Forward to the past! Under the Taliban 2.0, even female blood must lock itself up in purdah.
[Dawn] The Taliban ...Arabic for students... halted a blood donation drive by women activists to mark International Women’s Day on Tuesday, activists said.
Afghanistan generally marked the women’s day in a muted fashion, with activists cowed by the threat of arrest or detention by the regime.
Speaking outside a Kabul hospital with seven other activists, Monesa Mubarez, the head of a women’s rights movement, said the group had intended to stage a protest.
However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... because of the Taliban’s crackdown on women’s rights protesters, they decided to donate blood instead.
The drive was thwarted by the Taliban-appointed hospital director at Jumhuriat Hospital in Kabul when hospital staff learned it was to mark women’s day, she said.
"They saw it as a protest," Mubarez said.
She said coordination had been made beforehand, "but when we came here to start our campaign, the head of the hospital, who is one of the (Taliban) didn’t give us permission", she said.
"Attempts to convince the city’s central blood bank were also futile. They also didn’t give us permission, so our campaign was stopped," she said.
Since returning to power on August 15 the Taliban have generally rolled back two decades of gains made by the country’s women, who have been squeezed out of government employment, barred from travelling alone, and ordered to dress according to a strict interpretation of Islam.
"The Taliban have taken away the sky as well as the ground from us," said an activist from the Woman’s Unity and Solidarity Group, asking not to be named.
While the Taliban have promised a softer version of the Islamist rule as compared to their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001, restrictions have been creeping in — if not at the national level, then implemented locally at the level of regional officials.
Some Afghan women initially pushed back strongly against Taliban restrictions, holding small demonstrations and protests where they demanded the right to education and work. But the Taliban soon rounded up several of the ringleaders, holding them incommunicado even while denying they were tossed into the calaboose. Since their release, most have gone silent.
The Taliban at least acknowledged International Women’s Day, with the foreign ministry calling it "auspicious", adding they would be provided with "an honourable and beneficial life in light of the noble religion of Islam and our accepted traditions".
PROTESTS BANNED
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief front man, tweeted the day was "a great opportunity for our Afghan women to demand their legitimate rights" — even though protests are banned unless permission is given.
Behind the walls of the sprawling United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... compound on the outskirts of Kabul, an exhibition jointly organised by the UN and the Afghan Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry showcased goods made by local female-owned businesses.
"It’s a hope and a positive thing," said Tayeba Mashal, 47, owner of a firm that bears her name.
"We are hopeful that the women who are hiding in their homes because of the fear of insecurity will rise again in the society, resume their work, and resume their activities."
No other major public events were planned on Tuesday by women’s groups, although one said members would mark the occasion by releasing balloons.
"Because of the restrictions imposed on us, we could not do it (collectively)," a Woman’s Unity and Solidarity Group member said.
[Khaama] "Not Getting Killed" would help vaccinations?
If polio is endemic in Afghanistan, has anyone checked the refugees stored abroad, on American military bases, or released into the wild in the U.S. to make sure all have been vaccinated? Given it was a Biden project, what odds nobody did?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/10/2022 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Taliban/IEA
#1
That translator's really a preacher?
His mother a germ-bearing creature?
That boy there a wee
Case of PTSD
Who's been buggered since babyhood? FEATURE!
Somali politics as usual, only cranked up a notch. No jihadis involved, apparently.
[Garowe] The Somali government says it is investigating circumstances leading to the death of two soldiers from elite Gorgor forces, an incident that took place in the troubled Beledweyne town within central Somalia's Hirshabelle state.
Multiple sources indicated that the soldiers were killed following a confrontation within government building in the town which has witnessed election-related tensions in recent weeks as the opposition and government tussle for Lower House seats.
Vice President Yusuf Debageed and regional President Ali Gudlawe Hussein have been battling over the control of the contest. While Debageed wants Villa Somalia allied candidates to win the contests, Gudlawe has insisted on a free and fair election.
According to sources, the soldiers died in a shootout but the circumstances surrounding the crash remained unclear. It was not immediately clear if the soldiers were allied to either President Ali Gudlawe or his deputy Yusuf Dabageed and neither leader has commented on the incident.
Beledweyne town is now the center of festivities as local delegates prepare for elections of 11 MPs who will represent the state at the federal parliament. A local militia has also been battling to control regional politics in the state.
Amid this fallout, gangs from different clans have moved into Beletweyne rising tensions and fears of a possible clash. The remaining seats are being battled out by Hawadle and Galjaceel subclans, reports indicate.
Last month, Gorgor troops were dispatched to the town after it emerged that former chief spy Fahad Yasin had traveled to contest for a parliamentary seat. Yasin, a close ally of outgoing President Mohammed Abdullahi Farmaajo, won the seat albeit controversially.
Protests erupt in #Iraq’s impoverished south over a rise in food prices that officials have attributed to the conflict in #Ukraine.https://t.co/zLRPIRaJIl
[AlAhram] Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry held a meeting on Wednesday with his Jordanian and Palestinian counterparts on the sidelines of the 157th ordinary session of the Arab League Council at the ministerial level, in an attempt to revive peace talks and resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
[IsraelTimes] Former US vice president and rumored 2024 contender says he believes Republicans will retake control of the White House and ’end the JCPOA’ if it is revived
Former US vice president Mike Pence gives an interview to the Israel Hayom newspaper. (Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom)
Visiting Israel, former US vice president Mike Pence — touted as a potential future presidential contender — said Tuesday that a Republican-led America will once again pull out of any future Iran ...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979... Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/10/2022 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Not sure Pence would get through the GOP primary process with Trump and DeSantis.
And Dems are stuck with a weak President and even weaker VP candidate.
IMHO Manchin could run as an Independent and win a majority of votes in America
#2
Candidates don't matter. The Dems are clearly trying to waste the country with their quadruple whammy (Pfizer-hyperinflation-crime-illegals) and impose total control before Nov. 2024.
#3
(cross-post alert) this is huge - far more important than the Ukraine sideshow.
A federal judge ordered the Pfizer trials data unsealed. That would be the smoking-gun evidence that Pfizer and Fauci tried desperately to seal off from public view for 75 years.
PFIZER side effects have included the common gastrointestinal symptoms, fatigue and brain fog. According to new documents which have been released after a federal judge ordered the data to be made public, these side effects are just the tip of the iceberg.
New documents which were reportedly obtained after doctors, professors and journalists filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have opened up a shocking revelation.
It is the first time the public are allowed to access the data Pfizer submitted to FDA from its clinical trials in support of a COVID-19 vaccine license.
When Pfizer applied for FDA approval, they were aware of almost 158,000 adverse events from their vaccine and requested these documents remain sealed for 75 years.
— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) March 9, 2022
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Residents of the southern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, east Syria, found, last week, remnants of a bomb they said to be a cluster bomb believed to be remnant of a Russian bombing that targeted the area in 2015.
A farmer of Baghouz town informed the Internal Security Forces of North and East Syria (Asayish) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) about a remnant of a bomb in his land.
After the Asayish and SDF members extracted it from the ground, it was identified as remnant of a Russian RBK-500, a 500 kg cluster bomb, according to a military source.
In December of 2015, Human Rights Watch accused the Russian forces and the Syrian government forces of conducting 20 attacks using internationally forbidden cluster bombs targeting the opposition armed factions in Syria.
Although the Russian Ministry of Defense denied the use of such weapons in Syria at the time, the Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov admitted, in a press conference, conducting airstrikes in five Syrian governorates including Deir ez-Zor.
The Russian warplanes targeted two oil tanks and three platforms of extracting oil of the Islamic State Organization (ISIS) in Deir ez-Zor area in addition to destroying dozens of large oil trucks, according to the spokesman.
In July 2021, Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Sergei Shoigu, said that the army of his country has tested more than 320 different types of weapons in Syria including helicopters since 2015.
Al-Monitor website has recently publicized a report regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war saying, “Russia have been prepared for this war for years and this is attributable to the Syrian war since the Russian army was trained in Syrian camps and weapons were tested on the Syrian territory.”
The Russian military campaign in Syria, which began in 2015, in many respects prepared Moscow on a military-technical level for the current confrontation between Russia and the United States and NATO, as well as the Russian-Ukrainian escalation.
Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, told The New Yorker “Undoubtedly, the Syrian operation gave Moscow confidence in actions in other areas as well. Both in terms of behavior in Ukraine and in terms of behavior towards NATO. Thanks to Russian policy in the Middle East, the Kremlin has learned to play for higher rates, learned to bluff and learned to articulate its position and issue ultimatum,” according to al-Monitor.
Under the pretext of “supporting separatist,” Russia started the war on Ukraine on February 24 with a series of missile attacks on sites near Kyiv the capital from the north, northeast and the Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Last week, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, accused Russia of using cluster bombs in Ukraine and other globally forbidden weapons.
Colonel Hamish Stephen de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons expert and formerly a British Army officer, told Reuters, what happened in Kharkiv “does look very much like cluster bombs, and similar to those I’ve seen going off in Iraq and Syria.”
[An Nahar] Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... has deliberately let Israel know of the presence of air defense systems in its possession in Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , Israeli media reports said.Quoting the commanders of the Israeli army’s operations branch, an Israeli news website said the Iran-backed group had managed to bring the systems into Lebanon through Syria despite Israel’s numerous Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on its arms shipments.
"It is operating these systems in a clear and public manner, and without any concealment as used to happen in the past," the Israeli commanders added.
Separately, a report by an Israeli research center said that Hizbullah now possesses 2,000 drones after having had only 200 Iranian-made drones in 2013.
Israel’s military intelligence meanwhile believes that Hizbullah’s drones can "cover entire Israel."
"The activation of these drones takes place in an automated manner and they can also land on sea before resuming their flights," an Israeli military analyst quoted his country’s military intelligence as saying, adding that Israel "has discovered two Hizbullah drone runways in the Lebanese south."
On February 18, the Israeli military said it fired interceptor missiles and protectively scrambled warplanes after a Hizbullah drone crossed its northern border from Lebanon.
Hizbullah for its part announced that it sent the "Hassan" drone inside Israel for 40 minutes on a "reconnaissance mission that extended along seventy kilometers" inside the occupied territories.
"Despite the enemy's multiple and successive attempts to shoot it down, the 'Hassan' plane returned from the occupied territories safely after it successfully carried out the required mission," Hizbullah said.
Minutes after the Hizbullah announcement, two Israeli fighter jets flying at very low altitude buzzed the Lebanese capital Beirut, jolting residents, rattling windows and setting off some car alarms.
That incident came just a day after Israel shot down what it said was another drone, allegedly from Hizbullah.
Israel and Hizbullah are bitter enemies that fought a monthlong war in 2006 that ended in a stalemate. Israel considers the Iranian-backed Hizbullah to be its greatest immediate threat, possessing an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel.
Israel has long expressed concerns that Hizbullah would obtain or develop guided missiles and attack drones.
Last month, Hizbullah chief Sayyed His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... said his group has been manufacturing military drones in Lebanon for years, and also has the technology to turn thousands of missiles in its possession into precision-guided munitions.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2022 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...Arabic for 
[Khaama] 
...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
