Foreign News
Taliban ban books written by women from Afghan universities
The Taliban government has removed books written by women from the university teaching system in Afghanistan as part of a new ban which has also outlawed the teaching of human rights and sexual harassment.
Some 140 books by women – including titles like “Safety in the Chemical Laboratory” – were among 680 books found to be of “concern” due to “anti-Sharia and Taliban policies”.
The universities were further told they were no longer allowed to teach 18 subjects, with a Taliban official saying they were “in conflict with the principles of Sharia and the system’s policy”.
The decree is the latest in a series of restrictions which the Taliban have brought in since returning to power four years ago.
Just this week, fibre-optic internet was banned in at least 10 provinces on the orders of the Taliban’s supreme leader in a move officials said was to prevent immorality.
While the rules have had an impact on many aspects of life, women and girls have been particularly hard-hit: they are barred from accessing education over the sixth grade, with one of their last routes to further training cut off in late 2024, when midwifery courses were quietly shuttered.
Now even university subjects about women have been targeted: six of the 18 banned are specifically about women, including Gender and Development, The Role of Women in Communication, and Women’s Sociology.
The Taliban government has said it respects women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law.
A member of the committee reviewing the books confirmed the ban on books written by women, telling BBC Afghan that “all books authored by women are not allowed to be taught”.
Zakia Adeli, the former deputy minister of justice prior to the Taliban’s return and one of the authors who has found their books on the banned list, was unsurprised by the move.
“Considering what the Taliban have done over the past four years, it was not far-fetched to expect them to impose changes on the curriculum,” she said.
“Given the Taliban’s misogynistic mindset and policies, it is only natural that when women themselves are not allowed to study, their views, ideas and writings are also suppressed.”
The new guidelines, which have been seen by BBC Afghan, were issued in late August.
Ziaur Rahman Aryubi, the deputy academic director of the Taliban government’s Ministry of Higher Education, said in a letter to universities that the decisions had been made by a panel of “religious scholars and experts”.
As well as books by women, the ban appears to have targeted books by Iranian authors or publishers, with one member of the book review panel telling the BBC it was designed to “prevent the infiltration of Iranian content” into the Afghan curriculum”.
In the 50-page list sent to all universities in Afghanistan, 679 titles appear, 310 of which are either authored by Iranian writers or published in Iran.
But a professor at one institution, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he feared it would be almost impossible to fill the gap.
“Books by Iranian authors and translators serve as the primary link between Afghanistan’s universities and the global academic community. Their removal creates a substantial void in higher education,” they said.
A professor at Kabul University told the BBC that under such circumstances, they are forced to prepare textbook chapters themselves, taking into account the do’s and don’ts imposed by the Taliban government.
But the crucial question is whether these chapters can be prepared according to global standards or not.
The BBC has approached the Taliban’s Ministry of Education for comment.
[BBC]
Marco Rubio has assured European leaders the US does not plan to abandon the transatlantic alliance, saying its destiny “will always be intertwined” with the continent’s.
The US secretary of state told the Munich Security Conference: “We do not seek to separate, but to revitalise an old friendship and renew the greatest civilisation in human history.”
He criticised European immigration, trade and climate policies, but the overall tenor of the closely-watched speech was markedly different to Vice President JD Vance’s at the same event last year, during which he scolded continental leaders.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was “very much reassured” by Rubio’s remarks.
Rubio, the Trump administration’s most senior diplomat, said it was “neither our goal nor our wish” to end the transatlantic partnership, adding: “For us Americans, our home may be in the Western Hemisphere, but we will always be a child of Europe.
“And I am here today to leave it clear that America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity, and that once again we want to do it together with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends.”
However, he repeated several criticisms repeatedly levelled at Europe by the Trump administration, including describing immigration policies as a threat to civilisation, and saying a “climate cult” had taken over economic policy.
On trade, he said Europe and the US had “made mistakes together” by adopting a “dogmatic vision of free and unfettered trade”.
He repeated familiar calls from the US for Europe to invest more in defence, saying: “We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength.”
In response, von der Leyen said: “Rubio is a good friend, a strong ally. And this was, for me, very reassuring to listen to him.”
She continued: “We want a strong Europe. And this is, I think, the message of today.”
Elsewhere in his half-hour address, Rubio said the system of international co-operation “must be rebuilt” and singled out the UN for particular criticism, saying it had “played virtually no role” in resolving the Gaza and Ukraine conflicts.
He also said the organisation was “powerless to constrain the nuclear programme” of Tehran.
In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has threatened strikes on Iran if a deal to curb its nuclear programme can be reached, as negotiations between the two intensify.
A second round of talks will be hosted by Oman in Geneva next week, the Swiss foreign ministry said on Saturday.
Outside the conference, an estimated 200,000 protesters held a rally against the Iranian government, local police report.
The demonstrators denounced the country’s leadership, following the government crackdown on January’s protests in which thousands of people were killed.
Rubio also said the US did not know whether the “Russians are serious about ending the war” in Ukraine, before adding: “But we’re going to continue to test it.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told the conference later on Saturday that no one in Ukraine believed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would leave the country alone, describing the Russian leader as a “slave to war”.
Zelensky has come under pressure from the White House to hold presidential elections, which have been suspended while the country is under martial law.
Asked about a Financial Times report that his administration was planning for elections as soon as May, Zelensky said it was “something new to me” and repeated that “nobody supports elections during the war”.
He said that Ukraine would need “two months of ceasefire” and “security infrastructure” to safely conduct elections.
[BBC]
Two Britons and one French person have died in an avalanche in the French Alps on Friday.
The British pair were part of a group of five people skiing off-piste with an instructor in the Manchet valley, near Val d’Isère, a spokeswoman for the resort told the BBC.
The French national was skiing alone when the avalanche struck at 11:30 local time (10:30 GMT), Albertville prosecutor Benoit Bachelet said in a statement announcing the deaths.
Another British person has minor injuries, he added.
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told the BBC they are aware of the death of the two British men and they are “in contact with the local authorities and stand ready to offer consular assistance”.
A manslaughter investigation has now been launched by the Albertville public prosecutor’s office and will be carried out by CRS Alpes mountain rescue police.
The ski instructor, who was unharmed, tested negative after taking alcohol and drug tests, according to Bachelet.
Val d’Isère already experienced avalanches this winter, with one person dying in the resort of Tignes nearby last month.
France’s national weather service had issued a red alert for avalanche risk across the Savoie region on Thursday, which was then lifted on Friday. But the risk level remained high across the Alps with “very unstable snow cover”.
The avalanche comes in the wake of Storm Nils, which passed through France the day before, leaving between 60cm and 100cm of snow, the weather service said.
There have been a number of fatal avalanches in the region in recent weeks, including the death of a British man off-piste skiing at the La Plagne resort in January.
“We have had some very complicated, very unstable snow since the beginning of the season,” Luc Nicolino, slopes manager at La Plagne, told AFP.
“It’s a kind of mille-feuille with many hidden, fragile layers.”
[BBC]
Two Mexican ships bearing humanitarian aid have docked in the harbour of Cuba’s capital Havana, as the United States continues its efforts to cut the island off from outside fuel supplies.
On Thursday, pedestrians on Havana’s seawall watched as the ships, one of which was the Papaloapan, unloaded white pallets on shore.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the delivery in her morning news conference, promising that more help was on the way.
“We are sending different forms of help, different forms of support,” Sheinbaum said. “Today, the ships arrive. When they return, we are going to send more support of a different type.”
She also described her country’s role as “opening the doors for dialogue to develop” between Cuba and the US, but she insisted that maintaining Cuba’s sovereignty would be paramount among her priorities.
Since January, the administration of US President Donald Trump has sought to cut off the oil supplies that power Cuba’s energy grid and other critical infrastructure.
The campaign is part of a long-running series of sanctions imposed by the US on the Caribbean island nation, stretching back to the Cold War.
But the latest effort, under Trump, has experts at the United Nations warning of an imminent humanitarian “collapse” in Cuba, as oil supplies dwindle.
The oil embargo began on January 3, when Trump authorised a US military operation to attack Venezuela and abduct its then-leader, President Nicolas Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores.
[Aljazeera]
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