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ICC prosecutor seeks arrest of Taliban leaders over persecution of women

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on Thursday said he was seeking arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women, a crime against humanity.Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds”.Khan said that Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQ community, were facing “an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban.”Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable,” added Khan.ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application before deciding whether to issue the warrants — a process that could take weeks or even months.The court, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world’s worst crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.It has no police force of its own and relies on its 125 member states to carry out its warrants — with mixed results.In theory this means that anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained.Khan warned he would soon be seeking additional applications for other Taliban officials. – ‘A victory’ -Akhundzada inherited the Taliban leadership in May 2016 after a US drone strike in Pakistan killed his predecessor. Believed to be in his 60s or 70s, the reclusive supreme leader rules by decree from the Taliban movement’s birthplace in southern Kandahar.Haqqani was a close associate of Taliban founder Mullah Omar and served as a negotiator during discussions with US representatives in 2020.ICC prosecutor Khan argued the Taliban was “brutally” repressing resistance through crimes “including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts”.Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement the prosecutor’s actions should put the Taliban’s exclusion of women and girls from public life back on the international agenda. “This is an important moment for Afghan women and girls who have been waiting much too long for justice,” HRW’s women’s rights deputy director, Heather Barr, told AFP, calling for “other efforts to hold the Taliban fully accountable”.The move was praised by Afghan women activists, including Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan former lawmaker and the ousted government’s ex-ambassador to Norway. “It’s a victory,” she told AFP from London. “This also could be counted as (an) important achievement for feminism globally… and particularly for women in Afghanistan.” The UN special rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, called the move “a crucial step… for accountability in Afghanistan” on X. – ‘Gender apartheid’ -After sweeping back to power in August 2021, the Taliban authorities pledged a softer rule than their first rein from 1996-2001. But they quickly imposed restrictions on women and girls that the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”.Edicts in line with their interpretation of Islamic law have squeezed women and girls from public life.They have barred girls from secondary school and women from university, making Afghanistan the only country in the world to impose such bans. Taliban authorities imposed restrictions on women working for non-governmental groups and other employment, with thousands of women losing government jobs — or being paid to stay at home. Beauty salons have been closed and women blocked from visiting public parks, gyms and baths as well as travelling long distances without a male chaperone.A “vice and virtue” law announced last summer ordered women not to sing or recite poetry in public and for their voices and bodies to be “concealed” outside the home. The few remaining women TV presenters wear tight headscarves and face masks in line with a 2022 diktat by Akhundzada that women cover everything but their eyes and hands in public.The international community has condemned the restrictions, which remain a key sticking point in the Taliban authorities’ pursuit of official recognition, which it has not received from any state. The Taliban authorities have dismissed international criticism of their policies, saying all citizens’ rights are provided for under Islamic law.burs-ric/sw/sbk

Iran Nobel winner addresses French parliament while on prison leave

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on Thursday called for an “end” to the Islamic republic and urged human rights to be a precondition of any negotiation with Tehran as she addressed French lawmakers, in a rare encounter with an Iran-based activist.Mohammadi, 52, had been in prison for over three years but was released in December for a limited period on medical leave. Her legal team have warned she could be re-arrested and sent back to jail at any time.She won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her two-decade fight for human rights in the Islamic republic and strongly backed the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the custody death of the Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.”Any negotiations with the Islamic republic that do not take into account the fundamental rights of the Iranian people will only strengthen religious tyranny,” she told the women’s right committees of the French upper house Senate and lower house National Assembly in a joint session, via video link from Tehran.”I believe in the need to end the Islamic Republic,” she added.Mohammadi appeared healthy and as usual in her public appearances defiantly not wearing the headscarf that is obligatory for all women under the Islamic republic’s dress code.She was flanked by pictures of Amini and her two Paris-based twin children, who picked up the Nobel prize in Oslo on her behalf but whom she has not seen for the last decade.Asked about the risks of her participating in this video conference, Mohammadi replied that it was “no difference being on one side or the other of the prison wall”. Her release in December from Evin prison marked the first time Mohammadi, who has spent much of the past decade behind bars, has been free since she was arrested in November 2021.

Palestinian official says hundreds leave Jenin as Israel presses raid

A Palestinian official said hundreds of people began leaving their homes in a flashpoint area of the occupied West Bank on Thursday as Israeli forces pressed a deadly operation.The Israeli military launched the raid in the Jenin area, a hotbed of Palestinian militancy, days into a ceasefire in the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the objective of the operation, dubbed “Iron Wall”, is to “eradicate terrorism” in the area.He linked the operation to a broader strategy of countering Iran “wherever it sends its arms — in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen” and the West Bank.The Israeli government has accused Iran, which supports armed groups across the Middle East, including Hamas in Gaza, of attempting to funnel weapons and funds to militants in the occupied Palestinian territory.”Hundreds of camp residents have begun leaving after the Israeli army, using loudspeakers on drones and military vehicles, ordered them to evacuate the camp,” Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP.The Israeli army said it was “unaware of any evacuation orders for residents in Jenin as of now”.Since it began on Tuesday, the operation has killed at least 12 Palestinians and wounded 40 more, according to the Palestinian health ministry.”There are dozens of camp residents who have begun to leave,” Jenin resident Salim Saadi said.”The army is in front of my house. They could enter at any moment.”Israeli forces have also detained several Palestinians from the Jenin area, with an AFP photographer seeing a row of blindfolded men in white jumpsuits being transported out of the West Bank.- Drones -Palestinians had already begun fleeing the Jenin area on foot on Wednesday, with AFPTV images showing a group of men, women and children making their way down a muddy road, the sound of drones buzzing above them clearly audible. The Israeli military said on Thursday it killed two Palestinian militants near Jenin during the night, accusing them of having killed three Israelis.In a statement, the military said that Israeli troops found the two militants barricaded in a house in the village of Burqin.”After an exchange of fire, they were eliminated by the forces,” it said, adding one soldier was wounded in the gunfight.The two men were wanted for the killing of three Israelis and the wounding of six others in a January 6 attack on a bus in the West Bank. The Palestinian health ministry later confirmed the two deaths. Violence has surged across the occupied West Bank since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023, with Hamas’s attack on southern Israel.According to the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 850 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began.During the same period, at least 29 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations in the territory, according to Israeli official figures.The Jenin raid began after a truce took effect in Gaza on Sunday, halting 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas.The October 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Militants also took 251 people hostage, 91 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the military has said are dead.The attack sparked a devastating war in Gaza that has killed more than 47,200 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.Under the terms of the truce, Gaza militants handed over three Israeli women they had been holding since 2023, in exchange for the release of around 90 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.On Saturday, the two sides are due to carry out a second swap.During first phase of the ceasefire, which is intended to last 42 days, Israeli forces are withdrawing from densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.The ceasefire followed months of fruitless negotiations mediated by Qatar, the United States and Egypt.

Syria’s economy reborn after being freed from Assad

When Bashar al-Assad ruled Syria, merchants like Youssef Rajab kept much of their imported stock hidden for fear of arrest for breaking the law.But after an Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad in a lightning offensive last month, Rajab put previously banned foreign goods such as chocolate, biscuits and shampoo back on the shelf.Such products are now openly on sale in Damascus, and foreign currency is once again traded without fear.Under Assad, Syria was mired in corruption, under heavy economic sanctions, and in seemingly endless crisis.Foreign currency was in carefully controlled supply, and engaging in its trade or in the sale of banned goods could have meant a stay in one of the country’s notorious jails.”A day after the regime fell, I brought out all the foreign merchandise I’d been hiding and put it for sale, without having to worry,” Rajab told AFP.”It was a strange feeling, but I was happy,” added the 23-year-old, speaking beside shelves stacked with imported products.Previously, the few imported goods that were available were smuggled in from Lebanon by traders who risked arrest, or were acquired by bribing officials as businessmen controlled imports to a country wracked by 13 years of civil war.”It’s true that now we have great freedom to engage in business, but it has also been chaotic,” said Rajab.On every street corner, makeshift money changers now tout for business from passers-by.”It’s a job that was done in secret before,” said Amir Halimeh, sitting at a small table on which there were wads of Syrian pounds and US dollars.”We used to refer to dollars as ‘mint’ or ‘parsley’ or something else green” to bypass surveillance, he added.- Currency market ‘freed’ -Assad’s government kept a firm grip on foreign currency dealings as a way to control the economy, and any freelance operators faced punishment of seven years in prison and a heavy fine.”The market has now been completely freed… as has the exchange rate,” the moneychanger said. The pound lost about 90 percent of its value against the US dollar in 2011, the year Syria descended into civil war after a brutal crackdown on democracy protests.Now it is being traded at between 11,000 and 12,000 to the greenback.Before Damascus fell to the coalition led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, the black market rate soared to 30,000 pounds for one dollar.”The economy in the future Syria will be free and competitive,” the interim government’s Economy Minister Bassel Abdel Hanan told reporters.He said the new authorities would implement “policies aimed at protecting domestic output, supporting the industrial sector and protecting agriculture”.They have yet to elaborate on their future economic plans during the three-month interim phase that began in December.Economics professor Adnan Suleiman of Damascus University said that “the economic model that existed before the fall of the regime… was a market economy”, but a “distorted” one.- Sanctions -“Supply and demand were not free. Instead of competition there was a monopoly,” he said of people close to Assad who controlled different sectors of the economy.In an effort to turn the page, the interim government has been lobbying for international sanctions to be lifted.Earlier this month, the US Treasury Department announced it was providing additional sanctions relief on some activities for the next six months to ease access to basic services, including fuel and humanitarian aid.Asaad al-Shaibani, Syria’s top diplomat, told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday: “Removing economic sanctions is the key for the stability of Syria.”They had been imposed for the benefit of Syrians, but are now “against the Syrian people”, he said.”We inherited a collapsed state from the Assad regime, there is no economic system,” Shaibani said, adding that “the economy in the future will be open”.Under Assad, fuel sales were a monopoly and were severely limited.But now vendors openly sell cans of petrol and fuel oil on the streets of the capital — where new models of car have also made an appearance.Previously, the import of vehicles was tightly regulated. Syria’s war took a terrible toll not only on the people, but also on its infrastructure.Damage to power plants and pipelines has caused power cuts lasting up to 20 hours a day.”The former regime left a huge legacy,” said Suleiman.”The greatest task facing future governments is to finance development and reconstruction.”

Saudi crown prince promises Trump $600bn trade, investment boost

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman promised on Thursday to pile $600 billion into US trade and investments as he congratulated Donald Trump on his return to the White House.Prince Mohammed, de facto leader of the world’s biggest oil exporter, made the pledge in a phone call following Trump’s inauguration on Monday, state media said.Trump forged close relations with Riyadh in his first term and is now expected to push Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s holiest sites, towards normalising ties with Israel as a major foreign policy objective.”The crown prince affirmed the kingdom’s intention to broaden its investments and trade with the United States over the next four years, in the amount of $600 billion, and potentially beyond that,” the Saudi Press Agency reported.It did not give details of the source of the funds, which represent more than half of Saudi GDP, or how they are expected to be used.Prince Mohammed, 39, also passed on congratulations from his father, King Salman, during the call with Trump.Trump’s first visit as president in 2017 was to Saudi Arabia, and this week he joked that a major financial commitment could persuade him to do the same again.”I did it with Saudi Arabia last time because they agreed to buy $450 billion worth of our product,” he said.Trump quipped he would repeat the visit “if Saudi Arabia wanted to buy another 450 or 500 (billion dollars) — we’ll up it for all the inflation”.During Trump’s first term, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco broke with longstanding Arab policy to recognise Israel under the Abraham Accords.The new Trump administration is expected to try to repeat the process with Saudi Arabia, following similar efforts under president Joe Biden.- Iran threats -Saudi Arabia broke off talks with US officials about ties with Israel early in the Gaza war, and has repeatedly insisted it will not recognise Israel without the existence of a Palestinian state.However, a long-awaited ceasefire in Gaza and a possible easing in regional tensions could pave the way for a resumption of dialogue.In exchange for recognising Israel, the Arab world’s richest country hopes to secure a US defence pact and Washington’s help with a civil nuclear programme.In his own call with the crown prince on Thursday, new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and “the threats posed by Iran and its proxies”, according to a statement.”They also discussed the benefits of the US-Saudi economic partnership and the opportunities to grow their economies in a variety of fields including AI,” a spokesperson for Rubio said. Trump actively courted Saudi Arabia, long an important energy and security partner for Washington, during his first term.When he arrived in Riyadh in 2017, he was treated to an elaborate welcome involving a sword dance and a fly-past of air force jets.Relations later cooled with Prince Mohammed faulting Trump for failing to respond more aggressively after a 2019 attack widely blamed on Iran halved the Gulf kingdom’s crude output.Riyadh and Trump’s team nevertheless sought to boost ties after his departure from the White House, in particular through investments and construction deals for his privately owned conglomerate the Trump Organization. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has defended receiving a Saudi investment in his private equity firm that reports put at $2 billion.

Stocks mainly rise after Wall Street’s AI-fuelled rally

Global stock markets mostly rose Thursday following a tech-fuelled rally on Wall Street spurred by US president Donald Trump’s massive AI-investment announcement.Investors have largely welcomed the first few days of Trump 2.0 as he held off immediately returning to the hardball trade policies of his first term.However, warnings that China, the European Union, Canada and …

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