Fisher-Price recalls 2 million infant swings after 5 deaths

By Ernie Mundell, HealthDay News
Oct. 11, 2024

The Fisher-Price company is recalling more than 2 million of its Snuga infant swings, after the suffocation and deaths of five infants who went to sleep while in the swings. Photo by U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission/HealthDay News

The Fisher-Price company is recalling more than 2 million of its Snuga infant swings, after the suffocation and deaths of five infants who went to sleep while in the swings.

"The swing should never be used for sleep and bedding materials should never be added to it," according to an alert from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the recall.

"If the product is used for sleep or bedding material is added, the headrest and body support insert on the seat pad can increase the risk of suffocation," the agency explained.

The CPSC's advice to parents who already have one of the Snuga infant swings at home: "Consumers should immediately remove both the headrest (by cutting the tether) and the body support insert from the seat pad before continuing to use the swing for awake-time activities."

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A full list of the 21 recalled Fisher-Price infant swing models, with photos, can be found at the CPSC.

As the agency explained, five reported deaths of infants between one and three months of age were linked to use of Snuga swings between 2012 and 2022.

"In most of those incidents, the infants were unrestrained and bedding materials were added to the product," the CPSC noted.

Besides the danger from the Fisher-Price products under recall, the agency reminded parents and caregivers that they "should never use any inclined seated products, such as swings, gliders, soothers, and rockers, for infant sleep and should not leave infants in these products unsupervised, unrestrained, or with bedding material due to the risk of suffocation."

Instead, always lay an infant flat on their back for sleep "on a firm, flat surface in a crib, bassinet, or play yard, with nothing but a fitted sheet," the CPSC advised.

The agency noted that in 2022, Congress banned the sale of any form of inclined sleeper for infants.

More information

Find out more ways to prevent infant sleep deaths at the March of Dimes.

Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

US Labor Department orders CSX to pay 2 whistleblowers more than $450,000

Oct. 11 (UPI) -- Two CSX Transportation employees fired nearly seven years ago for raising safety issues on their jobs will get their positions back and be paid $453,510 after the Labor Department ruled the rail company violated the workers' whistleblower rights.

The Labor Department, which did not name the employees by law, said they were unjustly fired after a November 2017 incident in Waycross, Ga., where they reported a blue flag on the tracks of a rail yard, signaling they could not move their trains safely

The department said CSX responded by removing them from their assignment and firing them. An investigation followed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. A Labor Department Office of Administrative Law Judged that the employee's rights were violated.

"The Federal Railroad Safety Act protects workers' rights to report safety concerns without fear of retaliation," Kurt Petermeyer, OSHA's regional administrator, said in a statement. "When employers like CSX Transportation retaliate against workers for raising safety concerns, they create an environment of fear that can lead to dangerous and sometimes deadly situations.

Related

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"The workers did what they were supposed to do -- they saw that the tracks were deemed unsafe, they communicated the issue and waited for further instructions. Despite following protocol, they were fired for the delay. This retaliatory behavior is unacceptable."

The judge ordered CSX to pay $248,856 in back wages, plus compound daily interest, another $100,000 for emotional distress and $100,000 for punitive damage for the two workers.

One of the workers also will receive $4,654 for reimbursement for health care premiums paid after termination.

'MA -- Cry of Silence' sends an urgent message from Myanmar

By Thomas Maresca

Mi-Thet (Su Lay) is a factory worker in Myanmar in director The Maw Naing's "MA -- Cry of Silence," which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival.

 Photo courtesy of Busan International Film Festival


BUSAN, South Korea, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Mi-Thet (Su Lay), an 18-year-old garment worker in Myanmar, feels trapped in a hopeless cycle. Her life is a round-trip between the fluorescent-lit factory where she sits at a sewing machine and the dark, cramped dormitory where she sleeps and eats, each day blending into the next.

It is an existence that mirrors Myanmar's own spiral of repression and stagnation, according to MA -- Cry of Silence, the wrenching feature by The Maw Naing that premiered at this year's Busan International Film Festival.

"This is the feeling that history is repeating itself," Mi-Thet says at one point. "Our country should have changed, but it's stayed the same."

The film is an extraordinary document of life in present-day Myanmar -- shot, almost miraculously, on location amid widespread civil unrest and brutal oppression after the military took control in a February 2021 coup.

"We decided to do this under the military, under the coup because this is important," The Maw Naing told UPI in an interview at BIFF. "I must tell this story to the world, even though it's risky for me and for my crew."

The film was inspired by women-led factory protests that began in 2012 and helped spark a wider movement resulting in a (brief) return to democratic rule after decades of military control.

The Maw Naing and producer/screenwriter Oh Young-jeong had planned to shoot an earlier version in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. In 2022, they returned to filming, convincing military authorities that they were working on a harmless romantic melodrama while surreptitiously shooting the more sensitive scenes as violence consumed the country.

"The army and police followed the production to all our shooting places and they checked everything," The Maw Naing said. "That's why we had to shoot some scenes very, very secretly. We also had to keep silent when bombing and fighting broke out around the shooting area."

Two of the film's crew members were later killed in protests and uprisings and a third was arrested and has not been heard from again, the director said. Completed footage was ultimately sent to France for editing inside diplomatic pouches from the French Embassy to avoid being screened by military authorities.

MA -- Cry of Silence centers around a strike by Mi-Thet's fellow garment workers, who have not been paid for two months. Mi-Thet, traumatized after being displaced from her village in the countryside, is reluctant to join the movement led by the more strident Nyein Nyein (Kyawt Kay Khaing).

Back at the dormitory, she meets U Tun (Nay Htoo Aung), who was a member of the 1988 student uprising in Myanmar (with the haunted expression and scars across his back to show it.) He shares his memories and lends her books, which inspire Mi-Thet to return to the fight.

Real-life cell phone footage of burning villages and street-level attacks by military thugs is interspersed throughout the film, adding an emotional jolt to the story. Over 5,000 civilians have been killed and 3.3 million displaced since the coup, according to a recent report by the United Nations human rights office.

At just 74 minutes, MA -- Cry of Silence feels narratively thin at points. The Maw Naing, whose last feature was 2014's The Monk, augments the story through strong visuals, with close-ups of whirring reels on sewing machines and spinning fans echoing the characters' trapped lives.

The villains, meanwhile, remain faceless. The factory supervisor is seen only in shadows or from behind, slapping a ruler on the girls' sewing tables as he barks at them to speed up. When the Chinese owner of the factory appears, we never see him leave his car.

"I don't want to show these people's faces," The Maw Naing said. "They are the invisible black hand -- the military and investors that control the society."

A near-constant monsoon rain, frequent blackouts and the sound of gunfire in the background add to a mounting sense of dread that erupts in a shocking final encounter for the striking girls.

"This kind of uprising is difficult and cannot be successful in a short time," screenwriter Oh Young-jeong told UPI. "We want to show they are still trapped in the loop, in the cycle, but the people keep trying."

MA -- Cry of Silence sends a loud plea from Myanmar, which is closing in on its fourth year of brutality and devastation under the military junta.

"Inside Myanmar it's difficult to find hope nowadays, so we wanted to bring our voice to the world," Oh said. "We hope that the international audience can help shine a light on the situation in Myanmar."

MA -- Cry of Silence is showing in competition for the New Currents Award at the Busan International Film Festival, which concludes on Friday.

Read MoreBusan International Film Festival opens with Netflix streamer 'Uprising'

PESTICIDES

World Migratory Bird Day focuses on declining insect population concerns

Issued on: 12/10/2024 

It's World Migratory Bird Day. In partnership with the UN, a number of international conservation societies are calling for more action to protect birds. This year, they want to raise awareness about the plight of insects upon which migratory birds depend. A recent UN report says declining insect populations are a threat to the incredible journeys these birds make each year. For more, FRANCE 24's Peter O'Brien is joined by Amy Fraenkel, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Migratory Species.

AFP, BBC win honours for war reporting at Bayeux War Correspondents' Awards

AFP photographer Mahmud Hams won the top prize for photos including his harrowing image of a woman after an Israeli strike on Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip on October 17, 2023.

Issued on: 12/10/2024

AFP photographer Mahmud Hams won the top prize for his work in Gaza. 

© Mahmud Hams, AFP/File

By: NEWS WIRES

The prestigious Bayeux War Correspondents' Awards on Saturday honoured reporters from Agence France-Presse, the BBC and others documenting conflict and strife around the world.

AFP photographer Mahmud Hams won the top prize for photos including his harrowing image of a woman crying during a search for victims after an Israeli strike on Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip on October 17, 2023.

The picture was captured just days after the Gaza war erupted after the attack by Hamas militants against Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people.

Israel's ongoing retaliatory campaign in Gaza has wrought devastation and, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, killed 42,175 people, mainly civilians.

"I dedicate this award to all the journalists covering bravely and honestly the war in Gaza," Hams said.

"I want to tell my colleagues in Gaza that our message has been heard: the entire world is watching Gaza through our lenses," he added.

Andrew Harding of the BBC was awarded the radio prize for his investigation into the smugglers behind a doomed attempt by migrants to cross the English Channel from France to England.

The migrants' inflatable boat capsized during the crossing, leading to the deaths of five people including Sara, a seven-year-old Iraqi girl whose family was hoping to escape being sent back to their country.
Gaza reports honoured

Gaza journalist Rami Abou Jamous won the top prize in written press for his "Gaza Journal", a day-by-day account as he fled his home as Israeli forces advanced. It was published in the online journal Orient XXI.

In television, Gaza journalist Mohamed Abou Safia and John Irvine of ITV News won the top prize for their report capturing a Palestinian man shot dead despite carrying a white flag as he sought family members in Gaza.

The ceremony to mark the 2024 edition of the Bayeux War Correspondents' Awards on Saturday. © Lou Benoist, AFP

The Public's Choice award went to photographer Kostiantyn Liberov for his reporting on the war in Ukraine.


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"I was so impressed by the work that we were judging," said jury president Clarissa Ward of CNN television.

"It made me very proud to be a journalist."

AFP's global news director Phil Chetwynd said: "This prize is a fitting tribute to the astonishing work produced by Mahmud in unimaginable circumstances.

"It is also a recognition of the fine work by AFP journalists in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, Lebanon and across the Middle East, who are often risking their lives to report this complex story with professionalism, fairness, and humanity."

(AFP)

40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn 'attacks'

United Nations (United States) (AFP) – Forty nations that contribute to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Saturday that they "strongly condemn recent attacks" on the peacekeepers.


Issued on: 12/10/2024

UNIFIL says its headquarters in Naqura (top left) and other positions have come under repeated fire © - / Planet Labs PBC/AFP

"Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated," said the joint statement, posted on X by the Polish UN mission and signed by nations including leading contributors Indonesia, Italy and India.

Other signatories include Ghana, Nepal, Malaysia, Spain, France and China -- all countries that have contributed several hundred troops to the force.

At least five peacekeepers have been wounded in recent days as Israel takes its fight against Hezbollah into southern Lebanon.

The peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, has accused the Israeli military of "deliberately" firing on its positions.

The 40 contributing countries "reaffirm our full support for UNIFIL's mission and activities, whose principal aim is to bring stabilization and lasting peace in South Lebanon as well as in the Middle East," the statement read.

"We urge the parties of the conflict to respect UNIFIL's presence, which entails the obligation to guarantee the safety and security of its personnel at all times," it added.

UNIFIL, which involves about 9,500 troops of some 50 nationalities, is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire that ended a 33-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.

Its role was bolstered by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of that year, which stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.

At a summit on Friday, French, Italian and Spanish leaders said the "attacks" on UNIFIL peacekeepers violated Resolution 1701 and must end.

UNIFIL said that, in recent days, its forces have "repeatedly" come under fire in the Lebanese town of Naqura where it is headquartered, as well as in other positions.

The mission said that Israeli tank fire on Thursday caused two Indonesian peacekeepers to fall off a watch tower in Naqura.

The following day it said explosions close to an observation tower in Naqura wounded two Sri Lankan Blue Helmets, while Israel said it had responded to an "immediate threat" near a UN peacekeeping position.

On Saturday UNIFIL said a peacekeeper in Naqura "was hit by gunfire" on Friday night.

UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP the peacekeeping mission's work had become "very difficult because there is a lot of damage, even inside the bases."

© 2024 AFP

NAKBA 2.0

Israeli plan is to 'empty' northern Gaza of its civilian population, analyst says

Issued on: 12/10/2024 

09:18  Video by: FRANCE 24

FRANCE 24 talks to Ahron Bregman, a teaching fellow at King’s College London and a former Israeli military officer, about Israel’s plan to create a buffer zone in northern Gaza by forcing the population to evacuate to the south.

Martinique airport briefly shut down amid protests

FRENCH COLONY VIVA INDEPENDENCE

Issued on: 12/10/2024 

03:27 Video by: Nicholas RUSHWORTH

Protesters stormed the airport on the French Caribbean island of Martinique on Thursday (October 10), briefly forcing the facility to close. Martinique has been gripped by bouts of protests over the high cost of living, some of which have turned violent.

Pro-Conquest film fuels debate in Mexico over colonial legacy

Mexico City (AFP) – A Spanish documentary extolling the virtues of the country's conquest of the Americas now showing in Mexico has added fuel to a politically charged debate over the legacy of colonialism.


Issued on: 12/10/2024 - 17:53

Mexico's new president Claudia Sheinbaum (C) speaks after receiving a ceremonial staff from Indigenous people at Mexico City's Zocalo Square on October 1, 2024 

© MARIO VAZQUEZ / AFP/File


"Hispanic America: A Song of Life and Hope" by Spanish director Jose Luis Lopez-Linares claims to offer "a new vision" of the colonial period.

Shot in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, it depicts the Spanish as having had a civilizing impact on the Americas, bequeathing a proud heritage of Catholicism and art, including lofty Baroque-inspired Spanish colonial architecture.

It makes no mention of the abuses committed in the name of evangelizing the Indigenous peoples of the New World.

The film's release in Mexico comes hot on the heels of a fallout between Mexico's new president Claudia Sheinbaum and the Spanish government.

Sheinbaum outraged Madrid by barring Spanish King Felipe VI from her inauguration ceremony earlier this month for failing to apologize for atrocities committed during the 1519-1521 Conquest of Mexico and the ensuing three centuries of colonial rule.

"It's a rubbish, manipulative and racist piece of propaganda that attempts to rewrite history," Mexican journalist Jose Juan de Avila, who attended a VIP screening of the film this week in Mexico City, complained to AFP.
Competing narratives

The film's release also coincided with the anniversary of Italian-born explorer Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World on October 12, 1492, which paved the way for the colonization of the Americas.

The date is a national holiday in Spain, where it is widely known as Hispanic Day.

But in Mexico and other Latin American countries it is known as Dia de la Raza (Day of the Race), a commemoration of native resistance against the Conquest and of cultural diversity.

"The Conquest was a violent act," Sheinbaum reiterated on Wednesday, adding that she wanted to "reconstruct the past" to strengthen relations between Spain and Mexico.

For Spanish author Carlos Martinez Shaw, the film draws on the ideology promoted by late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who pushed the "unbridled glorification" of colonialism.

Some Mexicans, however, subscribe to the view advanced in Lopez-Linares's documentary that the Conquest was a source of enlightenment.

When Avila, the journalist, challenged the director at the screening for his "shameful" depiction of the colonial period, he was shouted down by audience members, mostly Mexicans of European descent.

Juan Miguel Zuzunegui, a philosopher and staunch defender of Mexico's Hispanic heritage who is interviewed in the film, called it a message of "love in the face of hate speech."
'Heroes and saints'

Mesoamerica, a region that comprised parts of Mexico and Central America, had an estimated population of 15 million to 30 million people when conquistador Hernan Cortes arrived with an army of several hundred men, bringing horses, swords, guns -- and smallpox -- in 1519.

After a century of battles, massacres and plagues, only an estimated one million to two million Indigenous inhabitants remained.

The debate over the Conquest "remains very heated" in Mexico, Federico Navarrete, a historian at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told AFP.

It raises uncomfortable questions about the "privilege" enjoyed by Mexicans of European origin and on "the inequalities that still exist in Mexico" between people with light and dark skin, he added.

In Spain, where King Felipe attended the film's premiere in April, the legacy of colonialism was also publicly debated in the run-up to Hispanic Day.

Activists from a militant Catholic association put up posters defending the 16th-century "conquistadors" in public spaces in Madrid, Valencia, Toledo and other cities.

"Neither genocidal nor slave traders, but heros and saints. Happy Hispanic Day!" the posters read.

Mexican historian Alfredo Avila said that the debate was being stoked on either side of the Atlantic for domestic political gain.

"There are nationalist interests at stake in both cases," he said.

Around the world, former colonial powers are coming under pressure to face up to the less glorious chapters of their past.

Emmanuel Macron deeply upset conservatives in France when he declared during his 2017 presidential campaign that his country's colonization of Algeria was a "crime against humanity."

© 2024 AFP

The world’s three biggest nuclear hotspots in 2024


Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said today that Russia was not bluffing when it spoke of the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine and warned Moscow’s conflict with the West could escalate into all-out war. — Reuters pic
Join us on our WhatsApp Channel, follow us on Instagram, and receive browser alerts for the latest news you need to know.

Sunday, 13 Oct 2024 

PARIS, Oct 13 — After Japan’s anti-nuclear group Nihon Hidankyo won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, here is an overview of today’s biggest nuclear hotspots.

Russian threat, amid Ukraine war


Since invading neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has on several occasions brandished the threat of atomic weapons against Kyiv’s Western allies.

On September 25, President Vladimir Putin proposed changes to the nuclear doctrine that would allow it to launch a nuclear response to a “massive launch of air and space attack weapons”.


Aggression against Russia by a non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear power would be seen as a joint attack.


Putin did not specifically mention Ukraine, a non-nuclear state, but it was clearly referenced as Kyiv is seeking permission to launch US-made long-range missiles into Russia.

In mid-2023, Russia deployed tactical nuclear weapons to its ally Belarus, which also borders Ukraine.


Its army in May launched drills near Ukraine on the use of tactical nuclear weapon in response to perceived threats from Western nations.

Russia captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, Europe’s biggest atomic facility, soon after its invasion.

The plant has come under repeated attacks that both sides have accused each other of carrying out.

North Korean exercises

North Korea considers South Korea its “principal enemy”.

At a time when Pyongyang is boosting its military ties with Russia, leader Kim Jong Un’s regime has staged dozens of ballistic missile launches and sent thousands of trash-filled balloons into its neighbour’s air space this year.

Earlier this month, he said his country would use nuclear weapons “without hesitation” if attacked by the South and its United States ally, state media reported.

North Korea in September released images of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time.

Defying United Nations sanctions, Kim, who carried out six nuclear tests from 2006 to 2017, said in September his country was moving to steadily increase its nuclear arsenal.

According to the state news agency, in April Kim supervised the first simulated nuclear launch exercises in response to air exercises between the non-nuclear-armed South and the US, which protects it under its nuclear umbrella.

In January, Pyongyang announced having tested an underwater nuclear weapon system.

North Korea in 2022 declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power, a status enshrined in the constitution in 2023.

Israel-Iran trade warnings

Israel regards Iran’s nuclear facilities as an existential threat and has promised a “deadly, precise and surprising” response after Iran launched its second-ever direct strike on Israeli territory on October 1.

US President Joe Biden has warned Israel against striking nuclear infrastructure, while Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said the opposite.



Israel is the Middle East’s only — if undeclared — nuclear-armed state. 

— Reuters pic


Tehran has promised “an even stronger response” to an attack on its nuclear infrastructure.

More than three dozen hardline Iranian lawmakers on Thursday called on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate authority in Iran, to reconsider his long-standing religious edict or fatwa banning nuclear weapons.

Tehran insists its nuclear activities are entirely peaceful and designed to produce energy.

A 2015 deal with major powers curbing Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanction relief fell apart in 2018, when then US president Trump pulled his country out.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran has significantly ramped up its nuclear programme and now has enough material to build more than three atomic bombs.

Israel is the Middle East’s only — if undeclared — nuclear-armed state.

 — AFP

Pakistan’s Ban On Prominent Civil Rights Group Will ‘Alienate’ Pashtun Minority – Analysis

Manzoor Pashteen (center), the leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, is inaugurated at a jirga, or assembly, on September 29. Photo Credit: RFE/RL

 October 13, 2024 

By RFE RL

By Abubakar Siddique

(RFE/RL) — Pakistan’s decision to ban a prominent civil rights organization will further alienate the country’s large Pashtun ethnic minority, experts say.

The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a grassroots movement that advocates for the rights of Pakistan’s estimated 40 million Pashtuns, was designated a “proscribed organization” on October 6 for allegedly undermining security in the South Asian country of some 240 million people.

Rights groups say the ban is aimed at silencing the PTM, which has accused the government and the powerful military of committing human rights abuses against civilians in northwestern Pakistan, a militant stronghold.

Analysts say the ban could push the PTM to abandon its nonviolent campaign and further destabilize the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where many Pashtuns live.

“It’s going to make Pashtuns much more apprehensive of the state,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, senior fellow at King’s College London. “There’s going to be greater resentment and frustration.”

Since its emergence in 2018, the PTM has accused the army of using heavy-handed tactics, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances, against civilians during counterterrorism operations against militant groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The province has been the scene of numerous operations against the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group that have killed thousands of Pashtun civilians and uprooted millions in the past two decades.

Siddiqa said the ban on the PTM was a “knee-jerk reaction” by Pakistan’s military, which has an oversized role in the country’s domestic and foreign affairs. Its traditional dominance of politics has been undermined in recent years by civil rights organizations like the PTM and opposition political parties.

“PTM is a political movement, and that is something which the state finds much more difficult to control,” Siddiqa added.

In recent years, the authorities have arrested and jailed the leaders and hundreds of members of the PTM, whose rallies often attract tens of thousands of people.

Widespread Condemnation

The government’s ban on the PTM has been widely condemned.

Amnesty International on October 8 called on Islamabad to revoke the ban, which it termed “an affront to the rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.”

Two days earlier, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights watchdog, had criticized what it said was “the government’s decision to proscribe the PTM, a rights-based movement that has never resorted to violence and always used the framework of the Constitution to advocate its cause.”

The PTM has said that over 200 of its members have been arrested in recent days ahead of a jirga, or assembly, planned for October 11-13.

Two days before the assembly, police clashed with PTM supporters in the northwestern town of Jamrud, using tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd. At least four PTM activists were killed in the clashes.

Despite the ban on the PTM, the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has permitted the group to hold the assembly. On October 11, the provincial authorities said they will urge the central government to revoke the ban.

“The PTM has been raising very legitimate demands,” said Farhatullah Babar, a former lawmaker and leader of the secular Pakistan People’s Party.

He said the army and government have consistently reneged on promises it made to the PTM, including the removal of military checkpoints in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the clearance of landmines, and the release of civilians forcibly disappeared by the state.

“Stifling its voice will go down very badly with the entire Pashtun people,” said Babar. “I think that this will alienate people even more. The incentives for them to remain peaceful will now decrease.”

• Abubakar Siddique, a journalist for RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi, specializes in the coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key To The Future Of Pakistan And Afghanistan. He also writes the Azadi Briefing, a weekly newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan.