker return to normal, saying it would completely reopen its offices by October -- while requiring all employees to be masked and vaccinated.

Facebook thus joined Microsoft, Amazon, American Express and NBC in delaying, to October or January, the full reopening of offices.

- Lower wages but also taxes -

For 34-year-old Romain Daubec, a financial analyst for a subsidiary of French bank BNP Paribas, and Monica, who works for Facebook, a return to the office is no longer an option.

While Monica saw her earnings cut by 10 percent because of the move, "that was largely compensated for" by a greater quality of life and more affordable housing -- less than half as expensive in Colorado as in California -- as well as by lower taxes, Romain said.

Telework has allowed many employees him to strike a better balance between work and home life and save precious time by not commuting - AFP

Above all, Monica no longer has to spend three hours on a bus every day.

For Oren Klachkin, an economist with Oxford Economics, it took a bit longer to make the decision to leave New York for Boulder, Colorado.

But when a new wave of Covid-19 struck last fall, he saw the silver lining: It was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live somewhere else, maintain our jobs, try living in a different place," he said.

Space was a big draw: He and his wife Nicole, a 35-year-old consultant, had been sharing a cramped Manhattan apartment.

In Boulder, not far from Denver, the couple now has a "small house" where each has a separate room for work.

"I like the new life that I have here," Klachkin said, especially "having access to outdoor activities" in a scenic region near the Rocky Mountains.

Telework in Colorado has allowed him to strike a better balance between work and home life and saved him from having to "waste" up to two hours a day in the subway, he said.

But "there are certain downsides, of course," Klachkin added, notably the inability to interact in person with colleagues.

That is partially offset by "the availability of different online software to essentially allow us to see each other... even though we're not physically in the same space."

- A tacit deal -

To Romain Daubec, where one works matters less than how one works.

"As far as I'm concerned, I just need a good internet connection and have to work on San Francisco's time zone," he said, while acknowledging that not every job lends itself to distance work.

Fundamentally, Daubec added, telework succeeds when built on a basis of trust between employer and employee: Companies allow telework because they save on fixed costs like office rent, while workers tacitly agree to work as seriously as if their boss were standing in the same room.

Klachkin, for his part, says he is more productive than ever -- no longer having to spend long, wearying hours commuting every week.

© 2021 AFP

Why tonnes of dead fish are washing up on Florida beaches


Issued on: 10/08/2021 - 

Local residents and tourists have been sharing images of countless fish washing up on Florida’s Gulf Coast in July 2021. © @paulcuffaro/TikTok @radchickyo/Twitter

Text by:Pariesa Young


Beachgoers and tourists hoping to enjoy Florida’s sandy beaches have come across a bleak scene for the past few months: the coasts are dotted with dead fish, maggots and a toxic white foam, all brought on by a harmful algae bloom called “red tide”. The bloom, which experts say has been intensified by local pollution, has posed a severe threat to wildlife and the barely recovering tourism industry.


Since May, the western coast of Florida on the Gulf of Mexico has been impacted by a severe red tide. Local docks and beaches have become a scene of desolation, particularly after Hurricane Elsa winds in July blew tonnes of fish carcasses to the shorelines.

The outbreaks have been particularly severe in Sarasota, Manatee and Pinellas counties, located on Florida’s southern Gulf coast. More than 1,700 tonnes of fish and debris have already been collected from beaches in Pinellas County. Residents and tourists alike have been sharing photos and videos of the dismal scenes, garnering millions of views on TikTok.



A video posted on TikTok on July 20 shows a slew of dead fish on a beach in Pinellas County.


A video posted on TikTok on July 18 shows a mass of dead fish in a canal in Tampa Bay.

Red tide is a regular phenomenon in the Gulf of Mexico caused by blooms of algae called Karenia brevis, which releases harmful toxins that can kill aquatic species as large as manatees and cause respiratory irritation in humans. Local wildlife such as birds who eat the dead fish can also be poisoned.

A photo posted on Twitter August 3 shows some of the marine life that has washed up on Florida’s Gulf coast.

Officials have warned locals and tourists to stay away from affected beaches, while local fishermen have seen their livelihoods grind to a halt.

Karenia brevis has impacted Gulf waters since at least the 1800s, typically in the autumn and winter, after Florida’s rainy season. However, the frequency and duration of recorded red tide blooms have been increasing since 1995, according to data from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

A bloom in 2018 prompted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to declare a state of emergency, but locals say this year’s is even worse, thanks to manmade pollution and favourable conditions in which the algae can thrive. This year, more than three times the number of fish have been killed by red tide in the Tampa Bay area than in 2018.

‘Human sources of pollution supercharge the blooms’

Maya Burke is the assistant director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, an association working to restore and protect the waters of Tampa Bay. She says that such a severe red tide within Tampa Bay hasn’t been seen in decades.

I’ve lived in Florida my entire life, and it’s very common for us to experience a red tide in the Gulf of Mexico – it happens fairly frequently. And we’ve had several large red tide blooms in my life. What’s different about this event is what happened in Tampa Bay, it’s a really localised effect. For it to be at such a level where it's killing marine life and causing those respiratory irritations in Tampa Bay as early as the month of May and June, I've never seen anything like that in my life.

Karenia brevis is just part of the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico, these blooms have been documented hundreds of years before really intense human development on the coast. But when they interact with human sources of pollution, that’s what can sort of supercharge the blooms and provide all this fuel for intense and more frequent red tide. That’s what happened this year.


In March and April, 237 million gallons of toxic wastewater from a former fertiliser processing plant, high in levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, leaked or were pumped out of the Piney Point Reservoir into local waterways and Tampa Bay. Officials evacuated nearby residents and deployed emergency workers to control and repair the spill.

The Piney Point wastewater reservoir is located in southern Tampa Bay. © FMM Graphic Studio

Officials said the water did not contain radioactive substances and would not pose a concern to marine ecosystems, but Burke and other local researchers say this influx of nitrogen into the bay would have direct impacts on red tide blooms.

[The Piney Point discharge] basically doubled the nitrogen flow to that part of the bay. It was an entire year’s worth of nitrogen delivered over a 10-day period. Karenia brevis is not a picky eater, it can consume nutrients from a variety of sources. We think that’s really what caused this bloom to intensify and take off in Tampa Bay in ways that it has never done before in my lifetime.

Warmer waters brought on by climate change can also make conditions more hospitable for these dangerous algae blooms, but the main driver is human development, Burke says, particularly pollution from wastewater and auto emissions. She worries that sustained and repeated red tide blooms will have significant impacts on local ecosystems.

Usually, the fish populations are able to rebound in about three years or so, but we are just coming out of a really significant red tide event in the Gulf of Mexico from around 2018. So things like fisheries were really just starting to open back up, and then we get hit with another event. We really worry about the long-term sustainability of our fish population. But the other thing that we worry about is seagrass [...], which performs a lot of ecosystem services that are really important to the bay, it’s a really important food source for things like turtles and manatees.

The number one thing we can do is control nutrient pollution, no matter the source. By improving water quality, you’re reducing the food that’s available to fuel these kinds of blooms in the future.

As of August 7, the bloom began to subside in the Tampa Bay area, but it continues to impact beaches in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Several conservation groups in Florida have filed a lawsuit against Governor Ron DeSantis and regulatory agencies for the toxic wastewater spill at Piney Point. Although state and local funds have been allocated for coastal cleanups and red tide research, local associations and environmentalists have denounced DeSantis’s response to the events, imploring him to declare a state of emergency.

Afghan women, girls fear return to 'dark days' as Taliban push closer to Kabul

Issued on: 14/08/2021 - 

A social worker addresses the Afghan women gathered at a hall in Kabul on August 2, 2021, against the claimed human rights violations on women by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. © Sajjad Hussain, AFP

Text by:Nicole TRIAN

The Taliban’s rapid-fire advance through Afghanistan has left women and girls, a whole generation of whom have grown up with rights and freedoms, among the most vulnerable. Now they stand to lose those hard-won gains as the Taliban look poised to march on Kabul.

As the Taliban continue their dramatic sweep through Afghanistan's biggest cities and provincial areas, with two-thirds of the country now under their control and the capital Kabul in their sights, women and girls are among the most vulnerable.

Afghan women have been targeted for speaking out against attacks by the Taliban or simply for holding positions of authority.

Since the start of 2021, civilian deaths have risen by almost 50 percent with more women and children killed and wounded in Afghanistan than in the first six months of any year since records began in 2009, the UN reported in July.

The Afghan government has blamed most targeted killings on the Taliban, who deny carrying out assassinations.


If the Islamist insurgents conquer the capital, many fear a disintegration of women’s rights, with the Taliban overturning the freedoms gained during the 20 years since US-led forces helped oversee the country’s transition to democracy.

"The Taliban will regress freedom at all levels and that is what we are fighting against," an Afghan government spokesperson told Reuters on August 13.

"Women and children are suffering the most and our forces are trying to save democracy. The world should understand and help us."

'Our world collapses'

As city after city falls into the hands of Islamist insurgents, those pleas for help may be too late. Numerous reports have emerged of the Taliban going door-to-door, drafting lists of women and girls aged between 12 and 45 years who are then forced to marry Islamist fighters. Women are being told they cannot leave home without a male escort, can no longer work or study or freely choose the clothes they want to wear. Schools, too, are being closed.

For a whole generation of Afghan women who entered public life – the lawmakers, journalists, local governors, doctors, nurses, teachers and public administrators – there's much to lose. While they strove, working alongside male colleagues and in communities unused to seeing women in positions of authority, to help build a democratically-run civil society, they also hoped to open up opportunities for later generations of women to succeed them.

Zahra, 26, is among the many young women who fear their education and ambitions will come to nothing. She watched Thursday evening as the Taliban flooded her hometown of Herat, Afghanistan’s third-largest city, and hoisted their white flags emblazoned with an Islamic declaration of faith.

“I am in big shock,” said Zahra, who works for a non-profit organisation to raise awareness for women, told AP. “How can it be possible for me as a woman who has worked so hard and tried to learn and advance, to now have to hide myself and stay at home?”

Zahra stopped going to the office a month ago, as the Taliban neared, and began working remotely from home. But since Thursday she has been unable to work.

Many other educated Afghan women have taken to social media to appeal for help and express their frustration.

"With every city collapsing, human bodies collapse, dreams collapse, history and future collapse, art and culture collapse, life and beauty collapse, our world collapse," Afghan photographer Rada Akbar wrote on Twitter.

Farkhunda Zahra Naderi, a former lawmaker and senior UN advisor to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and now member of the Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation, has watched as her country opened up over the 20 years to become part of the global community.

“My greatest fear is now they are marginalising women who have been working in these leadership positions, who have been a strong voice against the most powerful abusers but also working with them to change the situation on the ground,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg. If they eliminate these leaders, she asks, who will be left to speak up for women and defend the gains made over the last 20 years?


Taliban leaders repeatedly made assurances in talks with Western and other leaders, which ultimately failed this month in Doha, that women would continue to have equal rights in accordance with Islamic law, including the ability to work and be educated. But in cities overrun by Taliban insurgents, women are already losing their jobs to men.

Women employees at two bank branches, one in Kandahar and the other in the city of Herat, were harassed and castigated by Taliban gunmen in July. The gunmen escorted the women to their homes and told them not to return to their jobs, which would go to male relatives instead.

"It's really strange to not be allowed to get to work, but now this is what it is," Noor Khatera, a 43-year-old woman who had worked in the accounts department of the bank told Reuters.

"I taught myself English and even learned how to operate a computer, but now I will have to look for a place where I can just work with more women around."

Women under Taliban rule

When the fundamentalist group ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 they imposed Sharia law, a strict interpretation of Islamic law which meant women could not work, girls were banned from attending school and women had to cover their faces in public and always be accompanied by a male relative if they wanted to leave their homes.

Women who broke the rules sometimes suffered humiliation and public beatings by the Taliban's religious police. The Taliban also carried out public executions, chopped off the hands of thieves and stoned women accused of adultery.
Reporters: Life in Taliban country

Taliban insurgents are fast closing in on the Afghan capital, Kabul. © FRANCE 24 screengrab 

So far there have been no reports of such extreme measures in the areas the Taliban have captured. But the many recently reported incidents of the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls suggest they intend to revert to governing as they once had.

‘Bleak’ future for students

Victoria Fontan, vice president of the American University of Afghanistan told FRANCE 24 that the situation for Afghan women and girls is very bleak, especially those who are students.

Professor Fontan said some of her own female students were holed up in the cities of Kandahar and Herat, which were seized by the Taliban.

“Life is very difficult for them,” she said. “Are they going to be able to continue studying online or not? Telecommunications is going to be quite a key strategy for the Taliban and so for [the students] their only lifeline is the internet, so they’re extremely worried they’re going to be confined to their houses and no longer able to study.”

But some, like Marianne O’Grady, deputy country director for Care International in Kabul, are more optimistic. She believes the achievements of women over the past two decades will be difficult to erase, even if the Taliban succeed in their takeover.

“You can’t uneducate millions of people,” she told AP. If women “are back behind walls and not able to go out as much, at least they can now educate their cousins and their neighbours and their own children in ways that couldn’t happen 25 years ago".

Many women, though, are choosing to flee. Nearly 250,000 Afghans have fled their homes since the end of May, 80 percent of them women and children, according to the UN refugee agency.

Ghani on Saturday broke days of silence to address his fellow citizens, saying his main responsibility now was to prevent any more destruction and instability.

But Ghani’s message will ring hollow for Afghan women who are already witnessing reprisals and a reversal of freedoms they once enjoyed.

In the days of Taliban rule, Zarmina Kakar, a 26-year-old women's rights activist from Kabul, remembered a time when her mother took her out to buy ice cream and was whipped by a Taliban fighter for momentarily exposing her face.

“Today again, I feel that if the Taliban come to power, we will return back to the same dark days,” she told AP.

(with REUTERS and AP)

VIDEO 37:46

Afghan women's rights activist: The Taliban 'will come and kill me'

As the Taliban make rapid gains in Afghanistan, women in the country are concerned about their future. An Afghan women's rights activist told DW her life may be in danger if the Islamist militants attack Kabul.


Freedoms for Afghan women could

WILL  be dramatically restricted if the Taliban take control

As the Taliban continue to capture major Afghan cities such as Herat and Kandahar, many women in Afghanistan are concerned about their future under Islamist fundamentalist rule should the group take over the country.

Afghan women's rights activist Mariam Atahi told DW on Friday that she is afraid the Taliban "will come and kill me" if the Taliban launch an offensive on Kabul, Afghanistan's capital and largest city.

She said she fears punishment from the Taliban "because for the last 20 years, I advocated for women's rights," going against Taliban "ideologies and thoughts."

"People are stressing out that tomorrow night or the night after tomorrow, the Taliban will take Kabul and they are going to go back to the same situation as they were in 1996," Atahi said. "Afghan women especially, who have gone through so much during the Taliban regime, are scared about what will happen."
What was life like for Afghan women under Taliban rule?

The Taliban previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, and imposed strict rules on women during that period. Women were unable to work or be in contact with men other then blood relatives, and had to wear a burqa while out in public.

If women violated the rules, they could face severe punishments from the Taliban, such as imprisonment, torture or even death. Women were often publicly flogged or executed during the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan.

Atahi said women under renewed Taliban occupation are witnessing the same types of restrictions, and added that the "situation is not good" in Taliban-controlled areas.

"There is a lot of war, women are not allowed to go to school and … they have been asked to wear the hijab and burqa," she said.

'Taliban 2.0 is exactly the same as the earlier version'

News agency Reuters reported Friday that Taliban insurgents stormed the offices of Azizi Bank in the southern city of Kandahar in early July, and ordered nine women working there to leave.

Atahi collects stories from women in rural areas of the country, and said they share her fears.

She said the women she is helping are afraid that the Taliban will come and "check home by home asking us to be accountable for what we have done during the past 14 years."
Kabul professor: 'Morale is really low' among Afghan women

Victoria Fontan, a professor of conflict studies at the American University of Kabul, told DW that "morale is really low" among Afghan women.

"They're apprehensive about the future, about their capacity to continue studying, to continue being part of our society," Fontan said. "For them, it's a really difficult time because they fear that Afghanistan is being set back for many years to come, maybe 10, 15 years."

PAKISTAN: HOW ISLAMIST MILITANCY WRECKED A TRIBAL WOMAN'S LIFE

A hard life

Life is hard for Pakistan's tribal women. For Baswaliha, a 55-year-old widow, life became even more painful after she lost her son in 2009, and her husband in 2010 — both in terrorist attacks. Baswaliha lives in Galanai, a town in the tribal Mohmand district that shares a border with Afghanistan. The area was hit hard by the Taliban insurgency following the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.    1234567

During the Taliban's five-year reign in Afghanistan, girls and women were almost completely prohibited from receiving an education.

A report published by Human Rights Watch in June 2020 found that although the Taliban officially claim it is no longer against education for girls, very few Taliban officials actually allow girls to go to school past puberty.

Human rights group Amnesty International has also previously reported that the vast majority of marriages in Afghanistan were forced during the Taliban era.

International organizations have sounded the alarm about the rollback of women's rights in the country, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday saying he is "horrified" about restrictions in Taliban-controlled areas.

"It is particularly horrifying and heartbreaking to see reports of the hard won rights of Afghan girls and women being ripped away," Guterres told journalists.
Taliban advances come amid US pullout

The Taliban's advances come after President Joe Biden ordered an end to the US combat mission in Afghanistan, with the remainder of US troops due to pull out by August 31.

The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in pursuit of al-Qaida, the jihadist group behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The US-backed "Northern Alliance" ousted the Taliban from power during the invasion, with the US and NATO allies then working for two decades to train Afghan government forces to maintain security in the country.

US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday that it is not too late to keep the Taliban from "overrunning Kabul" and called on the Biden administration to order airstrikes to stop the group from advancing further.

Frontline of fear: Afghan teen press-ganged by the Taliban

GUNFODDER BY DAY DANCING BOYS AT NIGHT

Issued on: 15/08/2021 - 04:12

The Taliban have been press-ganging youths like Abdullah to be used as cannon fodder in their offensives across Afghanistan Wakil KOHSAR AFP


Kabul (AFP)

Hours after the Taliban overran his hometown in northern Afghanistan last week, 17-year-old Abdullah was forced to ferry rocket-propelled grenades up a nearby hill –- an unwilling and terrified insurgent recruit.

Abdullah said he was out on the streets of Kunduz when members of the Taliban stopped him.

The insurgents also snatched another 30 to 40 youth, some of them boys as young as 14, from outside a madrassa (Islamic school), he said.

"They asked us to take up arms and join their ranks," Abdullah said. "And when our parents came to ask for our release, they threatened them with weapons."

The Taliban have virtually overrun the country following a lightning offensive -- supported in part by press-ganging youths like Abdullah to be used as cannon fodder.

Abdullah said the insurgents strapped a 20-kilogramme (44-pound) bag of RPGs onto his back, shoved a box of ammunition into each of his hands and forced him to march.

The ordeal lasted three hours before his family was able to barter his release.

But as they prepared to flee, the insurgents came back for him and others.

"They were beating us. I still have the marks," he said.

An hour later, he said he was given an assault rifle and pushed into action -- ordered to help attack a police garrison.

"I was shaking, I couldn't hold my gun," said Abdullah, his face flushed with teenage acne.

The Afghan government forces fought back furiously.

"Three or four boys who were carrying weapons were hit and died when their bags exploded," Abdullah said.

"One Taliban fighter was killed, another lost a leg and an arm."

- 'I was in shock' -

Abdullah saw his chance to escape when half of the Taliban fighters in his group had been killed or wounded.

He laid down his gun and ran, taking an hour to get home.

"I was in shock," he said.

His family was in the throes of their own escape, preparing to seek safety in the capital Kabul. They had borrowed money and pawned off their belongings.

"We didn't take anything with us. We even sold our food," Abdullah said.

After a 15-hour journey, Abdullah, his parents, his grandfather, and his brothers and sisters reached Kabul.

Since then, they have been sleeping under a tent in a park in a northern suburb where they spoke with AFP.

Their only possessions are what they could carry.

Abdullah said his stomach still hurts from where the Taliban fighters hit him with the butt of their guns as he resisted being press-ganged.

He now dreams of getting out of Afghanistan.

But when he was held hostage by the Taliban, Abdullah said he was mostly terrified for his family.

"I was thinking about my parents," he said. "I thought: 'If I am hit and killed... what will happen to them?'"

© 2021 AFP

SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Boy Soldiers, Boy Brides (plawiuk.blogspot.com)

Long way to go to close the huge global gender finance gap

Women and businesses owned by women do not have the same access to finance as their male counterparts. That has created a huge gender financing gap, which some companies have tried to bridge in emerging economies.



The gender finance gap is a huge global problem

For an exclusively digital bank, TymeBank has an unusually personal approach for finding new customers.

The South African lender was launched in 2015 and does not have physical branches. However, it does operate a national network of kiosks in grocery stores and supermarkets. The aim is to find people who may want to open a bank account, but who feel hindered in some way from doing so.

In South Africa, that group invariably comprises a lot of women. According to Rachel Freeman, in charge of growth and development at Tyme, there are three main barriers impeding women with low incomes from getting involved in banking and lending: physical location, financial cost and emotional questions.

She says many women in developing economies find it "scary and challenging" to get involved with a bank, particularly if it includes walking into a branch. "We believe very strongly that people only can walk from where they stand. So we try to meet them where they are," she says, explaining the logic behind the supermarket kiosk idea.

Freeman was speaking at the launch on Thursday of the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) "Women Finance Exchange," an initiative aimed at helping significantly expand access to financing for women and women-led businesses around the world.


The ADB has launched the Women Finance Exchange— it's aimed at helping expand access to financing for women

"What we're doing is providing an online portal, that creates a community where knowledge can be shared," said Christine Engstrom, from the ADB's private sector financial institutions division."
Tyme to close the gap

Gender-based barriers to banking and other forms of financing are a major global problem. The ADB estimates that up to 1 billion women around the world are inadequately served financially.

That translates into a huge sum of money. A 2017 World Bank report estimated that the gender finance gap for micro, small- and medium-sized businesses stood at around $1.7 trillion (€1,45 trillion) globally. Considering that several analyses have found that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated gender inequality around the world, that gap is unlikely to have been bridged much in recent times.

"Many financial institutions in ADB's developing member countries have not targeted women borrowers as yet," said Ashok Lavasa, the ADB's vice president.

"They have not yet realized the untapped commercial potential of banking with women, and could also be unaware of the barriers that women encounter when trying to access financial services."

Tyme has targeted breaking down those barriers and it appears to be succeeding. Earlier this year, the bank added its three millionth customer and says it is adding up to 5,000 new ones per day, with around 85% of those signing up via the supermarket kiosks.


TymeBank aims to target women who typically have not opened bank accounts before

The bank says the kiosks give people the opportunity to open a bank account in three minutes or less, with the help of an "ambassador," 70% of whom are women. Being easily located where women buy groceries targets the physical barrier, according to Freeman, because it removes the need to go to a branch.

However, Freeman says that arguably the greatest barrier for women getting more involved in banking and lending is the emotional one.

"When you go to a branch to open an account, there are lots of forms to fill out but there is not that much education. There is no one who says 'this is how it works.' We try to overcome this emotional barrier by doing on-the-spot, hands-on education.

"If you want to reach the low-income and rural population, you have to embrace a model that goes beyond the digitally savvy."
Flexible approach

This kind of flexibility is important if financial institutions are to succeed in helping more women, and more female-led businesses said Sucharita Mukherjee CEO of Kaleidofin, an Indian digital financial services platform.

Her company provides financial guidance to individuals, households and businesses via a smartphone app. However, she says for many women, they were reliant on using their husband's smartphone.


The gender finance gap was estimated at $1.7 trillion back in 2017

"They wanted to make sure that their savings were confidential," she said at Thursday's event. "They might therefore use a friend's smartphone. So we had to make sure we could support that level of confidentiality in our systems."

However, she says female customers often ended up being the most committed and disciplined. "We saw women as the gateway to the family, being the custodian of the household's financial goals."
Long way to go

According to Lavasa, more and more attention is being paid to the issue of the gender financing gap by both banks and nonfinancial institutions. He also points out that various studies have shown that supporting the so-called female economy can be profitable for lenders.

He cited a 2019 survey by the International Finance Corporation which found the average nonperforming loan ratio for women-owned SMEs was 3.7%, significantly lower than the overall average of 5%.

That was a statistic that chimed with his own personal experience of working with rural financing in India in the 1980s, when he said women were routinely more disciplined borrowers than men.

"What is good for gender equality, is good for the economy and good for the society as well," he said. "But there is a long way to go."

DW RECOMMENDS

BILLIONAIRES HIDE AWAY
New Zealand: The ideal spot to ride out the apocalypse?

Google's Larry Page has been granted New Zealand residency, boosting the country’s image as a refuge for tech billionaires. Is it all because the Pacific island nation is the best place to shelter from societal collapse?


A view of Lake Wanaka, close to where Peter Thiel's ranch is located on New Zealand's South Island

"Saying you're 'buying a house in New Zealand' is kind of a wink, wink, say no more." So said Reid Hoffmann, LinkedIn co-founder, in an article in The New Yorker that caused a stir in 2017.

Three years before the pandemic was defined, the article "Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich" outlined the extent to which high-net-worth people were preparing for an apparently impending apocalypse. "We're buying a house in New Zealand" was code for "we're gearing up for Armageddon."

New Zealand is the most isolated rich country in the world and just last month was named by researchers from the Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom as the best place to survive global societal collapse.

It has long held that status among those interested in such things. The idea that the country is laden with secret luxury survival bunkers is even an internet meme. So when a famous billionaire announces plans to move there, that does draw some attention.

Last week it was revealed that Larry Page, the co-founder of Google and the world's sixth-richest person with a fortune of around $122 billion (€104.1 billion), had obtained New Zealand residency. This under a special category for investors, which requires them to pump 10 million New Zealand dollars ($6.9 million, €5.9 million) into the country over a three-year period.
Thiel tales

Page's motivations may have nothing to do with apocalypse survival planning. But this story does recall the tale of New Zealand's most famous billionaire-investor-survivalist: Peter Thiel.


Many consider remarkable the story of billionaire Peter Thiel's road to New Zealand citizenship

Thiel made his name by founding PayPal, and his megafortune by buying 10% of Facebook for just $500,000 in 2004 — a stake he ultimately sold for more than $1 billion.

The bizarre story of his relationship with New Zealand is perhaps the main reason the country is so strongly associated with the idea of being a refuge for Silicon Valley's elite.

Thiel is known among other things for his unusual political views. He has spoken of how influenced he is by the 1997 book "The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive during the Collapse of the Welfare State."

That book argues that democratic nation-states will ultimately become obsolete, and that a "cognitive elite," with vast wealth and resources, will no longer be subject to government regulation and become the primary shapers of governance. Thiel's own book, "Zero to One," expands on some of these ideas at length.

Shortly after Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election in the United States, Thiel's interest in New Zealand stepped up. He said in 2011 that "no other country aligns more with my view of the future than New Zealand."

Around this time, he was secretly applying for New Zealand citizenship. Despite having spent barely any time in the country, his application was granted. However, that all remained a secret for six years.

In 2016, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman revealed in an interview in The New Yorker he had made an agreement with Thiel, that in the event of some global catastrophe, they would fly together to a property Thiel owned in New Zealand.


New Zealand's isolation, wealth, liberal democracy and apparent insulation from the ravages of climate change have fostered its image as a survivalist bolthole

This led New Zealand Herald investigative reporter Matt Nippert to look into what property Thiel owned. It turned out that Thiel had bought a 477-acre (193-hectare) former sheep ranch on New Zealand's sparsely populated South Island, as well as a luxury townhouse in nearby Queenstown.

Nippert's work ultimately revealed that Thiel had been granted citizenship — news that sparked major controversy in the country.
Thiel's Kiwi passion peters out

Yet by the time of that revelation in 2017, Thiel's interest in New Zealand had already cooled significantly. Thiel was a major Donald Trump supporter, and his election appeared to refresh Thiel's faith in the US.

His huge ranch at Damper Bay on South Island, far from being a survivalist compound, has been left largely untouched over the years. No planning applications have been made and Thiel has spent barely any time in the country in recent years. His townhouse has recently gone up for sale.

As part of his route to citizenship, Thiel had pledged to invest heavily in New Zealand's tech sector, which he has called underrated and underfunded.

He heavily and successfully backed local accounting software startup Xero and retail software firm Fend; but as New Zealand investigative reporter Nippert told DW, once his citizenship was granted, Thiel's financial commitment to New Zealand also cooled significantly and is dormant at present.
Bunker of the mind

For Nippert, Thiel's interest in New Zealand did not stem from a burning belief in the country's tech sector or necessarily from seeing it as an ideal apocalypse safe haven.


Larry Page, the world's sixth-richest man, has recently been granted New Zealand residency

"You don't need an actual bunker here because it is a legal bunker," Nippert told DW. "New Zealand is a great place [...] we don't have armed mobs or warlords. We have a fairly well regarded, uncorrupt public service. There is low firearms ownership."

"It's a bunker of the mind. It's a fall back plan if the IRS comes after you. I suspect that may be the motivation."
Escaping the apocalypse (or the taxman)

Precisely what Thiel's ultimate New Zealand plans are remain unclear. But the image of the country as an ideal bolthole for the American super-rich to escape to has been bolstered during the pandemic, with reports of well-heeled US citizens activating long-held Kiwi escape plans once the coronavirus hit.

The news of Page's residency adds to this mystique. Nippert suspects Page just wants easy access in and out of the country.

He has continued to investigate the extent to which overseas investors, like Thiel or Page, have established links to New Zealand. Nippert said that people he trusts say this continues happening, although he himself has found little evidence it is as widespread as reported.

Meanwhile, New Zealand continues to be seen as the place to be when the world finally comes crashing down.

"The way these guys operate, hedge fund managers [...] they assess risk and what will happen if certain unlikely events happen, and how can you be positioned to survive and make a profit from it."

"Does he [Thiel] have an inside line on the end of the world? I think anyone reading the news over the last few years would be concerned about the direction things are going."

Tenacious Unicorn Ranch: Sanctuary and target

The Tenacious Unicorn Ranch has become a haven for transgender individuals but not everyone is a fan. Now, residents are arming themselves as death threats mount.


Going public as protection
Meanwhile, residents of the ranch are turning to the media to report hostility. They hope the increased attention will deter their harassers. In addition, they have installed cameras, obtained protective waistcoats, started building a higher fence and intensified weapons training. Whether the Unicorn Ranch can remain a safe haven is uncertain.

PHOTOS
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An alpaca ranch as refuge

In 2018, Peggy Logue founded the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch as a sanctuary for the LGBTI+ community. Logan, transgender herself, founded the alpaca farm to provide a home and work for those still marginalized by society. Here they are free to love who they want and be who they are.