Afghan girls, faraway relatives worry over dreams disrupted

By MARIAM FAM and NOREEN NASIR

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Shola Yawari, left, and her teenage daughter Asma Yawari pose for photos at their home in Aurora, Ill., Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021. Asma Yawari has built a close friendship with her younger cousin in Afghanistan through phone calls and text messages. Since the Taliban takeover, both Asma and her mother worry for their relative's future, amid uncertainty over her access to school and ability to pursue her interests and passions. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

From her home in Illinois, Asma Yawari has built a relationship with her younger cousin in Afghanistan that’s made the geographic distance between the two teenagers’ worlds seem, well, not quite so distant.

They never met but have bonded over phone calls and messages -- swapping family photos and language lessons, sharing hair routines and future dreams. But after the Taliban’s return to power, the cousins worry that the space between their worlds may grow in new ways. Already, some shared experiences, like going to school or dressing up, are fading, replaced by the fear that the cousin, and others like her in Afghanistan, may be left behind.

“We have similar goals and aspirations,” the 17-year-old Asma says. “The only difference is that I’m able to achieve those goals and aspirations.”

As a wary world watches to see the Taliban’s policies for women, many older girls in Afghanistan already face disrupted dreams, worried for their future, afraid of missing out on big career goals as well as little freedoms and hobbies that helped connect them to far-flung families. And perhaps none are more worried for them than the faraway women who could have been them - the sisters, the cousins, the friends.

The cousin, 13-year-old Bahara, tells Asma she’s upset that boys in her age range have been called back to school, but not girls above the sixth grade. And even if she’s allowed to return, she questions what dreams of hers may no longer have a place under the Taliban.

Her hope of one day becoming a fashion designer? “I’m just going to give up on that,” she says. “It’s very sad for me.”

Asma, who has helped organize protests in Chicago in support of Afghans scrambling to leave the country after the Taliban takeover, worries over the safety of her family in Afghanistan and the future of her female cousins.

“I always think that could have been me,” she says.

The status of Afghan women, at times used to help garner support for the U.S. war after the 9/11 attacks, has once again taken center stage after the recent rise of the Taliban who face international pressure to ensure women’s rights.

During their previous rule between 1996 and 2001, the group severely restricted women in the public sphere, largely confining them to their homes. That track record looms large even as they promise more rights and freedoms this time.

Throughout decades, Afghanistan has been used as grounds for competing powers to play out their proxy wars, and the status of Afghan women is often at the heart of it, says Nura Sediqe, lecturer at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Changes over the last two decades brought opportunity for the women in Sediqe’s family in Herat province “but then fatalities continued in more rural parts of Afghanistan, so I felt this guilt.”

Political Scientist Nura Sediqe, an Afghan American, poses on Princeton University's campus in Princeton, N.J., on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. Sediqe, an Afghan American woman, said Afghanistan has been used as grounds for competing powers to play out their proxy wars, and the status of women is often at the heart of it. “It always seems like we're a chess piece for people," she said. (AP Photo/Noreen Nasir)

That diversity of experiences of Afghan women is often overlooked, says Mejgan Massoumi, an Afghan American historian.

Some girls and women worked to seize the opportunity of going to school and getting a job; others faced social and economic burdens holding them back, she says.

In bigger cities, like Kabul, women may have more visibility and rights than in the many rural areas of the vast country.

Girls’ education has been a battlefield with uneven progress.

Even before the recent Taliban takeover, multiple barriers -- including cultural norms, familial disapproval, security fears, financial pressures, the long distance to some schools and shortages of female teachers -- have kept significantly more girls than boys out of school, especially when the girls reach adolescence, according to a 2019 UNICEF report.

Still, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Omar Abdi told reporters that the number of children enrolled in schools increased from one million in 2001, when the Taliban were ousted from power, to almost 10 million, including 4 million girls. Despite this progress, 4.2 million children are out of school, including 2.6 million girls, he said.

“The education gains of the past two decades must be strengthened and not rolled back,” said Abdi, who added he urged the Taliban to let all girls resume learning.

Speaking in mid October, he said girls were allowed to attend secondary school in only five of Afghanistan’s provinces. Taliban’s education minister, Abdi said, told him they were working on “a framework which they will announce soon” that will allow all girls to go to secondary schools.

The Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law during their earlier rule, but many Afghans are skeptical.

The Taliban is “taking their personal, unique interpretation of Islamic law and fusing it with their cultural understanding of women’s rights and women’s access to the public sphere,” says Ali A. Olomi, an assistant professor of Islamic and Middle East history at Penn State University, Abington, stressing that Islam strongly encourages education.



Masouma Tajik worries her younger sisters may not have access to the same opportunities that have allowed her to become a data analyst in Kabul.

The 22-year-old, career-minded Tajik graduated from the American University of Afghanistan, where she studied on a scholarship.

She recalls feeling scared shortly before the Taliban seized Kabul. “The first reason that I was afraid was my right to live as a woman,” she says. “I put so much time and effort on my career.”

After the Taliban takeover, Tajik left Afghanistan for Eastern Europe. She’s been applying for scholarships or refugee programs in different countries.

Her sisters stayed behind in Herat with the rest of the family.

One of her sisters’ answers became shorter when they talked: No, she doesn’t go to school (their youngest sister does). The sister, who used to tell Tajik that she wanted to join the army, didn’t complain but her voice betrayed her sadness, Tajik says. More recently, that sister started sharing that she has been going out, including to the park, and studying English at home.

Tajik has no idea how to help; her own life is in limbo.

“I’m just like giving hope for them,” Tajik says. “I have nothing, no plan in my hands for them. She understands this.”

Nazia, 30, is also missing a younger sister who is in Afghanistan. The two were separated two years ago, when Nazia moved to America and Hena remained in Kabul.

Hena is growing hopeless about what the future holds.

At times, Nazia, who didn’t want her last name used to protect the identity of relatives in Afghanistan, tries to cheer her up; at others, she joins her in crying.

Since she was a child, Hena has dreamed of becoming a doctor.

“Everything has been taken away from us,” she says, speaking on Zoom as Nazia translates. She helps her mom with chores at home and, sometimes, reads her textbooks, unsure whether or when she will be able to use them in a classroom again.

And Nazia feels helpless: “I can’t do anything for them.”

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In Afghanistan, Bahara says she had been counting the days since boys beyond the sixth grade have been allowed back to school, but not the girls.

Before, time would fly by as she juggled going to her school and doing her homework with taking outside courses in English and her favorite hobby — sewing.

She scoured Instagram for fashion design inspiration; her family felt it would be inappropriate for her to post photos of herself, but she could browse. Her mother gave her a sewing machine and she made dresses for herself and her sisters.

Now, her world has shrunk. A close friend with whom she had planned a fashion design project left the country. The courses she used to take are no longer meeting. She tries to keep a low profile, wearing a loose, long black gown when she goes out and a tightly wrapped black headscarf that frames her face; she deleted from her phone cherished photos of herself wearing dresses she made.

A sister says she doesn’t want to return to school even if allowed back, worried about potential Taliban harassment, Bahara says; but not her.

“I miss my teachers, my books, my friends,” she says. “I wake up every day and when I see the clock, I think that that was the time that I should be in school.”

Bahara’s family is among the many who are hoping to leave the country for multiple reasons.

Talking or texting with her cousin Asma provides some relief.

Bahara holds onto the good memories, like her birthday party, shortly before Kabul fell to the Taliban. She didn’t have anything to wear. “In one night, I tailored a beautiful dress.”

In her new dress, surrounded by childhood girlfriends, she laughed, played games and blew out the candles.

“I think that was the last day for me that I was happy,” she says. “After that ... there is no day to spend without worries.”

Meanwhile, Asma recently attended her school’s homecoming, but hesitated before posting photos online of herself, dolled up in a sparkling baby blue dress and posing with friends. She didn’t want her cousin or other family to think she was flaunting her freedom.

“If I do go hang out with my friends, I feel guilty,” she says. “I just feel guilty, like, talking about it.”

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Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela contributed.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Radicalization’s path: In case studies, finding similarities

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, KATHY GANNON and ERIC TUCKER

Students of an Islamic seminary play with soccer ball in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021. Wahab, the youngest son of four from a wealthy Pakistani family was rescued by his uncle, from a Taliban training camp on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan earlier this year. His uncle blamed his slide to radicalization on the neighborhood teens Wahab socialized with in their northwest Pakistan hometown, plus video games and Internet sites his friends introduced to him. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)


In the months before he was charged with storming the Capitol, Doug Jensen was sharing conspiracy theories he’d consumed online. But it hadn’t always been that way, says his brother, who recalls how he once posted the sort of family and vacation photos familiar to nearly all social media users.

A world away, Wahab hadn’t always spent his days immersed in jihadist teaching. The product of a wealthy Pakistani family and the youngest son of four, he was into cars and video games, had his own motorcycle, even studied in Japan.

No two ideologues are identical. No two groups are comprised of monolithic clones. No single light switch marks the shift to radicalism. The gulf between different kinds of extremists — in religious and political convictions, in desired world orders, in how deeply they embrace violence in the name of their cause — is as wide as it is obvious.

But to dwell only on the differences obscures the similarities, not only in how people absorb extremist ideology but also in how they feed off grievances and mobilize to action.

For any American who casts violent extremism as a foreign problem, the Jan. 6 Capitol siege held up an uncomfortable mirror that showed the same conditions for fantastical thinking and politically motivated violence as any society.

The Associated Press set out to examine the paths and mechanics of radicalization through case studies on two continents: a 20-year-old man rescued from a Taliban training camp on Afghanistan’s border, and an Iowa man whose brother watched him fall sway to nonsensical conspiracy theories and ultimately play a visible role in the mob of Donald Trump loyalists that stormed the Capitol.

Two places, two men, two very different stories as seen by two close relatives. But strip away the ideologies for a moment, says John Horgan, a researcher of violent extremism. Instead, look at the psychological processes, the pathways, the roots, the experiences.

“All of those things,” Horgan says, “tend to look far more similar than they are different.”

THE AMERICAN

FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2021 file photo, smoke fills the walkway outside the Senate Chamber as supporters of President Donald Trump, including Doug Jensen, are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers inside the Capitol in Washington. America met Jensen via a video that ricocheted across the Internet that turned an officer into a hero and laid bare the mob mentality inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

America met Doug Jensen via a video that ricocheted across the Internet, turning an officer into a hero and laying bare the mob mentality inside the Capitol that day.

Jensen is the man in a dark stocking cap, a black “Trust the Plan” shirt over a hooded sweatshirt, front and center in a crowd of rioters chasing Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer, up two flights of stairs. One prominent picture shows him standing feet from an officer, arms spread wide, mouth agape.

When it was all over, he’d tell the FBI that he was a “true believer” in QAnon, that he’d gone to Washington because Q and Trump had summoned “all patriots” and that he’d expected to see Vice President Mike Pence arrested. He’d say he pushed his way to the front of the crowd because he wanted “Q” to get the credit for what was about to happen.

He’d tell his brother the photos were staged, how the police had practically let him in through the front door (prosecutors say he climbed a wall and entered through a broken window) and that some officers even did selfies with the crowd.

William Routh of Clarksville, Arkansas, had an unsettled feeling about that day even before the riot and says he cautioned his younger brother. “I said, if you go down there and you’re going to do a peaceful thing, then that’s fine. But I said keep your head down and don’t be doing something stupid.”

In interviews with the AP days and months after his younger brother’s arrest, Routh painted Jensen — a 42-year-old Des Moines father of three who’d worked as a union mason laborer — as a man who enjoyed a pleasant if unextraordinary American existence. He says he took his family to places like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park, attended his children’s sporting events, worked to pay for a son’s college education, made anodyne Facebook posts.

“I have friends that I speak to constantly that have conspiracy theories,” Routh said, “but this was a shock to me more than anything, because I would not have thought this from my brother Doug, because he’s a very good, hardworking family man and he has good values.”

Exactly who Jensen is, and how much knowledge he had of the world around him, depends on who’s talking.

A Justice Department memo that argued for Jensen’s detention cites a criminal history and his eagerness to drive more than 1,000 miles to “hear President Trump declare martial law,” then to take it into his own hands when no proclamation happened. It notes that when the FBI questioned him, he said he’d gone to Washington because “Q,” the movement’s amorphous voice, had forecast that the “storm” had arrived.

His lawyer, Christopher Davis, countered in his own filing by essentially offering Jensen up as a dupe, a “victim of numerous conspiracy theories” and a committed family man whose initial devotion to QAnon “was its stated mission to eliminate pedophiles from society.”

Six months after the insurrection, the argument resonated with a judge who agreed to release Jensen on house arrest as his case moved forward. The judge, Timothy Kelly, cited a video in which Jensen referred to the Capitol building as the White House and said he didn’t believe Jensen could have planned an attack in advance “when he had no basic understanding of where he even was that day.”

FILE - This photo provided by Polk County (Iowa) Jail shows Doug Jensen. Authorities have arrested Jensen from Des Moines, Iowa, who allegedly took part in the riot at the U.S. Capitol building by supporters of President Donald Trump. America met Jensen via a video that ricocheted across the Internet that turned an officer into a hero and laid bare the mob mentality inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. (Polk County (Iowa) Jail via AP)

Yet less than two months after he was released, Jensen was ordered back to jail for violating the conditions of his freedom. Though barred from accessing a cellphone, he watched a symposium sponsored by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that offered up false theories that the presidential election’s outcome was changed by Chinese hackers. A federal officer making the first unannounced visit to Jensen found him in his garage using an iPhone to watch news from Rumble, a streaming platform popular with conservatives.

Davis, who weeks earlier had asserted that his client “feels deceived, recognizing that he bought into a pack of lies,” likened his client’s behavior this time to an addiction. The judge was unmoved.

“It’s now clear that he has not experienced a transformation and that he continues to seek out those conspiracy theories that led to his dangerous conduct on Jan. 6,” Kelly said. “I don’t see any reason to believe that he has had the wake-up call that he needs.”

Precisely when and how Jensen came to absorb the conspiracies that led him to the Capitol is bewildering to Routh, who says he took Jensen under his wing during a challenging childhood that included stays in foster care and now feels compelled, as his oldest living relative, to speak on his behalf.

When Jensen was questioned by the FBI, according to an agent’s testimony, he said for the last couple of years he’d return home from an eight-hour workday and consume information from QAnon. In the four months before the riot, the brothers communicated about QAnon as Jensen shared videos and other conspiracy-laden messages that he purported to find meaning in but that Routh found suspect.

It was a period rife with baseless theories, advanced on the Internet and mainstream television, that an election conducted legitimately was somehow stolen in favor of Democrat Joe Biden. “It was just out there. It is on the internet everywhere,” Routh says.

Routh, who says he’s a Republican who supported Trump, maintains his brother and others like him were frightened by the prospect of a Biden victory. Before Jan. 6, Routh says, “We have been being told for the last — what? — seven, eight months that if the Democrats get control, we’re losing our country, OK? That scares a lot of people.”

He says he understands the anxiety of Trump supporters who fear the country may get more radical on the left. He has friends in oil fields and the pipeline industry who don’t know “if they’re going to be able to feed their families again.” As Routh criss-crossed the country as a truck driver, he says the idea Trump would lose re-election seemed unfathomable given that virtually everyone he met, everywhere he went, was pushing “Trump, Trump, Trump.”

When Routh looks at the photos of Jensen and the group he was with Jan. 6, he doesn’t see a determination to physically hurt anyone or vandalize the building. And despite the QAnon T-shirt, and despite the statement to the FBI that he was “all about a revolution,” Routh insists his brother was more a follower than a leader. Jensen is not among those charged with conspiracy or with being part of a militia group, and though prosecutors say he had a pocket knife with him, his lawyer says it was from work and he never took it out.

FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, Trump supporters, including Doug Jensen, center, confront U.S. Capitol Police in the hallway outside of the Senate chamber at the Capitol in Washington. America met Jensen via a video that ricocheted across the Internet that turned an officer into a hero and laid bare the mob mentality inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

“He had a lot of influence from everybody else there,” Routh said this summer as he awaited a judge’s ruling on his brother’s bond motion. “And he has always been the kind of kid that says, ‘I can do that.’”

Two days after the riot, back home in Iowa, Jensen walked 6 miles (9.66 kilometers) to the Des Moines police department after seeing he was featured in videos of the chaos, an FBI agent would later testify. There, the FBI says, he made statements now at the center of the case, including admitting chasing Goodman up the stairs, that he yelled “Hit me. I’ll take it” as the officer raised a baton to move him back and that he profanely bellowed for the arrests of government leaders.

Though prosecutors suggest he had the presence of mind to delete potentially incriminating social media accounts from his phone, he also seemed uncertain — confused, even — during his encounter with law enforcement. As officials questioned him, according to an FBI agent’s testimony, he said words to the effect of, “Am I being duped?”

THE PAKISTANI

Renovation work is going on at the historical Mahabat Khan mosque, in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021. Wahab, the youngest son of four from a wealthy Pakistani family was rescued by his uncle, from a Taliban training camp on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan earlier this year. His uncle blamed his slide to radicalization on the neighborhood teens Wahab socialized with in their northwest Pakistan hometown, plus video games and Internet sites that his friends introduced to him.

 (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)

Wahab had it all. The youngest son of four from a wealthy Pakistani family, he spent his early years in the United Arab Emirates and for a time in Japan, studying. Wahab liked cars, had his own motorcycle and was crazy about video games.

His uncle, who rescued the 20-year-old from a Taliban training camp on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan earlier this year, asked that his full name not be used because in the northwest where the family lives, militants have deep-reaching tentacles. But more than that, he worries about his family’s reputation because of its prominence. He agreed to be quoted using his middle name, Kamal.

The family has business interests scattered across the globe. Kamal is one of five brothers who runs the family-owned import/export conglomerate. Each brother in turn has groomed and primed their sons for the business. Wahab’s older brothers are already running overseas branches of the family business.

Wahab’s future was to be no different. He returned to Pakistan in his early teens from abroad. Being the youngest son in a society that prizes males, he was spoiled. His older brothers sent him “pocket money,” his uncle said. Other than school, Wahab had few responsibilities.

His uncle blamed his slide to radicalization on the neighborhood teens Wahab hung out with in their northwest Pakistan hometown — not to mention video games and Internet sites.

Wahab’s friends introduced him to dozens of sites, his uncle said. They told of Muslims being attacked, women raped, babies brutally killed. The gruesomeness was horrifying, though Kamal says there was no way to know what was true — or if any had been doctored. But for Wahab, the images were deeply disturbing.

“He felt like he hadn’t known what was going on, that he had spent his life in darkness and he felt he should be involved. His friends insisted he should. They told him he was rich and should help our people,” his uncle said.

To his uncle, Wahab seemed to become increasingly aggressive and fixated on violence with the seemingly endless hours he spent playing video games. One in particular, called PUBG, was all the rage with Wahab and his friends.

“All the boys loved it,” Kamal said. “For hours they would play as a team against the computer.”

People and motorcyclists drive through Qissa Khwani market in the downtown of Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. Wahab, the youngest son of four from a wealthy Pakistani family was rescued by his uncle, from a Taliban training camp on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan earlier this year. His uncle blamed his slide to radicalization on the neighborhood teens Wahab socialized with in their northwest Pakistan hometown, plus video games and Internet sites his friends introduced to him.

 (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)

On pubgmobile.com, the game is described as focusing “on visual quality, maps, shooting experience ... providing an all-rounded surreal Battle Royale experience to players. A hundred players will land on the battleground to begin an intense yet fun journey.” Wahab’s uncle said he’d be shouting instructions as he played, interacting with teammates.

Suddenly, earlier this year, Wahab disappeared. His parents, frantic, searched everywhere. Wahab wasn’t the first in the family to flirt with extremism. His cousin Salman had joined the local Pakistani Taliban years before. But he was different: He’d never been interested in school and was sent to a religious school, or madrassa, for his education. The family had long given up on him.

Salman swore he hadn’t seen Wahab and knew nothing of where he might be — or if he had even joined jihad.

Suspicion then fell on Wahab’s friends. Family members were certain they’d induced him to defend against attacks that Wahab and his friends were convinced were being waged against Muslims, simply because of their religion.

The family used its influence and money to press the fathers of Wahab’s friends to find the 20-year-old. They finally located him at a Pakistani Taliban training camp, where Kamal said Wahab was being instructed in the use of small weapons.

Such camps are also often used to identify would-be suicide bombers and instruct them in the use of explosives, identification of soft targets and how to cause the greatest destruction. The Pakistan Taliban have carried out horrific attacks; in 2014, insurgents armed with automatic rifles attacked a public school, killing more than 150 people, most children, some as young as 5.

When Wahab’s father discovered his son was at a training camp, he was furious, said his uncle.

“He told the people, ‘Leave him there. I don’t accept him as my son anymore.’ But I took it on myself to bring him back,” Kamal said. He said he didn’t ask Wahab about the camp or why he wanted to go — or even such basics as how he got there.

People walk while vehicle move through historical Khyber Pass in Jamrud, the main town of Pakistan's Khyber district bordering Afghanistan, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. Wahab, the youngest son of four from a wealthy Pakistani family was rescued by his uncle, from a Taliban training camp on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan earlier this year. His uncle blamed his slide to radicalization on the neighborhood teens Wahab socialized with in their northwest Pakistan hometown, plus video games and Internet sites his friends introduced to him. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)

“I didn’t want him talking about any of it. I didn’t want to know why he went because then I knew he would start to get excited again and he would start thinking about it all over again,” Kamal said. “Instead, I took a firm face with him.”

His uncle told Wahab he was getting another chance — his last.

“I told him, ‘Now it is on me. I have taken the responsibility. You won’t get another chance. If you do anything again then I will shoot you,’” his uncle said. In Pakistan’s northwest, where tribal laws and customs often decide family disputes and feuds, the threat was most likely not an idle one.

Today, Wahab is back in the family business, but his uncle says he is closely watched. He isn’t allowed to deal with the company finances and his circle of friends is monitored. “Right now we don’t trust him. It will take us time,” his uncle says.

Fearful that others among Wahab’s siblings and cousins could be enticed to extremism, the family has imposed greater restrictions on young male relatives. Their independence has been restricted, Kamal says: “We are watching all the young boys now, and most nights they have to be home — unless they tell us where they are.”

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Moral outrage. A sense of injustice. A feeling that things can only be fixed through urgent, potentially violent action.

Those tend to motivate people who gravitate toward extremism, according to Horgan, who directs the Violent Extremism Research Group at Georgia State University. He says such action is often seen as necessary to ward off a perceived impending threat to one’s way of life — and to secure a better future.

“Those similarities you will find repeated across the board, whether you’re talking about extreme right-wing militias in Oklahoma or you’re talking about a Taliban offshoot in northwest Pakistan,” Horgan says.

The world views driving extremist groups may feel fantastical and outrageous to society at large. But the true believers who consume propaganda and align themselves with like-minded associates don’t see it that way. To them, they possess inside knowledge that others simply don’t see.

“There’s a contradiction, because they are committed insiders but part of their insider status is defined by pitting themselves against an outsider whose very existence is said to threaten their own,” Horgan says. “They pride themselves on being anti-authoritarian. Yet conformity is what binds them together.”

Research shows that people who espouse conspiracy theories tend to do poorer on measures of critical thinking. They reduce complex world problems — the pandemic, for instance — to simplified and reassuring answers, says Ziv Cohen, a forensic psychiatrist and expert on extremist beliefs at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University.

Rather than attributing a job loss to the effects of globalization, for instance, one might see it as the result of a conspiracy that someone in particular has engineered.

“It gives us answers,” he says, “that are much more appealing emotionally than the real answer.”

That’s where the stories of Jensen and Wahab seem to intersect. Both were seeking something. Both found answers that were enticing, attractive — and distorted versions of reality.

“For reasons he does not even understand today, he became a ‘true believer’ and was convinced he (was) doing a noble service by becoming a digital soldier for ‘Q,’” Davis, Jensen’s lawyer, wrote in a June court filing. “Maybe it was mid-life crisis, the pandemic, or perhaps the message just seemed to elevate him from his ordinary life to an exalted status with an honorable goal.”

But is that goal ever reached? Is comfort ever found? Oddly, and perhaps counterintuitively, research has shown that when extremists’ conspiracy theories are reinforced, their anxiety levels rise rather than fall, Cohen says. He likens the comfort to a drug — one that requires increasingly more consumption to take effect. Which helps perpetuate the cycle.

Says Cohen: “People seem to not be able to get enough of a conspiracy theory, but they’re never quite satisfied or really reassured.”

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Associated Press writer David Pitt in Des Moines contributed to this report.

‘Burned out’? Why won’t more women return to the job market?

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN and CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

Keryn Francisco interacts doing math flash cards with her 10-year-old son Reve Francisco in Alameda, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. Francisco's interactions are things she didn't have time to do when she worked full-time in the corporate world. As the U.S. economy rebounds from the ongoing pandemic, many women are choosing to sit out the labor force. During her time away from work, Francisco made a discovery that hadn't quite seemed clear to her before: "I was burned out. I used to think that work-life balance was such a fantasy." Now, she's considering the conditions for a full-time return to the workforce. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)


NEW YORK (AP) — There was a time when Naomi Peña could seemingly do it all: Work a full-time job and raise four children on her own.

But when the viral pandemic struck early last year, her personal challenges began to mount and she faced an aching decision: Her children or her job?

She chose her children. In August, Peña left her well-paying position as an executive assistant at Google in New York City. In doing so, she joined millions of other women who are sitting out the job market recovery while caring for relatives, searching for affordable child care, reassessing their careers or shifting their work-life priorities.

“I had to pivot,” said Peña, 41, who said the pandemic disrupted her children’s lives and led her to suspend her career because she felt she was needed more at home than at work.

“I walked away from a salary job with amazing benefits, so ultimately I could be present with my kids,” she said.

A single mother of four ranging from middle school-age to college-age, Peña knows she’ll eventually have to look for another full-time job — or join the gig economy — to regain a steady income. Just not yet.

The pandemic has both laid bare the disproportionate burdens many women shoulder in caring for children or aging parents and highlighted the vital roles they have long played in America’s labor force. The United States bled tens of millions of jobs when states began shuttering huge swaths of the economy after COVID-19 erupted. But as the economy has swiftly rebounded and employers have posted record-high job openings, many women have delayed a return to the workplace, willingly or otherwise.



Even with children back in school, the influx of women into the job market that most analysts had expected has yet to materialize. The number of women either working or looking for work actually fell in September from August. For men, the number rose.

For parents of young children, the male-female disparities are stark. Among mothers of children 13 or younger, the proportion who were employed in September was nearly 4% below pre-pandemic levels, according to Nick Bunker, director of economic research at the Indeed job listings website. For fathers with young children, the decline was just 1%.

“A lot of women have left the labor force — the question is, how permanent will it be?” said Janet Currie, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and co-director of the Program on Families and Children at the National Bureau of Economic Research. “And if they’re going to come back, when will we see them come back? I don’t know the answers to any of that.”

Many economists and officials, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, had speculated that the re-opening of schools would free more mothers to take jobs. So far that hasn’t happened. The delta variant caused temporary school closings in many areas, which might have discouraged some mothers from returning to work in September. The number of mothers who were employed actually declined for a second straight month.

Still, economists are holding out hope that with increasing vaccinations leading to fewer viral cases, Friday’s U.S. jobs report for October will show an increase in the number of employed women. Any gain, though, is likely to be small, and it could take months to at least partially reverse the pandemic’s impact on female employment.

A major reason, Currie noted, is the worsening difficulty of finding reliable and affordable child care.

That crisis, Currie suggested, is “probably making some people’s minds up for them, because if you can’t get childcare and you have young children, somebody has to look after them.”

Besides childcare, experts point to other factors that have kept some women out of the workforce. The number of people who aren’t working because they’re caring for sick relatives remains elevated. And surveys by the job listings website Indeed have found that many of the unemployed aren’t searching very hard for jobs because their spouses are still working.

Keryn Francisco interacts with her 10-year-old son Reve Francisco on how to ride a bicycle in Alameda, Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. As the U.S. economy rebounds from the ongoing pandemic, many women are choosing to sit out the labor force. During her time away from work, Francisco made a discovery that hadn't quite seemed clear to her before: "I was burned out. I used to think that work-life balance was such a fantasy." Now, she's considering the conditions for a full-time return to the workforce. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)

As the pandemic erupted in the spring of 2020, roughly 3.5 million mothers with school-age children either lost jobs, took leaves of absence or left the labor market altogether, according to an analysis by the Census Bureau.

A new report, “Women in the Workplace,” by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. illustrates how the pandemic imposed an especially heavy toll on working women. It found that one in three women over the past year had thought about leaving their jobs or “downshifting” their careers. Early in the pandemic, by contrast, the study’s authors said, just one in four women had considered leaving.

“Women are even more burned out now than they were a year ago,” the report said, “and the gap in burnout between women and men has nearly doubled”: Forty-two percent of women said they felt burnt out this year, compared with 32% who said so in 2020. By contrast, a smaller proportion of men — 35% — felt burnt out this year, compared with 28% in 2020.

Months before the pandemic, Keryn Francisco, a 51-year-old former designer for The North Face, had to decide whether to move, along with her company, to Denver.

She ultimately decided not to leave. And as COVID-19 raged, she became more comfortable with her decision, even if it meant being unemployed and shrinking her severance payout. She had been collecting unemployment aid and has picked up some freelancing to avoid dipping too deeply into savings.

A solo parent, Francisco wanted to focus on caring for her son, now 10, and her elderly parents in the San Francisco Bay area.

“It was out of a sense of responsibility and obligation,” she said. “But also, honestly, I didn’t know what was happening with COVID. So there was a lot of fear and kind of insecurity about like, if my parents died.”

During her time away from work, Francisco made a discovery that hadn’t quite seemed clear to her before: “I was burned out.” Now, she’s considering the conditions for a full-time return to the workforce.

“Once you leave the corporate treadmill,” she said, “you can actually catch your breath. Something does change inside of you.”

Many other women can’t afford to be so choosey, even if they’d like to. Tens of millions of working women, many of them people of color, labor in low-wage jobs and struggle to afford rent, food, utilities and other necessities.

“There may be labor shortages, but lots of folks are working right now and do so because there is really no choice,” said Debra Lancaster, executive director for the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. “They need to work to put food on their table.”

Ashley Thomas, who is in her early 40s, said her sabbatical from her job as a public policy advocate is just temporary but a much-needed respite to more deeply consider her career options.

“I had this opportunity to take a step back and just take a breather — because I have been working hard my entire adult life,” Thomas said. “This is not a permanent break. It’s a temporary break.”

There was no single trigger, Thomas said, for her decision to leave her job as a public policy advocate based in Jacksonville, Florida. The virus played a role, although even she is uncertain how much a factor it was.

“I have family members who are elderly and maybe not in the best of health that I was very worried about,” she said. “We have two teenagers here who were home from school, and this is a really hard time for them to just sort of be out of school and not be interacting with their friends as much.”

She recognizes that many other women can’t afford to take such a break from work. Thomas’ husband remains employed, and her two teenage step-children no longer need so much close attention.

“Women have been known to sort of take the brunt of the emotional labor involved in running a household — and working on top of that,” she said. “It’s probably inevitable that folks have some sort of reckoning to reconsider the trajectory of what their life is going to look like, especially after a pandemic.”

___

Rugaber contributed from Washington.

ETHIOPIAN WAR OF AGRESSION
Ethiopia compares Tigray forces to ‘rat’ as war marks 1 year


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People sit on steps next to a sculpture in the shape of Amharic words reading "Addis Ababa" in the Piazza old town area of the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021. Urgent new efforts to calm Ethiopia's escalating war are unfolding Thursday as a U.S. special envoy visits and the president of neighboring Kenya calls for an immediate cease-fire while the country marks a year of conflict. (AP Photo)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s government marked a year of war by lashing out Thursday in response to international alarm about hate speech, comparing the rival Tigray forces to “a rat that strays far from its hole” and saying the country is close to “burying the evil forces.”

The statement from the government communication service, posted on social media and confirmed by a government spokesman, came amid urgent new efforts to calm the escalating war as a U.S. special envoy arrived and the president of neighboring Kenya and others called for an immediate cease-fire.

The war that has killed thousands of people and displaced millions since November 2020 threatens to engulf Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Tigray forces seized key cities in recent days and linked up with another armed group, leading the government of Africa’s second-most populous country to declare a national state of emergency with sweeping detention powers.

The spokeswoman for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Billene Seyoum, did not say whether Abiy was meeting with U.S. special envoy Jeffrey Feltman, who this week insisted that “there are many, many ways to initiate discreet talks” toward peace.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he spoke with Abiy “to offer my good offices to create the conditions for a dialogue so the fighting stops.” Uganda’s president called for a meeting of East African leaders, and the European Union warned of “fragmentation and widespread armed conflict.”

But so far, such efforts have failed. Last week a congressional aide told The Associated Press that “there have been talks of talks with officials, but when it gets to the Abiy level and the senior (Tigray forces) level, the demands are wide, and Abiy doesn’t want to talk.”

Instead, the prime minister has urged citizens to rise up and “bury” the Tigray forces who long dominated the national government before he came to power. On Wednesday, Facebook said it had removed a post by Abiy with that language, saying it violated policies against inciting violence. It was a rare action against a head of state or government.

The government statement on Thursday took aim not only at Facebook, accusing it of showing its “true colors,” but also at media, humanitarian groups and others allegedly “working hand in hand with the enemy in propagating its false narrative.” It warned it would take action over “destructive behavior.”

But Ethiopia’s government aimed its harshest language at the Tigray forces. “TPLF and its puppets are being encircled by our forces. As the saying goes, ‘a rat that strays far from its hole is nearer to death,’” the statement said, referring to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

The U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, told an online event Thursday that dehumanizing speech in Ethiopia is “of extreme concern,” and she warned that the risk exists of the war spilling across borders and “becoming something completely unmanageable.” She warned that ethnic-based militias are “so dangerous in this context.”

Kenya increased security along its borders amid fears of a wave of Ethiopians fleeing as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises spreads, while its foreign ministry said statements inciting ordinary citizens into the conflict “must be shunned.”

Tigray forces spokesman Getachew Reda claimed they had “joined hands” with another armed group, the Oromo Liberation Army, to seize the city of Kemisse, which is even closer to the capital.

“Joint operations will continue in the days and weeks ahead,” he tweeted.

A security source confirmed that the two armed groups had linked up to control Kemisse and said Tigray forces were pushing east as well as south toward the capital. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

All sides in the war have committed abuses, a joint U.N. human rights investigation said Wednesday, while millions of people in the government-blockaded Tigray region are no longer able to receive humanitarian aid. The U.N. says no aid has entered Tigray since Ethiopian military airstrikes resumed there on Oct. 18, and 80% of essential medication is no longer available.

The Tigray forces say they are pressuring the government to end the blockade, but the spreading insecurity as they push south through the neighboring Amhara region has hampered aid delivery to hundreds of thousands of hungry people.

A university staffer who fled the Amhara town of Woldiya before Tigray forces arrived weeks ago said friends who stayed were climbing nearby hillsides to call the outside world with reports of low food supplies and people drinking from rivers, while electricity is cut. There is no aid in the occupied areas, Alemayehu said, giving only his first name for his security.

“I wish the war ends before it moves to the capital, that’s my prayer to God,” he said, adding that he opposes the Tigray fighters.

With the government statements and the new state of emergency, ethnic Tigrayans in the capital told the AP they were hiding in their homes as authorities carried out house-to-house searches and stopped people on the streets to check identity cards, which everyone must now carry.

One lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, estimated that thousands have been detained this week, citing conversations with “many people from the four corners of the city.” He said Tigrayan lawyers like him were powerless to help because of their ethnicity.

“Our only hope now is the (Tigray forces),” said one young woman, Rahel, whose husband was detained on Tuesday while going to work as a merchant but has not been charged. “They might not save us, to be honest. I’ve already given up on my life, but if our families can be saved, I think that’s enough.”

Another Tigrayan, Yared, said his brother, a businessman, was detained on Monday, and when he went to the police station, he saw dozens of other Tigrayans.

“It’s crazy, my friends in Addis, non-Tigrayans, are calling me and telling me not to leave the house,” Yared said.

“They go through your phone, and if you have some material about the Tigray war that would be suggesting supporting the war, they would just detain you,” he said. “The past four days have been the worst by far, the scope at which they’re detaining people, it’s just terrorizing. We don’t feel safe in our homes anymore.”

International calls for ceasefire in Ethiopia grow as rebels advance on capital

Issued on: 04/11/2021 

Text by :NEWS WIRES

African and Western nations called for an immediate ceasefire in Ethiopia on Thursday after Tigrayan forces from the country's north made advances towards the capital this week.

The U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, arrived in Addis Ababa to press for a halt to military operations and a start to ceasefire talks.

African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat said he met Feltman to discuss efforts towards dialogue and political solutions to the conflict, which pits the central government against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and its allies.

The European Union and the East African bloc the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) joined the chorus of bodies calling for a ceasefire. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni announced an IGAD meeting on Nov. 16 to discuss the war.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta urged the rival parties to lay down their arms and find a path to peace.

"The fighting must stop!," he said in a statement.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he had spoken to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Wednesday and offered to help create the conditions for a dialogue.

Abiy's government declared a state of emergency on Tuesday as the Tigrayan forces threatened to push forward to Addis Ababa.

TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said on Wednesday TPLF troops were in the town of Kemise in Amhara state, 325 km (200 miles) from the capital.

The U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa authorised the voluntary departure of some staff and family members because of the intensifying hostilities. Washington said on Wednesday it was "gravely concerned" about the situation and called for a halt to military operations and ceasefire talks.

The year-long conflict has killed thousands of people, forced more than two million more from their homes, and left 400,000 people in Tigray facing famine.

The United States, the European Union and the United Nations said that an end to a de facto government blockade in Tigray is needed to avert a large-scale famine.

No humanitarian convoys have entered Tigray since Oct. 18 and no fuel has entered to aid the humanitarian response since early August, according to the United Nations.

Addis arrests

Streets and shops in Addis Ababa, a city of around five million people, were busy as usual on Thursday morning, though some residents said there was a feeling of uneasy calm.

"There are rumors about the approach of the rebels. People debate about the conflict, most of the people accuse the government for what happened," said one man, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Police had arrested "many people" in Addis Ababa since the government declared the state of emergency, police spokesperson Fasika Fanta said on Thursday.

Residents told Reuters on Wednesday many Tigrayans had been arrested but Fasika said arrests were not based on ethnicity.

"We are only arresting those who are directly or indirectly supporting the illegal terrorist group," he said. "This includes moral, financial and propaganda support."

He also said many people were registering weapons at police stations around the city in line with a government directive issued on Tuesday for people to prepare to defend their neighbourhoods.

"Some are even coming with bombs and heavy weapons. We are registering those too," he said.

Government spokesperson Legesse Tulu did not respond to requests for comment.

Year-old conflict

The conflict started last November when forces loyal to the TPLF, including some soldiers, seized military bases in Tigray. In response, Abiy sent more troops to the northern region.

The TPLF had dominated national politics for nearly three decades but lost much influence when Abiy took office in 2018.

The TPLF then accused him of centralising power at the expense of Ethiopia's regional states - an accusation Abiy denies.

The Tigrayan forces and their Oromo allies have made significant advances in the past week. Spokesman Getachew on Wednesday pledged to minimise casualties in their drive to take Addis Ababa.

"We don't intend to shoot at civilians and we don't want bloodshed. If possible we would like the process to be peaceful," he said.

A regional analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the TPLF was likely to hold off on any advance on Addis Ababa until they secured the highway running from neighbouring Djibouti to the capital.

That requires seizing the town of Mille, in Afar region. Getachew said on Tuesday that Tigrayan forces were closing in on Mille.

Ethiopian military spokesman Colonel Getnet Adane and an Afar regional government spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

Abiy's spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, accused the international media of being "overly alarmist" in its coverage of Ethiopia.

"Perpetuating terrorist propaganda as truth from offices far off and detached from the ground is highly unethical," she said in a tweet.

(REUTERS)

Opinion: Ethiopia at risk of Balkanization

Two years after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, his country is engulfed in a war with the potential to destabilize the whole region for decades to come, says DW's Ludger Schadomsky.



The Ethiopian conflict threatens to destabilize the entire region

Jeffrey Feltman's visit to Ethiopia is the West's last, desperate attempt to rescue the tottering country. The US special envoy to the Horn of Africa will try to persuade Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to agree to a cease-fire and peace talks. The hope is to bring an end to the war between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) before it descends on the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

The war, which has been going on for a year now, has long spilled out of Tigray and has devastated half of the country. Neighboring countries Sudan and Eritrea are involved, as well as other nations such as Iran, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and China.

Ludger Schadomsky is head of DW's Amharic Service

The Horn of Africa is of particular geostrategic importance, and the conflict has the potential to destabilize the region for years, and possibly decades, to come. It is already driving a wedge through the international community and, once again, Beijing and Moscow are playing power games with their vetoes in the UN Security Council.

The fact that the prime minister, who was initially celebrated for his reforms, is now giving the cold shoulder to the US and the EU and looking eastwards is a bitter lesson for the terrifyingly naive decision-makers of the Old World who are writing up foreign and security policy.

Tragic end to 'Ethiopian Spring'

The bloody end to the "Ethiopian Spring" is tragic in many ways: Firstly, for the 110 million people who had hoped for a better future after the 2018 peace deal; and secondly because the economy, already battered by rampant inflation and the pandemic, will suffer from the burden of war for years. The vicious cycle of poverty and hunger will continue.

It's also tragic because it shows that even before the Afghanistan debacle has subsided, the country's partners in the West have failed miserably yet again. It was also grotesquely ill-advised of them to support the nomination of the supposed reformer for the Nobel Peace Prize. To recap — Abiy was nominated because of his peace agreement with Eritrea. The same Eritrea whose soldiers would go on to carry out terrible human rights violations two years later on invitation from the laureate himself.

ETHIOPIA: TIGRAY CRISIS ONE YEAR ON
A city burns
Residents of Tigray's capital Mekele sift through wreckage following an airstrike by government forces on October 20. The military said it was targeting a weapons manufacturing facility operated by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which the rebel Tigray forces have denied.
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The governments of the West were blinded by their eagerness to support reform. It was simply too tempting to support a young, charismatic prime minister who promised to bring peace and stability to Africa's second-most populous country and to stabilize the region.

But they woefully underestimated the dynamics of a country that boasts over 80 ethnic groups. A cursory glance at history would have sufficed to understand that the deep rivalry between the Oromo, the Amhara and the Tigrayans could not be plastered over with gestures and symbolic politics. The fact that the African Union, whose headquarters is in Addis Ababa, has once again failed to live up to its promise of offering "African solutions to African problems" goes without saying.
National dialogue is crucial

Of course, it would be too easy to blame the international community for the latest failed reforms. Ethiopia has a culture of deep-seated mistrust, and an incompetent and ethnocentric political caste stifles even the most modest attempts at democratization. Anyone who has heard Ethiopian intellectuals express astonishment at German coalition talks knows it will take generations before a culture of political compromise can establish itself here. Civil society is still very weak in this post-authoritarian country, which is essentially a powder keg that can be easily ignited by saboteurs. Ethnic hatred, for instance, is rampant on social media.

As an alliance of convenience between Tigrayans and Oromo marches on the capital, it would be presumptuous to predict any future power constellations. However, what can be said is that if there is not a serious national dialogue involving all relevant powers — important religious leaders and traditional authorities, jailed opposition politicians and actors of civil society — it will be difficult to halt the Balkanization of Ethiopia.

The choice to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Abiy Ahmed, a man who started out as a dynamic reformer and charming mediator but is today indulging in threats of war and conscripting civilians for the last stand, will go down in history as one of the Nobel Committee's worst decisions — and it has made many notoriously bad decisions over the years.

And the former ruling TPLF clique, which controlled politics, the economy and the military in Ethiopia for over a quarter of a century, could soon be back in the fold. This will particularly please nostalgic, Western-based experts who like to praise the discipline and morals of the former guerrilla movement. The majority of the Ethiopian population, on the other hand, will surely have very mixed feelings.

The Ethiopian Tourism Commission promotes the country as one with "13 months of sunshine." Abiy Ahmed's own sunshine policy has failed miserably. When will the next political spring arrive? Nobody can make any serious predictions. For now, it is a question of avoiding more bloodshed and a storm on Addis Ababa.

This article has been translated from German

GO TO EXPLANATION
FBI: LAX 'jetpack man' sightings may have been balloons

Nov. 3 (UPI) -- The FBI said sightings of a "jetpack man" flying near Los Angeles International Airport may have been sparked by balloons.

Pilots flying in and out of LAX in late 2020 reported multiple sightings of a man piloting a jetpack near the airport, and at least two pilots reported seeing a similar scene in late July of this year.

"A Boeing 747 pilot reported seeing an object that might have resembled a jet pack 15 miles east of LAX at 5,000 feet altitude," an FAA representative said after the most recent sightings. "Out of an abundance of caution, air traffic controllers alerted other pilots in the vicinity."

The FBI released a statement Tuesday offering one possible explanation for the sightings.

"The FBI has worked closely with the FAA to investigate reported jetpack sightings in the Los Angeles area, none of which have been verified," the FBI said in a statement released to KABC-TV. "One working theory is that pilots might have seen balloons."

A photo captured by a Los Angeles Police Department helicopter in November 2020 and released this week shows a balloon in the shape of Jack Skellington, a character from 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas, flying over the Hollywood Hills area.

HPV vaccination lowers cervical cancer risk up to 87%, British study finds

Cervical cancer rates have dropped by as much as 87% in England since women started to receive the HPV vaccine there in 2008, new research shows.

 File Photo by Adam Gregor/Shutterstock

Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Becoming vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, reduces a woman's risk for cervical cancer up to 87%, a study published Wednesday by the Lancet found.

By June 2019, about 450 fewer cases of cervical cancer and 17,200 fewer cases of cervical carcinomas, or pre-cancers, than expected occurred among women vaccinated between 12 and 13 years old in England from 2008 on, the data showed.

Cervical cancer rates were 62% lower in women vaccinated between ages 14 and 16 and 34% lower in those inoculated at ages 16 to 18 when the vaccine first was available, the researchers said.

"Although previous studies have shown the usefulness of HPV vaccination in preventing HPV infection in England, direct evidence on cervical cancer prevention was limited," study co-author Peter Sasieni said in a press release.

"The observed impact is even greater than ... models predicted," said Sasieni, professor of cancer prevention at King's College London.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States, with about 43 million current cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It has been linked with health complications ranging from genital warts to cervical cancer.

Though vaccines against HPV have been available in the United States since 2008, fewer than half of eligible adolescents have received the shots, the agency estimates.

RELATED Study: Rising number of parents refuse HPV vaccine for adolescent children

The findings of this study are based using the HPV vaccine Cervarix, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.

The vaccine, administered in three doses, was approved in 2008 in England, where this study was conducted. It was used until 2012, and then replaced with Gardasil, made by Merck.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Cervarix for use in the United States in 2009.

A similar analysis published earlier this year found that cervical cancer rates in the United States have declined by up to 5% annually among women ages 20 to 64 over the past 17 years -- since HPV vaccines have been available.

For this study, the researchers analyzed data on cervical cancer cases in England diagnosed between January 2006 and June 2019 among women ages 20 to 64.

Roughly half of the women included in the analysis were vaccinated with Cervarix between ages 12 and 18, the researchers said.

During the study period, nearly 28,000 women in the study population were diagnosed with cervical cancer and more than 318,000 were diagnosed with cervical carcinomas.

Among women vaccinated against HPV, there were roughly 450 fewer cases of cervical cancer than would be expected for the population, based on historical prevalence data, the researchers said.

In addition, 17,200 fewer cases of cervical carcinomas occurred than would be expected.

Cervical cancer rates fell by 87% among women vaccinated at ages 12 or 13, with 89% having received at least one dose of the HPV vaccine and 85% fully vaccinated, the data showed.

The rates dropped by 62% in women vaccinated at ages of 14 to 16 and by 34% among those inoculated at ages 16 to 18, 60% of whom received at least one dose and 45% of whom were fully vaccinated.

Rates of cervical carcinomas fell by 97% in women vaccinated at ages 12 and 13, by 75% in those vaccinated at ages 14 to 16 and by 39% in those vaccinated at ages 16 to 18 , according to the researchers.

"This represents an important step forwards in cervical cancer prevention," study co-author Dr. Kate Soldan said in a press release.

"We hope that these new results encourage uptake as the success of the vaccination program relies not only on the efficacy of the vaccine but also the proportion of the population vaccinated," said Soldan, who heads Public Health England's HPV surveillance program.

New model identifies areas of California prone to wildfires, researchers say

A new statistical model may help researchers identify fire-prone, which includes parts of California, where the Dixie Fire, pictured, this year became the second-largest wildfire in the state's history. 

File Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI | License Photo


Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara said Wednesday that they have developed model designed to help identify wildfire-prone areas across the Golden State.

The new modeling approach outperformed currently used statistical models developed for certain regions of the state, accurately predicting new locations for wildfires, and the years in which they will occur, with more than 75% accuracy in some cases, the researchers said.

Based on a statistical approach known as generalized additive modeling, they were able to map annual wildfire probabilities throughout California from 1970 to 2016 by incorporating data on local climate variation, human activity and the time since the last fire event, they said.

Both local climate and human activity, such as the dryness of fuel available to burn and housing density, play key roles in determining wildfire probabilities throughout the state, the data showed.

For example, portions of the Southern California mountains such as the Angeles and Los Padres National Forests were at high risk for wildfires.

Both regions have sufficient vegetation and therefore fuel availability as well as being close to and at risk from ignitions starting in high-density housing in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, according to the researchers.

In addition, in certain environments, the amount of time since the last fire has an important influence on the potential wildfires, as do short-term climate variations involving extreme conditions, particularly in fire-prone shrublands and forests in southern California.

"This study presents a powerful tool for mapping the probability of wildfire across the state of California under a variety of historical climate regimes," the researchers wrote in an article published Wednesday by the journal PLOS ONE.

"By leveraging machine learning methods, it demonstrates the distinct ways in which local climate, human development and prior fire history each contribute to the yearly risk of wildfire over space and time," they said.

Like much of the western United States, California has been plagued by wildfires in recent years, with many communities suffering significant damage.

Many residents have lost homes, and smoke from wildfires has been linked with serious health complications, such as lung disease.

However, the factors and conditions that interact to contribute to the probability of wildfire, such as the interplay between local vegetation, precipitation and land use, are complex and vary by location and over time, according to the researchers.

With further refinements, the new modeling method could prove valuable for a variety of research and practical applications in such areas as wildfire emissions and hazard mapping for implementation of fire-resistant building codes, the researchers said.

"This study demonstrates that local climate -- through limitations posed by fuel dryness and fuel availability -- plays an important and predictable role in determining the annual probabilities of fire throughout California," the researchers wrote.

"Further, our findings emphasize the importance of incorporating human activity -- through influences on ignitions and suppression of fires -- into predictions of fire probability over space and time," they said.

'NATURAL AND ORGANIC'
Walmart recalls aromatherapy spray linked to rare, fatal bacterial disease



Walmart has recalled nearly 4,000 bottles of Better Homes and Gardens-branded aromatherapy room spray with gemstones linked to two fatal cases of a rare bacterial disease. 

Photo courtesy Consumer Product Safety Commission

Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Federal agencies on Wednesday expanded recalls and warnings regarding aromatherapy sprays linked to fatalities from a rare bacteria.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Consumer Product Safety Commission said that Walmart had recalled about 3,900 bottles of Better Homes and Gardens-branded aromatherapy room spray with gemstones in six different scents due to the presence of a bacteria linked to two deaths.

"The CDC tested a version of the product and determined that it contained the dangerous bacteria Burkholderia pseudomallei, which causes melioidosis," the commission said.

The CDC has been investigating a cluster of cases of melioidosis, which is usually associated with travel, in Kansas, Minnesota, Texas and Georgia that resulted in two deaths, including the death of a child.

Samples taken from a bottle of the aromatherapy spray, manufactured in India, in the home of the Georgia victim found the presence of the bacteria and further testing showed the genetic fingerprint of the bacteria in that bottle matched those identified in the other four patients.

The products were sold at approximately 55 Walmart stores nationwide and online at walmart.com from February 2021 through October 2021 for about $4.

The CDC recommends that consumers who have purchased the aromatherapy sprays stop using them immediately and double bag the bottle in a clean, clear zip-top resealable bag, place the bag in a small cardboard box and return it to a Walmart store.

Consumers should also wash sheets or linen the product may have been sprayed on using normal laundry detergent and dry completely in a hot dryer in addition to wiping down counters and surfaces that may have been exposed to the spray with an undiluted disinfectant cleaner.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

British man charged in Twitter hack indicted for cryptocurrency scheme


British national Joseph O'Connor has been charged with stealing cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, from a Manhattan-based cryptocurrency company.

 File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Federal prosecutors have announced a British man previously charged for a Twitter hack targeting high-profile users, including President Joe Biden, has been indicted on allegations of stealing $784,000 in cryptocurrency from a Manhattan-based company.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced the unsealing of a four-count indictment charging Joseph James O'Conner, 22, with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, wire fraud and money laundering as well as aggravated identity theft for the elaborate scheme.

In the charging documents, federal prosecutors described the hack as a SIM swap attack in which threat actors gain control over a victim's mobile phone number in order to obtain unauthorized access to the accounts registered to it.

The prosecutors allege that O'Connor, who went by the alias PlugwalkJoe, with others unnamed conducted the scheme from March to May 2019 to target the anonymous cryptocurrency company that provided digital wallet infrastructure and related software to worldwide cryptocurrency exchanges.

The indictment states they targeted at least three of the company's executives with SIM swap attacks to gain unauthorized access to multiple computer systems in the company in order to divert various forms of cryptocurrency including bitcoin and Ethereum from wallets the company managed for two clients.

O'Connor was arrested by Spanish authorities in July at the request of the United States for compromising more than 130 Twitter accounts last year.

That hack involved sending messages from the high-profile accounts to convince their followers to send them $1,000 in cryptocurrency. In return, the compromised accounts falsely promised to return double that amount if they did.

The scheme netted more than $100,000 in bitcoin from some 400 accounts in a day, prosecutors said.

Florida resident Graham Ivan Clark was sentenced to three years in prison and three years probation for his involvement.

Top HK court: Dissidents can't be charged if not physically present at riots, protests

Riot police arrest a protester during an anti-government rally in Hong Kong on September 29, 2019. 

File Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Hong Kong's top appellate court delivered a landmark ruling on Thursday that rejected government efforts to prosecute dissident activists who weren't physically present at an unlawful event or assembly.

The Court of Final Appeal struck down a lower court ruling that said Hong Kong authorities can punish activists as primary offenders, even if they didn't physically attend protests, assemblies or riots that violate the island's national security law.

The lower court had said the prosecutions were legal under the common law doctrine of "joint enterprise,' which says secondary offenders can be convicted on the same charge as primary offenders.

The decision Thursday by the five-judge appellate court, which was unanimous, concluded that the doctrine cannot be applied to rioting and cases of unlawful assembly. Physically participating in the unlawful events, the court said, is a "centrally important element" of the law.

The court said in its ruling that persons not present at illegal events can only be charged with conspiracy or ancillary offenses, such as aiding and abetting, incitement and assisting an offender.

The question wound through the courts after mass demonstrations in Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020 that opposed various issues such as police brutality, a controversial extradition law and the national security law itself, which has been used to punish dissidents critical of the Chinese government and those seeking independence from Beijing.

Thursday's ruling stemmed from appeals filed by pro-democracy activists Lo Kin-man and Henry Tong, who were charged for unrest that accompanied protests in 2016 and 2019.