KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities have arrested at least 18 staff of an international NGO, including an American woman, accusing them of carrying out Christian missionary work, the country’s leaders said Saturday.
The International Assistance Mission (IAM) confirmed its staffers were picked up from its office in Ghor province, central Afghanistan, and taken to the capital Kabul.
Security and intelligence forces had been observing the group for some time, Abdul Wahid Hamas Ghori, a government spokesman for the province, told AFP.
“Documents and audios were obtained that showed they were inviting people to join Christianity,” he said, without providing further details.
He said 21 people were arrested, including an American woman.
IAM said in a statement earlier that 18 people, including a “foreigner,” were being held and that it had no information about the nature of the allegations.
The American woman and two Afghan staff were the first to be detained on September 3, followed by 15 more Afghan employees on Wednesday.
“Should any charges be lodged against our organization or any individual staff member, we will independently review any evidence presented,” it added.
IAM’s website says the organization is founded on Christian values, but that it does not provide aid according to political or religious belief.
“We value and respect local customs and cultures,” the Swiss-registered group said in a statement on Saturday.
IAM has operated in Afghanistan since 1966 — through previous royal, communist and Taliban governments — when it specialized in eye care, later branching out into other areas of health and education.
In 2010, 10 IAM medics, including eight foreigners, were shot dead in an attack in remote northern Afghanistan.
At the time, competing theories emerged over the motive for the attack, with police saying it was likely a robbery.
However, two militant groups claimed responsibility, including Taliban leaders who said the medics were Christian missionaries and accused them of working as military spies.
Dozens of foreigners — including several Westerners — have been detained by the Taliban authorities since the group’s return to power in August 2021.
The Taliban rulers have imposed sweeping restrictions on the population they say are in line with their strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law — including barring women from working for NGOs and the United Nations.
Teenage girls and women are also banned from schools and universities, and excluded from many other formers of public social life.
US woman among 18 NGO staff detained in Afghanistan
https://arab.news/4a6a2
US woman among 18 NGO staff detained in Afghanistan
- The International Assistance Mission (IAM) confirmed its staffers were picked up from its office in Ghor province
- Security and intelligence forces had been observing the group for some time
Argentina to try 10 in absentia over 1994 bombing of Jewish center
- Argentina and Israel have long suspected Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group of carrying it out at Iran’s request
- Judge Daniel Rafecas acknowledged the “exceptional” nature of the decision to send the case to court, over three decades after the bombing and with the suspects all still at large
BUENOS AIRES: Argentina will try in absentia ten Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people, a ruling seen by AFP on Thursday said.
The attack, which caused devastation in Latin America’s biggest Jewish community, has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group of carrying it out at Iran’s request.
Judge Daniel Rafecas acknowledged the “exceptional” nature of the decision to send the case to court, over three decades after the bombing and with the suspects all still at large.
Trying them in absentia, he said, allowed to “at least try to uncover the truth and reconstruct what happened.”
On July 18, 1994, a truck laden with explosives was driven into the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) and detonated.
The deadliest attack in Argentina’s history injured more than 300 people
No-one has ever been arrested over the attack.
The ten suspects facing trial are former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats for whom Argentina has issued international arrest warrants.
Since 2006 Argentina had sought the arrest of eight Iranians, including then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Bahramaie Rafsanjani, who died in 2017.
Iran has always denied any involvement and refused to arrest and hand over suspects.
Thursday’s ruling on trying them in absentia is the first of its kind in the South American country.
Until March this year, the country’s laws did not allow for suspects to be tried unless they were physically present.
It comes amid a new push in recent years for justice to be served over the attack, backed by President Javier Milei, a staunch ally of Israel.
Rafecas said a trial in absentia was justified given the “material impossibility of securing the presence of the defendants and the nature of the crime against humanity under investigation.”
In April 2024, an Argentine court blamed Hezbollah for the attack, which it called a “crime against humanity.”
It found that the attack and another on the Israeli embassy in 1992 that killed 29 people were likely triggered by the Argentine government under then-president Carlos Menem canceling three contracts with Iran for the supply of nuclear equipment and technology.
The court did not however manage to produce evidence of Iran’s involvement.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica last year found the Argentine state responsible for not preventing, nor properly investigating, the attack.
It also blamed the state for efforts to “cover up and obstruct the investigation.”
Former president Cristina Kirchner has been ordered to stand trial over a memorandum she signed with Iran in 2013 to investigate the bombing.
The memorandum, which was later annulled, allowed for suspects to be interrogated in Iran rather than Argentina, leading Kirchner to be accused of conspiring with Tehran in a cover-up.
She has denied the allegations.
Germany scraps funding for sea rescues of migrants
- “I don’t think it’s the foreign office’s job to finance this kind of sea rescue,” Wadephul said
- “We need to be active where the need is greatest“
BERLIN: Germany is cutting financial support for charities that rescue migrants at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean, saying it will redirect resources to addressing conditions in source countries that spur people to leave.
For decades, migrants driven by war and poverty have made perilous crossings to reach Europe’s southern borders, with thousands estimated to die every year in their bid to reach a continent grown increasingly hostile to migration.
“Germany is committed to being humane and will help where people suffer but I don’t think it’s the foreign office’s job to finance this kind of sea rescue,” Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told a news conference.
“We need to be active where the need is greatest,” he added, mentioning the humanitarian emergency in war-shattered Sudan.
Under the previous left-leaning government, Germany began paying around 2 million euros ($2.34 million) annually to non-governmental organizations carrying out rescues of migrant-laden boats in trouble at sea.
For them, it has been a key source of funds: Germany’s Sea-Eye, which said rescue charities have saved 175,000 lives since 2015, received around 10 percent of its total income of around 3.2 million euros from the German government.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives won February’s national election after a campaign promising to curb irregular migration, which some voters in Europe’s largest economy see as being out of control.
Even though the overall numbers have been falling for several years, many Germans blame migration-related fears for the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the second largest party in parliament.
Many experts say that migration levels are mainly driven by economic and humanitarian emergencies in the source countries, with the official cold shoulder in destination countries having had little impact in deterring migrants.
Despite this, German officials suggest that sea rescues only incentivise people to risk the sometimes deadly crossings.
“The (government) support made possible extra missions and very concretely saved lives,” said Gorden Isler, Sea-Eye’s chairperson. “We might now have to stay in harbor despite emergencies.”
The opposition Greens, who controlled the foreign office when the subsidies were introduced, criticized the move.
“This will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis and deepen human suffering,” said joint floor leader Britta Hasselmann.
Mass shooting in gang-plagued Mexican state leaves 12 dead and more injured
- The attorney general’s office in Guanajuato said some 20 others were hospitalized
- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the victims included children
MEXICO CITY: At least 12 people were killed, including a teenager, and more wounded in a Tuesday night shooting in the central Mexican city of Irapuato, authorities said on Wednesday.
The attorney general’s office in Guanajuato, the violence-plagued state where Irapuato is located, said some 20 others were hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said earlier on Wednesday that the victims included children, although the attorney general’s office later confirmed only one casualty was a minor, aged 17.
“It is very unfortunate what happened. An investigation is under way,” Sheinbaum said.
Local media reported the shooting happened during an evening party celebrating a Catholic holiday, the Nativity of John the Baptist.
A video circulating on social media showed people dancing in the patio of a housing complex while a band played in the background, before gunfire erupted. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the video.
Guanajuato has been for many years one of the most violent regions in the country.
On Tuesday, five other people were killed in other parts of the state, according to the attorney general’s office.
29 pupils taking high school exams killed in Central Africa crush
- In the ensuing panic, supervisors and students tried to flee, some jumping from the first floor of the school
- “I would like to express my solidarity and compassion to the parents of the deceased candidates, to the educational staff, to the students,” Touadera said
BANGUI: Twenty-nine students taking their high school exams in the Central African Republic died in a stampede sparked by an exploding power transformer, the health ministry told AFP Thursday.
Just over 5,300 students were sitting the second day of the baccalaureate exams at the time of the explosion early Wednesday afternoon in Bangui, the capital of the deeply poor nation.
In the ensuing panic, supervisors and students tried to flee, some jumping from the first floor of the school.
The injured were transported by ambulance, on the back of pickup trucks or by motorbike taxi, AFP journalists saw.
“I would like to express my solidarity and compassion to the parents of the deceased candidates, to the educational staff, to the students,” President Faustin Archange Touadera said in a video published on his party’s Facebook page.
Touadera, who is attending a summit of the Gavi vaccine alliance in Brussels, also announced three days of national mourning.
According to a document circulating on social media and authenticated by the health ministry, 29 deaths were registered by hospitals in the city.
“The hospital was overwhelmed by people to the point of obstructing caregivers and ambulances, a health ministry source stated.
UN peacekeepers, police and other security were seen around the Barthelemy Boganda high school and hospitals.
Education Minister Aurelien-Simplice Kongbelet-Zingas said in a statement Wednesday that “measures will be taken quickly to shed light on the circumstances of this incident.”
The minister added that a further statement would follow regarding selection of a date for the students to resume their exams program.
The Republican Bloc for the Defense of the Constitution (BRDC), a coalition of opposition parties, condemned what it termed “the irresponsibility of the authorities in place, who have failed in their duty to ensure the safety of students and school infrastructure.”
The CAR is among the poorest countries in the world and, since independence from France in 1960, has endured a succession of coups, authoritarian rulers and civil wars.
The latest civil war started more than a decade ago. The government has secured the main cities and violence has subsided in recent years.
But fighting occasionally erupts in remote regions between rebels and the national army, which is backed by Wagner mercenaries and Rwandan troops.
Municipal, legislative, and presidential elections are scheduled for August and December of this year but UN experts are calling for urgent institutional reform of the electoral authority before the polls and for “transparent internal governance,” as tensions between the government and the opposition intensify.
Kremlin says no date yet for next round of Ukraine peace talks
- Peskov said Russia was in favor of continued US efforts to mediate
- They have made no progress toward a ceasefire
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Thursday there was no progress yet toward setting a date for the next round of peace talks with Ukraine, Interfax news agency reported.
Another agency, TASS, quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Russia was in favor of continued US efforts to mediate.
Resuming negotiations after a gap of more than three years, Russia and Ukraine held face-to-face talks in Istanbul on May 16 and June 2 that led to a series of prisoner exchanges and the return of the bodies of dead soldiers.
But they have made no progress toward a ceasefire which Ukraine, with Western backing, has been pressing for.
