За словами головнокомандувача ЗСУ, ситуація «напружена, проте повністю контрольована»
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From the world’s second-smallest state, Monaco, to the most populous country, India, representatives from more than 20 governments and international organizations on Monday condemned the Taliban’s policies of shutting down secondary schools and denying other fundamental rights to Afghan girls and women.
Even Pakistan, the purported benefactor of the Taliban, voiced concern at a United Nations dialogue on human rights in Afghanistan about the denial of education for Afghan girls. The dialogue was part of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 51st session, which opened Monday in Geneva.
Russia and China notably did not join in the criticism. A Russian diplomat pointed to progress made for women’s rights under the Taliban.
“We note efforts by the new Afghan government to ensure the rights of women and girls in the areas of marriage and property inheritance,” a Russian representative told the U.N. event, adding that more than 130,000 women are employed in the health and education sectors.
No Taliban representative was present at the event because the U.N. does not recognize the Taliban’s so-called Islamic Emirate as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Instead, diplomats of the former Afghan government are still accredited as Afghan representatives at U.N. headquarters in New York and Geneva.
The Russian diplomat further said that some schools were closed because the Taliban could not afford to set up segregated classrooms for girls. He blamed the United States and other Western donors for freezing aid to Afghanistan and imposing sanctions on the Taliban which, according to the Russian diplomat, have adversely affected the Afghan education sector.
“We call on the U.S. and the U.K. and their satellites — instead of issuing new demands to the Taliban, to begin fulfilling their own obligations for the past conflict,” he said, adding that the current crisis in Afghanistan was a result of the past two decades of U.S. intervention there.
While calling for the return of girls to secondary schools in Afghanistan, a Chinese representative also avoided criticizing the Taliban’s policy.
“We call on the countries concerned to respect sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and to lift unilateral sanctions,” the Chinese representative said.
Monday’s statement was the strongest that any Russian official has made in support of the Taliban.
“The Russian representative’s statements in Geneva aren’t consistent with what Russia has said before in other settings about Afghanistan,” John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA.
“As recently as this June, Russia agreed to a strongly worded statement by the U.N. Security Council about Afghanistan in which the Security Council as a bloc, including Russia, called on the Taliban to let girls go to school.”
Even the Taliban have not said that Western sanctions and the resulting economic problems have forced them to shut secondary schools for girls. Taliban officials have offered religious and cultural justifications for their decision against secondary education for girls.
“We recognize that the economic crisis is impacting the humanitarian situation. We agree about that. But the idea that it’s responsible for the fact that [the] Taliban do not let girls go to secondary schools is absurd. It is preposterous. It is a lie,” said Sifton.
Women ‘erased’
The U.N. and human rights groups accuse the Taliban of implementing policies that are aimed at erasing women from the public spheres.
“There is no country in the world where women and girls have so rapidly been deprived of their fundamental human rights purely because of gender,” Richard Bennett, U.N. special rapporteur on Afghanistan, told the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 51st session.
“Do you know what that feeling is, to be erased?” Mahbouba Seraj, an Afghan women’s rights activist, asked the same session. “I’m erased, and I don’t know what else to do. … How many times am I supposed to yell and scream and say, ‘World, pay attention to us. We are dying’?”
The Taliban have defended their policies toward Afghan women while accusing the U.N. and rights activists of spreading “malicious propaganda” against their de facto government.
“Today, nothing threatens the lives of women in Afghanistan, and no woman or her loved ones die in the war or raids,” said a Taliban statement issued in response to Bennett’s report. “There are 181 public and private universities open for men and women in the country, and thousands of women work in education, higher education, public health, passport and national identification bureaus, airports, police, media, banks and other sectors.”
Such statements, however, are viewed with deep skepticism outside Taliban circles.
The Taliban have become increasingly authoritarian, clamping down on freedom of expression and denying people their civic and political rights, the U.N. has reported.
At the U.N. event, representatives from many countries called for stronger international pressure on the Taliban to respect women’s rights.
“Anyone seeking to participate in the international system must respect [women’s rights]. If we don’t all insist on that, then shame on us,” said Michèle Taylor, U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
In April, the U.N. General Assembly suspended Russia from the Human Rights Council because of the country’s reported atrocities in Ukraine.
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Називають їх «прологом до третьої світової війни» та «ескалацією»
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Президент України провів із головою МВФ розмову про «майбутню співпрацю задля зміцнення фінансової стабільності України»
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The European Union wants to enact tougher rules for media groups seeking to acquire smaller rivals on whether their deals ensure media pluralism and safeguard editorial independence, according to draft EU rules seen by Reuters.
The Media Freedom Act (MFA), which the European Commission will present later this week, comes during concerns about media freedom in Poland, Hungary and Slovenia.
The EU is also worried about the allocation of some countries’ state advertising to pro-government outlets to influence the media.
The rules will apply to TV and radio broadcasters, on-demand audiovisual media services, press publications and very large online platforms and providers of video-sharing platforms.
They will need to be thrashed out with EU countries and lawmakers before they can become law in a process likely to take a year or more.
The concerns around media freedoms have grown ahead of European Parliament elections in 2024.
“It should be considered whether other media outlets, providing different and alternative content, would still coexist in the given market(s) after the media market concentration in question,” the document said.
Editorial independence safeguards should consider undue interference by owners, management or governance structures, it added.
The proposed rules also require regulators to examine whether the merging companies would remain economically sustainable if there was no deal.
The EU executive and a new European Board for Media Services can offer their opinions on whether the two criteria have been met.
State advertising to media service providers should be transparent and non-discriminatory, the document said.
The proposed rules set out the right of journalists and media service providers not to be detained, sanctioned, subjected to surveillance or search and seizure by EU
governments and regulatory bodies.
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In addition to fighting on the front lines, Ukrainians are fighting on the economic battlefront. Businesses are trying to survive, and with a bit of help, succeed. A new online platform helps them do just that. Lesia Bakalets has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Andre Sergunin.
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Вони стануть основою документа під назвою «Київський безпековий договір»
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Російська спецслужба стверджує, що чоловік знімав на телефон фрагменти креслень деталей бойової авіатехніки та передавав фото співробітнику «Одеського авіаційного заводу»
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Президент України наголосив на «важливості оборонної взаємодії» між Україною та Італією
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В Офісі президента України повідомили, що в Міжнародної асоціації юристів підтримують створення міжнародного трибуналу для Росії. Про це, як передає пресслужба ОПУ, йшлося на зустрічі заступник керівника Офісу Андрія Смирнова з виконавчим директором Міжнародної асоціації юристів Марком Елісом.
«Розмах воєнних злочинів росіян в Україні вражає. З початку війни в нашій країні скоєно понад 40 тисяч воєнних злочинів. З одного боку, це безпосередні виконавці – російські солдати та офіцери, які ґвалтували, вбивали, катували та віддавали злочинні накази. Але найголовніші винні – ті, хто скоїв «материнський злочин» – агресію та прийшов з війною в Україну. Це Володимир Путін та інше найвище військово-політичне керівництво Росії», – сказав Смирнов.
«Щоб досягти законної відплати за злочин агресії, ми ініціюємо створення спеціального міжнародного трибуналу, мандат роботи якого обмежуватиметься доведенням вини у скоєнні злочину агресії Росією проти України», – сказав Смирнов.
ОПУ вказує, що Марк Еліс заявив, зі свого боку, що повністю підтримує створення міжнародного трибуналу.
«Російське керівництво, зокрема Володимир Путін, зневажило непорушні принципи міжнародного права, розв’язавши війну проти України. Володимир Путін скоїв найсерйозніший злочин – здійснив агресію проти вашої країни. Я вважаю, що суд, який буде створений, має зосередитися на вузькому питанні – агресії Росії. І я та Міжнародна асоціація юристів готові підтримати міжнародний трибунал і зробити все, що в наших силах, для того, щоб за злочин агресії було покарання», – цитує ОПУ Еліса.
Повідомляється, що виконавчий директор Міжнародної асоціації юристів Марк Еліс співпрацював з міжнародними трибуналами з питань Югославії та Руанди, ініціював програму підтримки суддів в Іраку. З його ініціативи було створено мобільний застосунок eyeWitness to Atrocities, завдяки якому можна зберігати докази воєнних злочинів.
Нині Україна та Міжнародний кримінальний суд розслідують численні підозри у вбивствах російськими військовими мирних жителів, мародерстві та інших злочинах, скоєних в переьігу розв’язаної Кремлем війни проти України.
Від початку повномасштабного вторгнення Росії в Україну українські правозахисники в рамках кампанії «Трибунал для Путіна» задокументували 18,5 тисячі випадків воєнних злочинів.
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Ukraine claimed Monday it had recaptured several more villages in the northeastern part of the country, pushing some Russian forces back to the border between the two nations.
After months of only incremental territorial gains and losses by Kyiv’s and Moscow’s forces, Ukrainian leaders exulted in the sudden advance since the beginning of September in the Kharkiv region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation Monday that Ukrainian forces had retaken more than 6,000 square kilometers of territory since the offensive began this month.
“The movement of our troops continues,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there has been “significant progress by the Ukrainians, particularly in the Northeast,” citing both support from the United States and other allies and “the extraordinary courage and resilience of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian people.”
“This is early days still,” Blinken said. “So, I think it would be wrong to predict exactly where this will go, when it will get there and how it will get there.”
The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged over the weekend it was pulling back forces, saying they were regrouping them in the eastern Donetsk region.
Oleh Syniehubov, the Ukrainian governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region, said, “In some areas of the front, our defenders reached the state border with the Russian Federation,” with Russian troops chaotically retreating.
“The Russians were here in the morning. Then at noon, they suddenly started shouting wildly and began to run away, charging off in tanks and armored vehicles,” Dmytro Hrushchenko, a resident of recently liberated Zaliznychne, a small town near the eastern front line, told Sky News.
“Making progress”
The general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine said Monday its troops had recaptured more than 20 settlements within the past day. The British Defense Ministry said that, in recent days, Kyiv’s forces had reclaimed territory at least the size of the London metropolitan area.
A senior U.S. military official said Monday Ukrainians are “making progress” in their efforts to reclaim territory in the south and the east and said Russian forces around Kharkiv have ceded ground to Ukraine.
The official said the Russian pullback was “indicative” of morale issues, among other factors, and said Ukraine has presented Russian forces with “multiple dilemmas.” Many of the Russian forces who have ceded ground have moved across the border to Russia, according to the official.
Analysts say the war is likely to continue into 2023, but the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Monday that “Ukraine has turned the tide of this war in its favor” through its effective use of Western-supplied weapons like the long-range HIMARS missile system and strategic battlefield maneuvers. “Kyiv will likely increasingly dictate the location and nature of the major fighting.”
In Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said power and water that had been cut off by Russia were restored to about 80% of the region’s population.
In Russia, some complaints were voiced, even on state-controlled television, about the setbacks its forces were sustaining.
“People who convinced President [Vladimir] Putin that the operation will be fast and effective … these people really set up all of us,” Boris Nadezhdin, a former parliament member, said on an NTV television talk show. “We’re now at the point where we have to understand that it’s absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using these resources and colonial war methods.”
Death, destruction continues
But the war’s death toll continued to mount, with Ukraine’s presidential office reporting that at least four civilians were killed, and 11 others wounded in a series of Russian attacks in nine regions of the country. Even in liberated Kharkiv, a police station in the city’s center was hit by a missile, setting part of it on fire and killing one person, a regional police chief said.
Russia also shelled Nikopol across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, damaging several buildings there. The last operational reactor in that plant has been shut down to prevent a radiation leak.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
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Members of the public paid their respects Tuesday to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II at St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh, with many waiting overnight for a final opportunity to file past the queen’s coffin before it is flown to London.
Princess Anne is due to accompany the coffin on the flight back to London later Tuesday.
The queen’s body will be taken to Buckingham Palace first, then transferred in a public procession led by King Charles III to the 11th-century Westminster Hall, where she will lie in state for four days. The hall will be open 23 hours a day for visitors. It will be guarded by soldiers from the royal household.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to travel to Westminster to pay their respects.
A solemn procession
Elizabeth died Thursday at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands, a place she cherished.
King Charles III, Princess Anne and their siblings Prince Andrew and Prince Edward held a silent vigil Monday in St. Giles’ Cathedral, bowing their heads as they stood at the four sides of their mother’s coffin.
The body was brought to the cathedral in a solemn procession through the streets of Edinburgh, where thousands of people turned out to pay their respects to the late monarch.
After the procession reached St. Giles’ Cathedral, members of the royal family along with political leaders attended a service inside for the queen.
“And so, we gather to bid Scotland’s farewell to our late monarch, whose life of service to the nation and the world we celebrate. And whose love for Scotland was legendary,” the Rev. Calum MacLeod said.
New monarch speaks to Parliament
Earlier Monday, King Charles III spoke to both houses of Parliament in London for the first time as the monarch.
His brief address to approximately 1,000 lawmakers and their guests at London’s Westminster Hall came after the lawmakers offered their condolences on the passing of Queen Elizabeth II during a ceremony filled with pageantry.
Charles said of his mother who served as monarch for 70 years: “She set an example of selfless duty which, with God’s help and your counsels, I resolved faithfully to follow.”
Residents line streets for glimpse, goodbye
The hearse carrying the queen’s body set off on Sunday from Balmoral Castle, the beginning of her long and final journey.
The convoy, which included royal officials and security personnel, tracked slowly through the majestic Scottish hills, a landscape treasured by the late monarch, where she spent her final peaceful weeks of life. In years past, the queen was frequently seen visiting these remote Scottish villages when she resided at Balmoral Castle.
Residents gathered on the roadside to glimpse her for the last time and to say goodbye.
Some onlookers threw flowers as the hearse passed; many in the crowd shed tears. Gentle ripples of applause followed as the convoy continued southward.
“We’ve known (her) for all our lives. So, it’s been the one constant thing in the whole of our lives — the queen,” said Stephanie Cook, a resident of the village of Ballater, close to Balmoral.
After a six-hour journey, the hearse crossed the River Forth toward Edinburgh.
Fiona Moffat traveled from Glasgow to witness the moment. She fought back tears as she described her emotions.
“A very historic moment. I am quite speechless actually,” Moffat said to The Associated Press. “She was a lovely lady. Great mother, grandmother. She did well. I am very proud of her.”
Elaine Robertson, visiting Edinburgh from her home in Ayr on Scotland’s west coast, was also in tears. “I think it is just important to be here. Just important to say goodbye,” Robertson said. “She has been on the throne for a long time. So, yes, it means a lot.”
The funeral is scheduled for September 19 at Westminster Abbey. The coffin will then be taken to Windsor for the committal service, where the queen’s husband, Prince Philip, was laid to rest in April 2021.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Видання посилається на документ, який український уряд направив американським конгресменам
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Після початку військового вторгнення Росії в Україну країни Євросоюзу оголосили про плани якнайшвидше відмовитися від імпорту російських енергоносіїв
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Люди з мобілізаційного резерву у мирний час проходять військове навчання без відриву від основної роботи, а при оголошенні мобілізації автоматично поповнюють лави армії
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Experts say Ukraine has dealt its opponent a major operational defeat with a surprise counteroffensive in the country’s northeast, sending shockwaves through the invading Russian army. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine looks at the likely impact of the Ukrainian military gains on the war.
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Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the Twitter whistleblower who is warning of security flaws, privacy threats and lax controls at the social platform, will take his case to Congress Tuesday.
Senators who will hear Zatko’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee are alarmed by his Twitter allegations at a time of heightened concern over the safety of powerful tech platforms.
It’s Zatko’s second Capitol Hill appearance, and in some ways a 21st-century echo of his first. In 1998, he testified before a Senate panel along with fellow members of a hacker collective who warned about the security dangers of the then-emerging internet age.
Zatko, a respected cybersecurity expert, was Twitter’s head of security until he was fired early this year. He brought the stunning allegations to Congress and federal regulators, asserting that the influential social platform misled regulators about its cyber defenses and efforts to control millions of “spam” or fake accounts.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who chairs the panel, has said that if Zatko’s claims are accurate, “they may show dangerous data privacy and security risks for Twitter users around the world.”
Musk battle
Zatko’s accusations are also playing into billionaire tycoon Elon Musk’s battle with Twitter. The Tesla CEO is trying to get out of his $44 billion bid to buy the company; Twitter has sued to force him to complete the deal. The Delaware judge overseeing that case ruled last week that Musk can include new evidence related to Zatko’s allegations in the high-stakes trial set to start October 17.
The allegation that Twitter engaged in deception in its handling of automated “spam bot” accounts is at the core of Musk’s attempt to back out of the Twitter deal.
At the same time, many of Zatko’s claims are uncorroborated and appear to have little documentary support. In a statement, Twitter has called Zatko’s description of events “a false narrative.”
Also Tuesday, Twitter’s shareholders are scheduled to vote on the company’s pending buyout by Musk. The vote is something of a formality given that the deal is on hold while the court case plays out. But if the measure passes as expected, it would pave the way for a Musk takeover should Twitter prevail in court.
Zatko also filed complaints with the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Among his most serious accusations is that Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 FTC settlement by falsely claiming that it had put stronger measures in place to protect the security and privacy of its users.
The SEC is questioning Twitter about how it counts fake accounts on its platform. Twitter uses counts of its presumably real users to attract advertisers, whose payments make up about 90% of its revenue. The “spam bots” have no value to advertisers because there’s no person behind them.
San Francisco-based Twitter has an estimated 238 million daily active users worldwide. The company says it removes 1 million spam accounts daily.
‘Egregious deficiencies’
Zatko’s 84-page complaint alleges that he found “extreme, egregious deficiencies” on the platform, including issues with “user privacy, digital and physical security, and platform integrity/content moderation.”
It accuses CEO Parag Agrawal and other senior executives and board members of making “false and misleading statements to users and the FTC” about these issues. Twitter denies those claims and has said that Zatko was fired in January for “ineffective leadership and poor performance.” Zatko’s attorneys say the performance claim is false.
Twitter also hinted that Zatko’s complaint might be designed to bolster Musk’s legal fight with the company. Twitter called Zatko’s complaint “a false narrative” that is “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and lacks important context.”
News of Zatko’s complaint surfaced August 23, almost two months before the Twitter-Musk trial is scheduled to begin. One of Zatko’s attorneys has said “he’s never met Elon Musk. Doesn’t know Elon Musk. They know people in common.”
The company also says it has significantly tightened security since 2020.
Among Zatko’s specific allegations:
— The company had such poor cybersecurity that it easily could have been exposed to outside attacks or attempts to siphon off its internal data.
—The company lacked effective leadership, with its top executives practicing “deliberate ignorance” of pressing problems. Zatko described former CEO Jack Dorsey as “extremely disengaged” during the last months of his tenure, to the point where he wouldn’t even speak during meetings on complex issues. Dorsey stepped down in November 2021.
—That Twitter knowingly allowed the government of India to place its agents on the company payroll, where they had “direct unsupervised access” to highly sensitive data on users. It makes a parallel but less detailed accusation that Twitter took funding from unidentified Chinese entities who may have gained access enabling them to access the identities and sensitive data of Chinese users who secretly use Twitter, which is officially banned in China.
Better known by his hacker handle “Mudge,” Zatko, 51, first gained prominence in the 1990s. He was the best-known member of the Boston-based collective L0pht, which pioneered ethical hacking, embarrassing companies including Microsoft for poor security. His work raised awareness in the computing world that forced such major companies to take security seriously. He co-founded the consultancy @Stake, which was later acquired by Symantec.
Zatko later worked in senior positions at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Google. He joined Twitter at Dorsey’s urging in late 2020, the same year the company suffered an embarrassing security breach involving hackers who broke into the Twitter accounts of world leaders, celebrities and tech moguls, including Musk, attempting to scam their followers out of bitcoin.
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Near final results in Sweden’s election Sunday show that a bloc of right-wing parties was expected to defeat a left-wing bloc headed by Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. The conservative group includes a populist anti-immigration party that made its best showing.
However, the result was so close that the election authority said it would not be known before Wednesday when some uncounted votes, including those cast abroad, have been tallied.
According to the early count, Andersson’s ruling left-wing Social Democrats won 30.5% of the vote, more than any other party. However, a bloc of four left-wing parties appeared to fall short as a whole of winning a majority of votes in the 349-seat parliament, or Riksdag.
Exit polls had initially predicted a narrow victory for Andersson’s camp but as the evening wore on, and the vote count supplanted the exit poll, the results tipped in favor of the conservatives.
Early Monday, the conservatives appeared to have 176 seats to 173 for the center-left.
In a speech to her supporters, Andersson said that while the results were unclear, it was obvious that the social democratic movement, which is based on ideals of creating an equal society and a strong welfare state, remains strong in Sweden.
The biggest winner of the evening was the populist anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats, which had a strong showing of nearly 21%, its best result ever. The party gained on promises to crack down on shootings and other gang violence that have shaken a sense of security for many in Sweden.
The party has its roots in the white nationalist movement but years ago began expelling extremists. Despite its rebranding, voters long viewed it as unacceptable and other parties shunned it. But that has been changing, and its result in this election show just how far it has come in gaining acceptance.
“We are now the second-biggest party in Sweden, and it looks [like] it’s going to stay that way,” party leader Jimmie Akesson told his supporters.
“We know now that if there’s going to be a shift in power, we will be having a central role in that,” he said. “Our ambition is to be in the government.”
The conservative bloc was led during the campaign by the center-right Moderates, who won 19%. It was previously the country’s second largest party.
Moderates leader Ulf Kristersson told his supporters that he stands ready to try to create a stable and effective government.
Regardless of the election outcome, Sweden is likely to face a lengthy process to form a government, as it did after the 2018 election.
Andersson, a 55-year-old economist, became Sweden’s first female prime minister less than a year ago and led Sweden’s historic bid to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
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Баку заявляє про «масштабну диверсію» Єревана, а у Вірменії кажуть про широкомасштабну провокацію Азербайджану
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Федір Веніславський став представником президента у Верховній Раді
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Йоганнес Ган визнав, що стрімке зростання цін на енергоносії та інфляція в ЄС можуть вплинути на готовність блоку надати Києву додаткову фінансову підтримку
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Britain’s King Charles III and his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, join his siblings – Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward – when the coffin of his mother Queen Elizabeth II is taken in a solemn procession from the royal Palace of Holyroodhouse to St. Giles’ Cathedral in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. The queen’s coffin will remain at the cathedral for 24 hours so members of the public will be able to pay their respects to the late monarch.
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