Tributes pour in for slain former Afghan female lawmaker

Mon, January 16, 2023

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Tributes poured in on Monday for a former Afghan female lawmaker who was shot and killed by gunmen in her home in the capital of Kabul the previous day. The slaying was the first time a lawmaker from the previous administration was killed in the city since the Taliban takeover.

Mursal Nabizada was among the few female parliamentarians who stayed in Kabul after the Taliban seized power in August 2021. Police say one of her bodyguards was also killed in the attack on Sunday.

Karen Decker, the U.S. chargé d’affaires for Afghanistan, tweeted: “Hold the perpetrators accountable!”

“Angered, heartbroken by murder of Mursal Nabizada – a tragic loss. I offer Mursal’s family my condolences and hope to see them receive justice for this senseless act," Decker also said in her tweet.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “shocked" by the killings of Nabizada and a bodyguard and “calls for a prompt, thorough, and transparent investigation and for the perpetrators to be brought to justice," U.N. associate spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay said.

Nabizada’s brother was also wounded in the attack, according to Khalid Zadran, spokesman for the Kabul police chief in the Taliban administration. A police investigation was underway, he added.

Hannah Neumann, a member of the European parliament, also tweeted her condolences. “I am sad and angry and want the world to know! She was killed in darkness, but the Taliban build their system of Gender Apartheid in full daylight,” Neumann said.

Earlier, local police chief Hamidullah Khalid said another security guard had fled the scene with money and jewelry.

Abdullah Abdullah, a top official in Afghanistan’s former Western-backed government, said he was saddened by Nabizada’s death and hoped the perpetrators would be punished. He described her as a “representative and servant of the people.”

Nabizada was elected in 2019 to represent Kabul and stayed in office until the Taliban takeover. She was originally from eastern Nangarhar province. She also worked at a private non-governmental group, the Institute for Human Resources Development and Research.

After their takeover, the Taliban initially said they would not impose the same harsh rules over society as they did during their first rule of Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

But they have progressively imposed more restrictions, particularly on women. They have banned women and girls from schooling beyond the sixth grade, barred them from most jobs and demanded they cover their faces when outside.

Mursal Nabizada: Gunmen kill former Afghan MP at home in Kabul

Sun, January 15, 2023 

Mursal Nabizada was an MP until the Taliban takeover in 2021

A former Afghan MP and her bodyguard have been shot dead at her home in the capital Kabul, Afghan police have said.

Mursal Nabizada, 32, was one of the few female MPs who stayed in Kabul after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

Her brother and a second security guard were wounded in the attack on Sunday.

Former colleagues praised Ms Nabizada as a "fearless champion for Afghanistan" who turned down a chance to leave the country.

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, women have been removed from nearly all areas of public life.

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said security forces had started a serious investigation into the incident.

Former lawmaker Mariam Solaimankhil said Ms Nabizada was "a true trailblazer - strong, outspoken woman who stood for what she believed in, even in the face of danger".

"Despite being offered the chance to leave Afghanistan, she chose to stay and fight for her people," she wrote on Twitter.

Ms Nabizada, from the eastern province of Nangarhar, was elected as a member of parliament from Kabul in 2018 and stayed in power until the Taliban takeover.

She was a member of the parliamentary defence commission and worked at the Institute for Human Resources Development and Research.

Hannah Neumann, a member of the European Parliament, said: "I am sad and angry and want the world to know!" in response to the killing.

"She was killed in darkness, but the Taliban build their system of gender apartheid in full daylight."

Abdullah Abdullah, a former top official in Afghanistan's former Western-backed government, said he was saddened by Ms Nabizada's death and hoped the perpetrators would be punished.

He described her as a "representative and servant of the people".

Many women who had prominent professional jobs in Afghanistan after the US-led invasion two decades ago fled the country after the Taliban returned to power.

Stay home, female Kabul government workers told

Finding Afghanistan's exiled women MPs

'If they find me, they will kill me'

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/01/taliban-ban-on-female-aid-workers-poses.html

“We Lost Our Beloved Ones For The Sake Of Education”: An Afghan Girl Who Survived A Suicide Attack In Her Classroom Isn’t Backing Down

Syed Zabiullah Langari
Sat, January 14, 2023 

Courtesy Fatima Amiri

It was early morning in Kabul, Afghanistan, when Fatima Amiri first heard the gunshots from inside her classroom. She and hundreds of other students had been preparing for college entrance exams at the time, but then the girls began screaming in panic. Amiri swiftly stood up to calm the class down, but when she turned around, she saw a man with a gun deliberately firing at students.

“I was afraid; I tried to take shelter under the desks when an explosion happened,” the 17-year-old said.

Amiri lost an eye and an eardrum as a result of the explosion. Her jaw was also badly damaged. In all, 54 other students, mostly girls, were killed.


As a minority, Shiites in Afghanistan have been targeted and persecuted for a long time.

Amiri lives in the Dasht-e-Barchi vicinity, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in western Kabul city. Terrorists have been targeting Shiite mosques, schools, athletic clubs, and cultural centers. A horrific assault on a maternity ward in 2020 killed 20 civilians, including women and their newborn babies.

Amiri knew attending school from a security perspective was risky. However, she never thought that one day a terrorist would be trying to kill her inside a classroom.

Undeterred, two weeks after the attack, Amiri showed up for a university entrance exam and was declared one of the top scorers.

“I want to tell the terrorists that no matter how much oppression you would impose on us, you can't defeat us!” Amiri said. “Your attacks inspire us to rise again and again.”

The UN Security Council and other world leaders condemned the attack on the Kaaj education center in Kabul, where Amiri went for two years to prepare for the university entrance exam, but no robust security measures had been taken by the political regimes in Afghanistan to ensure the safety of the Shiites who now feel more marginalized under the Taliban.

In recognition of her courage and resilience, the BBC placed Amiri on a list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2022.

The attack came in the wake of a ban by the Taliban on girls' schools beyond the sixth grade in Afghanistan after the group swept into power last summer. But young Afghans like Amiri are still hopeful that the international community will put pressure on Taliban leaders to respect the rights of girls to education and the rights of women to work.

“I appeal to the international community to do something for Afghan women and girls,” she said. “Hear their voice and take action. It's almost two years now that schools are closed for girls. There is the possibility that the university will be closed too. Currently, the situation is hard. Afghan women and girls can’t work.”

Amiri’s prediction of a restriction on higher education for girls was proven right after the Taliban imposed a complete ban on women’s access to university on Dec. 20. Five days later, the regime also ordered NGOs to stop women from coming to work. Although the ban on women’s access to education and work sparked strong condemnation from the international community, Taliban leaders have said that they will not compromise.

Courtesy Fatima Amiri

“We [had] hoped that the schools are reopened for our girls,” Amiri said. “But instead we faced a worst scenario this time. They closed the university. The world shouldn’t remain indifferent to this approach. We lost our beloved ones for the sake of education. But today I can’t go to university, for which I lost my eye.”

Attacks on Shiites and Hazara ethnic groups in Afghanistan have a long history. Last May, terrorists exploded a bomb near the Sayed-ul-Shuhada girls’ school in the same area, killing at least 85 girls and wounding hundreds more, many of them between the ages of 11 and 15.

Last month, Richard Bennett, the US special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, said in a report that Shiites in Afghanistan are facing systematic attacks, pointing out that members of the Hazara community and other groups have been “arbitrarily arrested, tortured, summarily executed, displaced from traditional lands, subjected to discriminatory taxation and otherwise marginalized.”

“These attacks appear to be systematic in nature and reflect elements of an organizational policy,” Bennett said in the report to the UN Human Rights Council.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province, the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan, Taliban authorities have done little to protect these communities or provide necessary medical care and other assistance to victims and their families.

The report states that since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, the ISIS affiliate has claimed responsibility for 13 attacks against Hazaras and has been linked to at least three more, killing and injuring at least 700 people.

In November, Csaba Kőrösi, president of the United Nations General Assembly, said Afghanistan “is facing complex and interlinked challenges that the Taliban have shown they cannot — or will not — solve.”

“Afghanistan is now the only state in the world that would deny girls their full right to education. The prospect of girls’ education has been left to uncertainty amid seemingly random edicts from the Taliban,” he said.

But the Taliban have so far defied appeals by the international community to reopen schools and pave the way for forming a political system that includes all ethnic groups. For young women like Amiri, though, that institutional opposition fuels her drive to pursue her dreams on behalf of other Afghan girls regardless of the mortal risks. Her goal is now much bigger than her original plan of getting an education in her favorite field of study. She wants to somehow lead Afghan women and assist them in securing a bright future.

“I am very strong,” Amiri said. “I am very confident that one day I will get my dreams.”
More on this


The Taliban In Afghanistan Is Still Preventing Girls From Getting Above A Sixth-Grade Education, So This Kabul Resident Is Running A Secret SchoolSyed Zabiullah Langari · Nov. 13, 2022



This Young Woman Was Imprisoned For 27 Days For Protesting The Taliban’s Policies Against Women’s RightsSyed Zabiullah Langari · July 26, 2022



She Was One Year Away From Going To College. Then The Taliban Banned Her From School.Syed Zabiullah Langari · June 13, 2022

MYSOGYNISTIC COMMODITY FETISHISM

Chilling: Even Kabul's Female Mannequins Are Masked, Hooded Under Taliban

EBRAHIM NOROOZI / AP
Mon, January 16, 2023 

A mannequin's head is covered in foil in a woman dress shop in Kabul, Afghanistan.

A mannequin's head is covered in foil in a woman dress shop in Kabul, Afghanistan.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Under the Taliban, the mannequins in women’s dress shops across the Afghan capital of Kabul are a haunting sight, their heads cloaked in cloth sacks or wrapped in black plastic bags.

The hooded mannequins are one symbol of the Taliban’s puritanical rule over Afghanistan. But in a way, they are also a small show of resistance and creativity by Kabul’s dress merchants.

Initially, the Taliban wanted the mannequins to be outright beheaded.

Not long after they seized power in August 2021, the Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue decreed that all mannequins must be removed from shop windows or their heads taken off, according to local media. They based the order on a strict interpretation of Islamic law that forbids statues and images of the human form since they could be worshipped as idols — though it also meshes with the Taliban’s campaign to force women out of the public eye.

Some clothes sellers complied. But others pushed back.

They complained they’d be unable to display their clothes properly or would have to damage valuable mannequins. The Taliban had to amend their order and allowed the shop owners to cover the mannequins’ heads instead.

Shop owners then had to balance between obeying the Taliban and trying to attract customers. The variety of solutions they came up with are on display on Lycee Maryam Street, a middle-class commercial street lined with dress shops in a northern part of Kabul. The store windows and showrooms are lined with mannequins in evening gowns and dresses bursting with color and decoration — and all in various types of head coverings.

Faceless mannequins line up in a women's dress store shop in Kabul.

In one shop, the mannequins’ heads were cloaked in tailored sacks made out of the same material as the traditional dresses they modeled. One, in a purple dress beaded with cowrie shells, had a matching purple hood. Another, in a red gown elaborately embroidered in gold, was almost elegant in a mask of red velvet with a gold crown on her head.

“I can’t cover the mannequins’ heads with plastic or ugly things because it would make my window and shop look ugly,” said Bashir, the owner. Like other owners, he spoke to The Associated Press on condition he be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisals.

Shop owners need keep things attractive — the economy has collapsed since the Taliban takeover and the ensuing cutoff of international financing, throwing almost the entire population into poverty.

Another shop owner, Hakim, shaped aluminum foil over his mannequins’ heads. It adds a certain flash to his merchandise, he decided.

“I made an opportunity out of this threat and ban and did it so the mannequins are even more attractive than before,” he said.

Not all can be so elaborate. In one shop, the mannequins in sleeveless gowns all had black plastic sacks over their heads. The owner said he couldn’t afford more.

Another shop owner, Aziz, said agents of the Ministry of Vice and Virtue regularly patrol shops and malls to make sure the mannequins are beheaded or covered. He was dismissive of the Taliban’s justification for the rules. “Everyone knows mannequins aren’t idols, and no one’s going to worship them. In all Muslim countries, mannequins are used to display clothes.”

A small number of male mannequins can be seen in display windows, also with their heads covered, suggesting that the authorities are applying the ban uniformly.

The Taliban initially said they would not impose the same harsh rules over society as they did during their first rule in the late 1990s. But they have progressively imposed more restrictions, particularly on women. They have banned women and girls from schooling beyond the sixth grade, barred them from most jobs and demanded they cover their faces when outside.

Elaborate dresses have always been popular in Afghanistan for weddings, which even before the Taliban were usually gender-segregated, giving women a chance to dress in their finest in the country’s conservative society. Under the Taliban, weddings are one of the few remaining opportunities for social gatherings. But with incomes so strained, they have become less elaborate.

Bashir said his sales are half what they used to be.

“Buying wedding, evening and traditional dresses is no longer a priority for people,” he said. “People think more about getting food and surviving.”

On a recent day, a woman shopping on Lycee Maryam Street looked at the hooded mannequins.

“When I see them, I feel that these mannequins are also captured and trapped, and I get a sense of fear,” said the woman, who gave only her first name, Rahima.

“I feel like I see myself behind these shop windows, an Afghan woman who has been deprived of all her rights.”

Syrian foreign minister: No normal ties with Turkey without end to occupation


Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian

 and Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad joint news conference in Tehran

Sat, January 14, 2023 

(Reuters) - Syrian foreign minister Faisal Mekdad said on Saturday that Turkey would have to end its military presence in his country to achieve a full rapprochement.

"We cannot talk about resuming normal ties with Turkey without removing the occupation," he said after meeting his Iranian counterpart in Damascus.

Turkey has been a major backer of the political and armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the 12-year conflict in Syria, and has sent its own troops into swathes of the country's north.

Russia, a key ally of Assad, is supporting a rapprochement between Damascus and Ankara, hosting talks between their defence ministers last month and aiming for meetings between the foreign ministers and eventually presidents.

Mekdad said on Saturday "a meeting between Assad and the Turkish leadership depends on removing the reasons for the dispute," without providing more details or mentioning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by name.

Mekdad was speaking after meeting in Damascus with Hossein Amirabdollahian, the foreign minister of Assad’s other main ally, Iran.

Amirabdollahian, who also met Assad on Saturday, said on Friday that Iran was "happy with the dialogue taking place between Syria and Turkey".

Assad said on Friday the results should be based on the principle of ending the occupation and support for terrorism, a term that Syrian authorities use to refer to all opposition armed groups.

A source with close knowledge of the negotiations said Syria wanted Turkey to pull its troops from swathes of the north and to halt support to three main opposition factions.

The source said Syria was keen to see progress on those demands through follow-up committees before agreeing to a foreign ministers' meeting.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday he could meet Mekdad early in February, rejecting reports the two could meet next week.

Syria has made no official comment on the timing of any such meeting, which would mark the highest-level talks between Ankara and Damascus since the Syrian war began in 2011.

(Reporting by Kinda Makieh and Firas Makdesi, and Laila Bassam in Beirut; Editing by Mark Potter)

WAR CRIME
The Russian missile that wiped out an apartment block was designed to sink aircraft carriers and can't be shot down by Ukraine, says its air force

Bethany Dawson
Sun, January 15, 2023 

Emergency personnel work at the site where an apartment block was heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Dnipro, Ukraine January 15, 2023.REUTERS

At least 23 people were killed in a Russian missile strike on an apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

The latest massive Russian wave of attacks on Saturday targeted civilians and energy infrastructure.


The apartments were hit by a Russian Kh-22 missile which is called an "aircraft carrier killer," said Ukraine.

At least 23 people have died after a Russian missile strike destroyed an apartment block in Dnipro, central Ukraine.

The building was hit by a Russian Kh-22 missile, a Soviet-era anti-ship missile, which Ukraine has described as an "aircraft carrier killer."

Confirming the death toll on Telegram, Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipro regional council, said "Burn in hell, Russian murderers."

At least 72 people were wounded and 43 people were reported missing, according to the city government, per The Independent.

"This missile with a 950 kg (2,000-pound) warhead, which is called an 'aircraft carrier killer,' is designed to destroy aircraft carrier groups at sea. It can be equipped with a nuclear element. And such a missile was used to hit a densely populated city. There is no explanation or justification for this terrorist act," said Yuriy Ihnat, Spokesperson for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, per Ukrinform.
The Russian missile that Ukraine can't shoot down

Emergency personnel work at the site where an apartment block was heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Dnipro, Ukraine January 15, 2023.

REUTERS

The Ukrainian military does not currently have the advanced weaponary needed to shoot down the long-range Kh-22 missiles, with Mykola Oleshchuk, Commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to a Newsweek report.

He said: "Since the beginning of Russian military aggression on Ukraine, more than 210 missiles of this type have been launched. None of them are knocked down by air defense equipment."



In his Facebook post, Oleshchuk said that only Western anti-aircraft missile systems, such as Patriot PAC-3s, are capable of taking down the supersonic Kh-22.

It has been reported that the US has agreed to supply a single Patriot battery to Ukraine. Upto 100 Ukrainian soldiers are due to undergo training on the missile systems at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, starting next week, reported the BBC.

The attack on the apartment block comes in a new surge of Russian violence over the last week, which has targeted civilians and energy infrastructure.

The Russian strikes have hit critical infrastructure across the country, with Ukraine's energy minister warning of "difficult" days ahead with damaged electricity, running water, and heating supplies, per Reuters.

Much of the fighting over the past few days has been focused in Soledar, where Russian troops have claimed they've captured the town.

NEVER ABOUT TRANSBOY IN BOYS RESTROOM

ACLU and America First Legal fight over transgender restrooms in Ohio school

Madeline Mitchell
Sun, January 15, 2023 

A sign marks the entrance to a gender-neutral restroom

A fight over restroom access for transgender students is raging in suburban Dayton, Ohio, between school officials and a conservative group with ties to former President Donald Trump.

The group, America First Legal, sued Bethel Local Schools in federal court in November, challenging the school district's decision to allow trans students to use restrooms that don't align with their gender assigned at birth. America First Legal, founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, has filed lawsuits across the country, opposing government efforts to address racial disparity and LGBTQ rights.

The complaint against Bethel schools, filed in U.S. District Court in Dayton, argues heavily on the grounds of religion and states that requiring males and females to use separate restrooms is important "for a variety of reasons including safety, privacy, modesty, religion, and historical views of sex."

One perspective that's been missing from the dispute, according to Ohio's American Civil Liberties Union? Trans students.

On Monday the ACLU asked a judge to let it join the fight, on the side of the school district, by representing a 14-year-old student who would be impacted if the school's restroom policy is changed. The student, a trans girl, is not a defendant in the case.

"Any transgender student who might be affected by this would have had no voice in the case," ACLU Deputy Legal Director David Carey told The Enquirer on Wednesday.

The court battle in Ohio mirrors those that have embroiled school districts nationwide as parents and school officials debate hot-button cultural and political issues, including trans rights. Often, as in this case, those battles draw national attention.

The ACLU is one of the nation's best-known civil rights organizations. America First Legal's founder has described the nonprofit is the "long-awaited answer to the ACLU."

The court has yet to make a decision on whether to allow the ACLU to join the case, though it filed a motion for the parties' expedited responses on Tuesday.

Bethel Local Schools is located in Miami County, just north of Dayton. One building houses all of the district's students in grades K-12, though the district is working to open another building soon as it's seen growth in the last several years.
Religious students also impacted: Christian, Muslim students say they 'hold their urine' to avoid communal restrooms

The complaint was filed in late November by 18 anonymous individuals, including six minors, against the Bethel Local Schools board of education, each individual board member and district Superintendent Matthew Chrispin. It states the board of education changed its policy to allow trans students to use bathrooms that don't align with their gender assigned at birth "in secret to avoid community opposition," and requests injunctive relief reversing the new policy.

The board, in turn, claims this decision and enforcement has always been under the administration's jurisdiction and that no such secret meeting occurred.

"Never during my tenure to date as a board member is board policy changed to address any issue related to transgender students' rights," Danny Elam, who has been on the board since 2018, wrote in court documents. Other board members wrote the same.

Stormy Milewski, a chemistry teacher at the high school, asked the board to consider allowing communal restroom access for trans students at a board meeting in September of 2021, documents say. Milewski acknowledged that Bethel is "a very conservative area" when making the request. There was no decision made at that meeting.

But at a meeting last January, four months after Milewski's request, the school board announced that the school's restroom policy had been changed to allow trans individuals access to the restroom consistent with their gender identity. The change occurred without public discussion or voting, according to the complaint.

Read the complaint here or at the end of this story.

The secret rule change violates the Ohio Open Meetings Act, violates the constitutional rights of parents in the district and violates the civil rights of religious families, particularly Muslim and Christian families, according to the complaint.

Since last year, students opposed to the new policy for religious reasons "hold their urine and avoid using the restroom at school if at all possible," according to the complaint. Those students experience anxiety and emotional distress if they do need to use the restroom, "as they fear that they will be exposed to the opposite sex."

Forcing Muslim families "to use intimate facilities with members of the opposite biological sex is like forcing them to eat pork," the complaint reads. "The families do not understand why the school respects their beliefs less than the beliefs of the LGBTQ+ community."

The complainants added that there were already gender-neutral, single-stall restrooms at the school for trans students to use.
14-year-old trans student says communal restroom access led to improved grades, feelings of belonging

Carey and the rest of the ACLU team are hoping to join the case and represent a 14-year-old trans girl who goes to Bethel High School.

The results of the lawsuit "will directly impact her − in a deeply personal, tangible, and potentially harmful manner," the motion states.

Read the ACLU's motion to intervene at the end of this story, or by clicking here.

By requiring trans students to use single-occupancy restrooms, the motion states, the school district could subject those students to harassment and bullying from their peers.

The 14-year-old the ACLU represents faced harassment at her previous school and the bullying culminated in "a serious physical assault," according to court documents. And using the single-stall bathroom at Bethel Middle School "outed" her as trans, which opened "her up to humiliation and social stigma."

"She was subjected to shouted transphobic remarks, slurs, and physical harassment − frequent shoving, shoulder-checking, and worse − in the school hallways and classrooms," court documents say. "The isolation of using only a single-occupancy restroom made the bullying worse, and students taunted her for using the 'sissy bathroom.'"

But since being allowed to use the same restroom as other girls, documents say, she "has thrived at Bethel High School," getting better grades and feeling altogether a better sense of belonging. Removing this privilege "would undermine her mental and physical health as well as her ability to engage in school."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ohio school sued over trans restroom access, ACLU asks to intervene

Scandal-hit EU political group starts damage limitation work







Seals are pictured on European parliament Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili's office door at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, on Dec. 13, 2022. The major center-left political group embroiled in a corruption scandal at the European Parliament will seek this week to insulate itself from more fallout in the cash-for-influence affair linked to Qatar and Morocco as Belgian justice authorities target its members. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)

LORNE COOK
Mon, January 16, 2023


BRUSSELS (AP) — The major center-left political group embroiled in a corruption scandal at the European Parliament will seek this week to insulate itself from more fallout in the cash-for-influence affair linked to Qatar and Morocco as Belgian justice authorities target its members.

At the parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg, France, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) – the second-biggest party group in the 705-seat assembly – is set to eject two lawmakers after prosecutors demanded that the men’s protective parliamentary immunity be lifted.

A group official told The Associated Press that the aim is to sideline Italian member Andrea Cozzolino and his Belgian colleague, Marc Tarabella, at least until an investigation is concluded. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the ongoing probe.

Last week, Cozzolino stepped down as chair of the parliament’s delegation working with the Maghreb region — which includes Morocco — and as a member of a committee looking into governmental misuse of surveillance software.

Cozzolino and Tarabella — who was vice chair of a delegation responsible for “Arab Peninsula” relations, including with Qatar — deny playing any role. The assembly will take the first steps to lift their immunity on Monday, and could remove it next month.

Qatar and Morocco also vehemently deny the allegations. However, the EU assembly has frozen work on all Qatar-related files until an inquiry is completed.

The scandal comes at an awkward time for S&D before a European Parliament election next year. The group lost almost one fifth of its seats in the 2019 polls. Beyond its criminal implications, the affair has raised troubling questions about how senior members could have voted against party policy without reprimand.

Members were notably dismayed at the way that Eva Kaili — who was removed as a parliament vice president and ejected from the S&D after she was jailed on corruption charges last month — defied party guidance to endorse an opposition nominee for assembly secretary-general, a highly-prized job.

The scandal came to light on Dec. 9 after a series of police raids in Brussels, including at Kaili’s apartment, and in Italy. Hundreds of thousands of euros (dollars) in cash were seized in different locations. The allegations have shaken the EU’s only publicly-elected institution and forced an overhaul of its lobbying and access rules.

Senior lawmakers agreed last week not to freeze the work of a parliamentary committee at the heart of the scandal, but only after the S&D legislator presiding over it resigned.

In November, three men linked to the scandal took part in a meeting of the Human Rights Subcommittee to assess the conditions of foreign workers in Qatar six days before the World Cup kicked off. The Gulf state’s labor minister was among the speakers.

The conservative European Peoples Party (EPP), the biggest group in parliament, demanded a freeze on the body’s work until the inquiry was over but relented after Belgian lawmaker Maria Arena stepped down. The EPP said members could now work “in a more serene atmosphere.”

In a resignation statement sent to her S&D colleagues, Arena said: “I am not implicated in this affair in any manner.” She called for those responsible to be ”severely punished."

Arena has acknowledged being a friend of Pier Antonio Panzeri, who preceded her as chair of the committee before he left parliament in 2019. Belgian prosecutors suspect that Panzeri, a former S&D lawmaker, accepted money from Qatar and Morocco to influence decisions at the assembly.

Panzeri’s one-time assistant, Francesco Giorgi — who is also Kaili’s boyfriend — was at the November committee meeting too, working for Cozzolino. Panzeri and Giorgi are charged with corruption, money laundering and membership in a criminal organization and remain in custody.

As World Cup host, Qatar was scrutinized for its treatment of low-paid migrant workers used to build projects costing tens of billions of dollars and its laws criminalizing same-sex relationships. But the Human Rights Subcommittee was fairly upbeat about progress in the Gulf State.

Cozzolino, Tarabella and Arena spoke favorably of labor reforms it has undertaken, but so did other lawmakers, notably from the Greens and Liberal party groups, and even a trade union representative who took part.

Hoping for better times, the S&D has nominated Marc Angel from Luxembourg to replace Kaili. He faces a confirmation vote this week, but other groups have named their own candidates it remains unclear whether they will allow the center-left bloc to retain the coveted post.

So far, opposition groups have mostly avoided taking cheap shots at the S&D. Lawmakers, advisers and parliament insiders concede that, given the porous rules and passing respect for them, such a scandal could well have struck any party.

Norway naval officer goes on trial over oil tanker collision


The Norwegian frigate "KNM Helge Ingstad" takes on water after a collision with the tanker "Sola TS" 

Sun, January 15, 2023 

OSLO (Reuters) - A Norwegian naval officer stands trial on Monday accused of negligence that led to the 2018 collision between a warship he commanded and an oil tanker in which the military vessel sank.

Building a replacement for the lost Helge Ingstad frigate would cost up to 13 billion crowns ($1.3 billion), the armed forces estimated in a 2019 report.

The early-morning crash between the Ingstad and the fully loaded Sola TS crude carrier near a major North Sea oil export terminal also triggered shutdowns of parts of Norway's petroleum production. There was no leak from the oil tanker.

Members of the 137-strong Ingstad crew described waking up in the middle of the night as water poured into their cabins and alarms went off as they tried in vain to save the ship, although they suffered only minor injuries.

The defendant was the officer in charge on the bridge of the Ingstad at the time.

"He did not display caution and did not take the precautions that safe navigation requires," prosecutor Magne Kvamme Sylta said in the charges.

The defendant believes he was unfairly singled out for blame and will plead not guilty, his lawyer, Christian Lundin, told Norwegian news agency NTB.

Recordings of communication between the two vessels showed the slow-moving Sola several times asking the faster Ingstad to alter its course or face collision, but the request was declined by the navy ship, which feared getting too close to shore.

A commission investigating the collision later said the brightly lit Sola TS may have been difficult to distinguish from the nearby terminal from where it had set off, confusing the Ingstad crew.

A video recording from the tanker showed sparks flying as the two collided, tearing a gash in the side of the warship, which was later recycled as scrap metal. The tanker suffered only minor damage.

The collision exposed safety gaps in the Norwegian navy, including inadequate training and risk assessment systems. The defence ministry later paid a fine of 10 million crowns.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Nepal co-pilot's husband also died in plane crash 16 years previously



Rajini Vaidyanathan in Pokhara - BBC News
Mon, January 16, 2023 at 7:21 PM MST·3 min read

The co-pilot of the ill-fated flight that crashed in Nepal on Sunday lost her husband in a plane crash 16 years earlier, it has emerged.

Anju Khatiwada was co-piloting Yeti airlines flight 691 when it smashed into a gorge near the tourist town of Pokhara, killing all on board in the country's worst air disaster in 30 years.

Her husband Dipak Pokhrel had also been co-piloting a Yeti Airlines flight when he died - and it was his death that spurred Anju to pursue a career in aviation.

Distraught at her loss, alone with their young child, Anju's grief became her motivating force.

"She was a determined woman who stood for her dreams and fulfilled the dreams of her husband," family member Santosh Sharma said.

Dipak was in the cockpit of a Twin Otter prop plane which was carrying rice and food to the western town of Jumla when it came down and burst into flames in June 2006, killing all nine people on board.

Four years later Anju was on the path to becoming a pilot, overcoming many obstacles to train in the US. Once qualified, she joined Yeti Airlines.

A trailblazer, Anju was one of just six women employed by the airline as pilots, and had flown close to 6,400 hours.

"She was a full captain at the airline who had done solo flights," Sudarshan Bartaula from Yeti Airlines said. "She was a brave woman.'

Anju later remarried and had a second child as she continued to build her career. Friends and family say she adored her job, and was a delight to be around.

At the crash site in Pokhara, parts of the plane Anju was co-piloting lay scattered on the banks of the River Seti, strewn like battered pieces of a broken toy. A small section of the aircraft rested on the gorge, windows intact and the green and yellow of Yeti Airlines still visible.

This week's tragedy has reignited a conversation about airline safety in the Himalayan nation, which has seen hundreds die in air accidents in recent decades.

Over the years, a number of factors have been blamed for Nepal's poor airlines safety record. The mountain terrain and often unpredictable weather can be tricky to navigate, and are often cited as reasons. But others point to outdated aircraft, lax regulations and poor oversight as equally important factors.

It's still unclear what caused Sunday's crash.

Indian passenger filmed Nepal plane's last moments

Outside the hospital in Pokhara, families of those killed waited for the bodies of their relatives to be released after their post mortems had been completed.

In the bitter cold January air, Bhimsen Ban said he was hoping he could take his friend Nira back to her village soon so her last rites could be performed.

Nira Chantyal, 21, was a singer who often flew with Yeti Airlines. Low cost air travel has become an affordable and popular way for the country's middle class to traverse the mountainous nation.

Nira, who had moved to Kathmandu, had been on the fight on her way to perform at a music festival in Pokhara.

"She was a very talented artist, and used to sing folk songs. She would often sing spontaneously," Bhimsen said, his eyes red from crying.

"I have no words to describe the loss."

Additional reporting: Rajneesh Bhandari, Andrew Clarance.

A pilot couple killed in air crashes in Nepal - 16 years apart


Aftermath of Yeti Airlines plane crash, in Pokhara

Mon, January 16, 2023 
By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - In 2010, Anju Khatiwada joined Nepal's Yeti Airlines, following in the footsteps of her husband, a pilot who had died in a crash four years earlier when a small passenger plane he was flying for the domestic carrier went down minutes before landing.

On Sunday, Khatiwada, 44, was the co-pilot on a Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu that crashed as it approached the city of Pokhara, killing at least 68 people in the Himalayan nation's deadliest plane accident in three decades.

No survivors have been found so far among the 72 people on board.

"Her husband, Dipak Pokhrel, died in 2006 in a crash of a Twin Otter plane of Yeti Airlines in Jumla," airline spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula told Reuters, referring to Khatiwada. "She got her pilot training with the money she got from the insurance after her husband's death."


A pilot with more than 6,400 hours of flying time, Khatiwada had previously flown the popular tourist route from the capital, Kathmandu, to the country's second-largest city, Pokhara, Bartaula said.

The body of Kamal K.C., the captain of the flight, who had more than 21,900 hours of flight time, has been recovered and identified.

Kathiwada's remains have not been identified but she is feared dead, Bartaula said.

"On Sunday, she was flying the plane with an instructor pilot, which is the standard procedure of the airline," said an Yeti Airlines official, who knew Khatiwada personally.

"She was always ready to take up any duty and had flown to Pokhara earlier," said the official, who asked not to be named because he isn't authorised to speak to media.

Reuters was unable to immediately reach any of her family members.

The ATR-72 aircraft that Khatiwada was co-piloting rolled from side to side before crashing in a gorge near Pokhara airport and catching fire, according to eyewitness accounts and a video of the crash posted on the social media.

The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the aircraft, which may help investigators determine what caused it to crash in clear weather, were recovered on Monday.

Nearly 350 people have died since 2000 in plane or helicopter crashes in Nepal - home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, including Everest - where sudden weather changes can make for hazardous conditions.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma, Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Nepal air crash: Indian passenger's video caught plane's last moments

Zoya Mateen - BBC News, Delhi
Mon, January 16, 2023 

Sonu Jaiswal, who livestreamed from the plane seconds before it crashed

In the hours after Nepal's deadliest plane crash for 30 years, a video went viral in India - it showed one of the victims, Sonu Jaiswal, livestreaming from the plane just seconds before the crash.

He was part of a group of four friends from Ghazipur in India who were visiting Nepal, and were on the flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara.

In the footage, Pokhara airport's surroundings are visible from the doomed plane as it comes into land, those on board unaware they are just moments from death.

None of the 72 people on board are believed to have survived the crash.

The video shows the plane gliding gently over the honeycombs of buildings dotting brown-green fields, before the man filming it turns the camera around and smiles.

He then turns it around again to show other passengers in the aircraft.

The following details could be distressing to some readers.

Moments pass, then there's a deafening crash.

Within seconds huge flames and smoke fill the screen as the camera keeps recording. What sounds like the screeching of an engine is audible, as well as breaking glass and then screams before the video ends.

Friends and family members of Sonu Jaiswal told reporters that they had watched the video on his Facebook account, confirming its authenticity.

"Sonu did the [livestream] when the plane crashed in a gorge near the Seti River," Mukesh Kashyap, Jaiswal's friend, told reporters.

Local journalist Shashikant Tiwari told the BBC that Kashyap showed him the video on Jaiswal's Facebook profile, which is set to private.

Hundreds of rescuers were sent to the site of the crash

It is not clear how Jaiswal accessed the internet to stream from the plane.

Abhishek Pratap Shah, a former lawmaker in Nepal, told Indian news channel NDTV that rescuers had recovered the phone on which the video was found from the plane's wreckage.

"It [the video clip] was sent by one of my friends, who received it from a police officer. It is a real record," Mr Shah told NDTV.

Officials in Nepal have not confirmed his claim or commented on the footage, which could help crash investigators in their work.

But for the loved ones of the four men - Jaiswal, Abhishek Kushwaha, Anil Rajbhar and Vishal Sharma - none of this matters. They say they are "too shattered" to care.

"The pain is hard to explain," said Chandrabhan Maurya, the brother of Abhishek Kushwaha.

"The government needs to help us as much as they can. We want the bodies of our loved ones to be returned to us."

Co-pilot's husband also died in plane crash 16 years ago

Authorities in Ghazipur in northern Uttar Pradesh state said they are in touch with the four families and the Indian embassy in Kathmandu to offer any possible help.

"We have also told the families that if they want to travel to Kathmandu, we will make all the arrangements for them," district magistrate Aryaka Akhauri told reporters.

Several villagers remembered the four men as "kind, fun-loving souls". They said they were devastated by the tragedy that had struck their otherwise quiet lives.

Some of them also joined protests, demanding compensation for the families.

The families of the Indian victims have asked for compensation from the government

The four men, all thought to be in their 20s or early 30s, had been friends for many years, and often spent time together.

Locals say they had gone to Nepal on 13 January to visit the Pashupatinath temple, a grand shrine on the outskirts of Kathmandu which is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva.

The trip was reportedly Jaiswal's idea - a father of three, he wanted to pray at the temple for another son.

After visiting the temple, the friends set off on Sunday to Pokhara - a picturesque tourist town nestled near the Annapurna mountain range - to paraglide. They planned to return to Kathmandu.

"But fate had something else in store for him," an unnamed relative of Jaiswal's told news agency PTI.

The four men were among five Indians on board. Officials said 53 of the passengers were Nepalese, along with four Russians and two Koreans. Others on board are reported to have included one passenger each from the UK, Australia, Argentina and France.

On Monday, social media in India was awash with images from the crash site and of the video shot by Jaiswal.

Jaiswal's father, Rajendra Prasad Jaiswal, said he could not bear to watch the clip himself. "I have only heard about it from Sonu's friends. Our lives have come crashing down."

While groups of mourners stood around the neighbourhood in disbelief, Anil Rajbhar's father stayed away.

His son had left for Nepal on 13 January without informing his family. While his father was busy in the family's fields, Anil quietly packed his bags and left with his friends, neighbours said.

His father is still in disbelief at the news.

Additional reporting by Shashikant Tiwari in Uttar Pradesh

EXPLAINER: Why did Nepal plane crash in fair weather?


Rescuers scour the crash site in the wreckage of a passenger plane in Pokhara, Nepal, Monday, Jan.16, 2023. Nepal began a national day of mourning Monday as rescue workers resumed the search for six missing people a day after a plane to a tourist town crashed into a gorge while attempting to land at a newly opened airport, killing at least 66 of the 72 people aboard in the country's deadliest airplane accident in three decades.(AP Photo/Yunish Gurung)

DAVID RISING
Mon, January 16, 2023

BANGKOK (AP) — Yeti Airlines flight 691 crashed Sunday just before landing in Nepal's tourist city of Pokhara, the gateway to a popular hiking area in the Himalayas, after a 27-minute trip from Kathmandu.

At least 69 of the 72 people aboard have been confirmed dead.

Pilots say Nepal can be a challenging place to fly, but conditions at the time of the crash were good, with low wind, clear skies and temperatures well above freezing. So what might have caused the crash of the ATR 72 aircraft?

DID THE PLANE STALL?

A dramatic video shot on a smartphone from the ground shows the last moments before the plane crashed in a gorge about 1.6 kilometers (a mile) from newly opened Pokhara International Airport. The aircraft's nose is noticeably high before the left wing suddenly drops and the plane falls out of sight of the video, indicating a likely stall, said Amit Singh, an experienced pilot and founder of India's Safety Matters Foundation.

“If you see the trajectory of the aircraft, the aircraft's nose goes up, and the nose up would be associated with a reduction in speed,” he told The Associated Press. “When they have stalls, typically one wing goes down and wings are basically generating the lift. So as the air flow reduces, the lift generated is not enough to sustain the aircraft in flight and the wing drops and the aircraft nosedives.”

Professor Ron Bartsch, an aviation safety expert and founder of Australia's Avlaw Aviation Consulting, told Sydney's Channel 9 that he also thought the plane appears to have gone into a stall. Its proximity to the ground possibly made it look to the pilots like their speed was greater than it was, he said.

“I'd suggest that the aircraft has entered into an aerodynamic stall,” he said after reviewing the video just before the crash. “Possibly pilot error.”

Yeti Airlines spokesman Pemba Sherpa said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE AIRCRAFT

The ATR-72 was introduced in the late 1980s as a French and Italian joint venture and even though it has been involved in several deadly accidents over the years, several due to icing issues, it generally has a “very good track record,” Bartsch said.

Searchers recovered the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder on Monday from the scene of the crash, but it will not be until they are analyzed carefully that investigators know for sure what happened.

“Human factors will be an element that the investigators will have a look at to see whether or not there's been proper training," Bartsch said. "But normally aircraft don't just fall out of the sky, particularly modern aircraft.”

It is possible that some sort of technical failure with the aircraft's instruments gave bad data to the pilots, but even then it is possible to recover from a stall, Singh said.

“The pilots should be trained to handle technical failures,” he said.

Singh noted that Nepal's aviation industry has a poor track record for safety and training despite its “challenging airports and conditions.” Even though it has been improving, he noted its planes are banned from flying into European airspace.

A pilot who routinely flies an ATR-72-500 plane from India to Nepal said the region’s topography, with its mountain peaks and narrow valleys, raises the risk of accidents and sometimes requires pilots to fly by sight rather than relying on instruments.

The pilot, who works for a private Indian airline and didn’t want to be identified due to company policy, called ATR-72-500 an “unforgiving aircraft” if the pilot isn’t highly skilled and familiar with the region’s terrain and wind speed.

ATR said Sunday on Twitter that its specialists were “fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer” and that its “first thoughts are with all the individuals affected by this.”

The company did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.

CONCERNS ABOUT THE NEW AIRPORT

Home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, Nepal has a history of air crashes. According to the Safety Matters Foundation's data, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal since 1946.

The country’s “hostile topography” and “diverse weather patterns” were the major challenges, according to a 2019 safety report from Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority, also resulting in a “number of accidents” to small aircraft. The report said such accidents happened at airports that had short strips of runway for takeoff and landing and most were due to pilot error.

The airport in Pokhara, a popular tourist destination as the gateway to the Annapurna mountain range, sits at an elevation of some 820 meters (2,700 feet).

Ahead of the airport's opening two weeks ago, some had expressed concern that the number of birds in the area — due to the habitat provided by two rivers as well as a landfill near the airport — could make it additionally hazardous.

At the airport's official opening, the city's mayor said work to mitigate the effect of the landfill had been completed, according to local media reports, but it was not clear specifically what measures were undertaken.

If the aircraft had suffered a bird strike as it was coming in to land, it is possible this would have prompted the pilots to discontinue their approach and go around again, which also could have led to a stall, Singh said.

“A high thrust setting can lead to a stall,” he said. “Go-arounds are most often mishandled by crew ... so again the issue is, how did the pilot cope with the failure?"

_____

Associated Press writer Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi contributed to this report.

Nepal crash: Dozens killed as plane crashes near Pokhara airport

Video from the ground appears to show the plane moments before it crashed

By Aoife Walsh
BBC News Published 1 day ago

Dozens of people have been killed after a plane with 72 people on board crashed near an airport in central Nepal.

The Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara crashed on landing before catching fire.

Videos posted on social media show an aircraft flying low over a populated area before banking sharply.

At least 68 people are confirmed to have died, officials said. Several critically injured survivors were taken to hospital, unconfirmed reports said.

Local resident Divya Dhakal told the BBC how she rushed to the crash site after seeing the aircraft plunge from the sky shortly after 11:00am local time (05:15 GMT).

"By the time I was there the crash site was already crowded. There was huge smoke coming from the flames of the plane. And then helicopters came over in no time," she said.

"The pilot tried his best to not hit civilisation or any home," she added. "There was a small space right beside the Seti River and the flight hit the ground in that small space."

The flight set out with 68 passengers on board, including at least 15 foreign nationals, and four crew members.

According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, the 15-year-old twin-engine ATR 72 stopped transmitting position data at 05:05 GMT and the last signal from the aircraft was received at 05:12.

Hundreds of Nepalese soldiers were involved in the operation at the crash site in the gorge of the Seti, just one and a half kilometres from the airport.

The search operation has been suspended for the day, officials say.

Video taken where the plane came down showed thick billowing black smoke and burning debris.

"We expect to recover more bodies," an army spokesman told Reuters, saying the plane "has broken into pieces".

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal called an emergency meeting of his cabinet and urged state agencies to work on rescue operations. A panel to investigate the cause of the crash has been set up.

Of the passengers, 53 are said to be Nepalese. There were five Indian, four Russians and two Koreans on the plane. There was also one passenger each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France among others.

Aviation accidents are not uncommon in Nepal, often due to its remote runways and sudden weather changes that can make for hazardous conditions.

A Tara Air plane crashed in May 2022 in the northern Nepalese district of Mustang, killing 22 people.

In early 2018, 51 people were killed when a US-Bangla flight travelling from Dhaka in Bangladesh caught fire as it landed in Kathmandu.

The European Union has banned Nepalese airlines from its airspace over concerns about training and maintenance standards in the country's aviation industry.

Video shows passenger plane that crashed in Nepal flying low over a populated area before spinning sharply. At least 68 reported killed.

Bethany Dawson

Sun, January 15, 2023

At least 68 people have died after a plane crashed near an airport in central Nepal, according to reports.

The Yeti Airlines flight from the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu crashed on landing, with videos on social media showing the aircraft spinning sharply just before it hit the 
ground. A loud explosion can be heard, as it goes out of view.
Rescue teams work to retrieve bodies at the crash site of an aircraft carrying 72 people in Pokhara in western Nepal January 15, 2023.Bijay Neupane/Handout via REUTERS

72 people were on board the flight, including 68 passengers. 68 bodies have been recovered so far.—Aerowanderer (@aerowanderer) January 15, 2023

"We have sent 31 bodies to the hospital and are still taking out 33 bodies from the gorge," police official Ajay K.C told Reuters.

The plane's wreckage is sited between two hills near the Pokhara airport, making it difficult for rescue workers to reach, Reuters reports.

A general view of people gathered after the plane crash in Pokhara, Nepal January 15, 2023 in this picture obtained from social media Naresh Giri/via REUTERS

Local resident Arun Tamu told the news site that half of the aircraft was on a hillside, whilst the other had fallen into the gorge of a river.

—Aishwarya Paliwal (@AishPaliwal) January 15, 2023

Scores killed worst Nepal air crash in 30 years

Sun, January 15, 2023

STORY: Scores of people were killed on Sunday when a plane crashed in Nepal.

The Yeti Airlines domestic flight was carrying 72 people from the capital Kathmandu when it went down in Pokhara in clear weather, according to officials from Nepal's Civil Aviation Authority.

Footage shows rescuers scouring the wreckage and scorched earth around the site.

Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport, said it was a "tragic" incident and that he'd be calling an emergency cabinet meeting, with an ongoing investigation into the cause.

A Yeti Airlines spokesman confirmed those aboard the twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft included two infants and four crew members.

It was also carrying international passengers including five Indians, four Russians and one Irish, two South Koreans, one Australian, one French and one Argentine national.

Deadly air incidents are common in Nepal, which has small airports in mountainous terrain where weather conditions can change quickly.

And the European Union has banned Nepali airlines from its airspace since 2013, citing safety concerns.

The Sunday crash is Nepal's worst since 1992, the Aviation Safety Network database showed, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A300 crashed into a hillside upon approach to Kathmandu, killing all 167 people on board.