JOHANNESBURG: Twelve schoolchildren and their driver were killed in South Africa on Wednesday when their minibus overturned and caught fire on a road in Gauteng province, officials said. The accident took place a day after schools reopened after the winter holidays.
Seven other children were injured in the accident, which took place in the town of Merafong, west of the country’s economic hub Johannesburg.
Reports said a that a small truck, known as a bakkie, had slammed into the back of the minibus transporting the children, causing it to overturn and erupt into flames.
Education and transport officials visited the scene of the crash and the injured children at a hospital in the nearby area of Carletonville. Head of the Gauteng provincial government, Panyaza Lesufi, also visited the injured children.
Gauteng education department spokesman Steve Mabona said 11 of the children who died attended Rocklands Primary School while the twelfth child went to Laerskool Blyvooruitsig in Carletonville.
“The pupils’ transport was hit from behind by a bakkie, causing it to overturn and subsequently catch fire,” Mabona said, describing the crash as a “horrific accident.”
Thousands of schoolchildren in Gauteng rely on private minibuses for transport to and from their schools across South Africa’s most populous province. Many others rely on public transport, including municipal buses and taxis.
12 schoolchildren and their driver are killed when their minibus crashes in South Africa
https://arab.news/2aftf
12 schoolchildren and their driver are killed when their minibus crashes in South Africa
- Seven other children were injured in the accident, which took place in the town of Merafong
- A small truck, known as a bakkie, had slammed into the back of the minibus transporting the children
In Afghanistan, Taliban ban on girls’ education leaves thousands of classrooms empty
- About 1.1 million girls denied access to formal education since Taliban ban in 2021
- Afghanistan had about 4,000 secondary and high schools for girls
KABUL: Before the Taliban suspended secondary education for girls, some of Salma’s friends had attended her school in Kabul with their older sisters. But after the ban was imposed almost three years ago, they stopped going to classes altogether.
“They didn’t want to come alone. It’s sad to lose my friends,” Salma, who is now in the fifth grade, told Arab News.
She also recalled visiting the classrooms for older girls, located on the second floor, with her friends back then — something she no longer does because the level has been empty since the ban. It reminded the 12-year-old of the future that lies ahead for her.
“It’s even more upsetting to think that we will not be able to come to our school after two years. We will graduate after grade six and then there will be no future for us after that,” she said.
Since September 2021 — a month after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan — girls have been prohibited from attending secondary school, resulting in about 1.1 million girls being denied access to formal education and leaving thousands of classrooms and buildings empty.
“Girls’ schools are active only up to the sixth grade. The rest of the classes — seventh through 12th grades — are … not being used,” an official from the Afghan Ministry of Education told Arab News. “The remaining buildings are non-functional.”
Afghanistan officially recognized about 20,000 schools as of August 2022, of which only about half had functional buildings and about 5,000 were damaged after the war, data from the education ministry showed. Meanwhile, according to official estimates, there were about 4,000 secondary and high schools for girls in the country before the education ban was put in place.
With classrooms and buildings that once housed the older girls now empty, they could instead be used to accommodate more girls in lower grades, said Najla Ahmadzai, a public school teacher in Kabul.
“Previously, we didn’t have sufficient space to admit more girl students. We had very low admission rates. Now that we have more space, we can admit more girls, especially in grades one to three,” she told Arab News, adding that the unused spaces can bring about “positive change.”
But even then, the empty classrooms previously used by girls in higher grades “makes my heart ache,” she said.
“It’s painful and unbelievable for me as a teacher and as a mother. I think about my own daughters but also about the daughters of the country. They have the right to get an education and deserve to be a part of society.”
The abandoned buildings are painful reminders of what was taken from girls like Bibi Laila, who, at 16, is among those who are not allowed to attend school.
“Instead of using the buildings to educate girls, especially older girls, they are just empty and turning into scary spaces because no one has gone there for the past three years,” Laila said.
“We have schools, we have buildings, we have teachers, books and everything. We can go to school starting tomorrow. But the (Taliban) policy is stopping me and thousands of other girls from becoming educated and achieving our dreams and hopes.”
Neither appeals at home nor international pressure on the Taliban administration have helped to lift the ban, which authorities have repeatedly said was an “internal matter.” The ban was later extended to universities also, with more than 100,000 female students blocked from completing their degrees.
“If we don’t go back to school we are becoming illiterate,” Laila said. “We are very sad but we can’t do anything. I think people in the country and the world are forgetting us.”
US’s Blinken calls on Venezuela parties to ‘respect democratic process’ in vote
- Washington is keen, as is Caracas, for an easing of punitive measures against Venezuela’s critical but severely weakened oil sector at a time of great pressure on crude prices with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East
TOKYO: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for all parties in Venezuela to “respect the democratic process” in an election on Sunday, speaking less than an hour before polls open.
“The Venezuelan people deserve an election that genuinely reflects their will, free from any manipulation. The international community is going to be watching this very closely. We urge all parties to honor their commitments and to respect the democratic process,” Blinken told reporters in Japan.
Venezuelans will vote between continuity in President Nicolas Maduro or change in rival Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia amid high tension following the incumbent’s threat of a “bloodbath” if he loses, which polls suggest is likely.
Maduro, who is seeking a third six-year term at the helm of the once wealthy South American petro-state, is accused of locking up critics and harassing the opposition in a climate of rising authoritarianism.
Blinken said the election is a “pivotal event at a pivotal time given the severe political, economic and humanitarian crises the country faces.”
Washington is keen, as is Caracas, for an easing of punitive measures against Venezuela’s critical but severely weakened oil sector at a time of great pressure on crude prices with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Venezuela has also been a major source of migration pressure on the southern US border, a situation experts say will only worsen in the event of a post-election political crisis.
The United States has insisted that the lifting of sanctions depends on a fair vote.
Bangladesh students vow to resume protests unless leaders freed
- Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition
DHAKA:A Bangladeshi student group has vowed to resume protests that sparked a lethal police crackdown and nationwide unrest unless several of their leaders are released from custody on Sunday.
Last week’s violence killed at least 205 people, according to an AFP count of police and hospital data, in one of the biggest upheavals of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
Army patrols and a nationwide curfew remain in place more than a week after they were imposed, and a police dragnet has scooped up thousands of protesters including at least half a dozen student leaders.
Members of Students Against Discrimination, whose campaign against civil service job quotas precipitated the unrest, said they would end their weeklong protest moratorium.
The group’s chief Nahid Islam and others “should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn,” Abdul Hannan Masud told reporters in an online briefing late Saturday.
Masud, who did not disclose his location because he was in hiding from authorities, also demanded “visible actions” be taken against government ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters.
“Otherwise, Students Against Discrimination will be forced to launch tough protests” from Monday, he said.
Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were on Friday forcibly discharged from hospital in the capital Dhaka and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.
Earlier in the week Islam told AFP he was being treated at the hospital for injuries police inflicted on him during an earlier round of detention and said he was in fear for his life.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters Friday that the trio were taken into custody for their own safety but did not confirm if they had been formally arrested.
Police told AFP on Sunday that detectives had taken two others into custody, while a Students Against Discrimination activist told AFP that a third had been taken on Sunday morning.
At least 9,000 people have been arrested nationwide since the unrest began according to Prothom Alo, Bangladesh’s largest daily newspaper.
While a curfew imposed last weekend remains in force, it has been progressively eased through the week, in a sign of the Hasina government’s confidence that order was gradually being restored.
Bangladesh’s mobile Internet network was restored in the afternoon, 11 days after a nationwide blackout imposed at the height of the unrest.
Fixed line broadband connections had already been restored on Tuesday but the vast majority of Bangladesh’s 141 million Internet users rely on their mobile devices to connect with the world, according to the national telecoms regulator.
One small street rally held in Dhaka on Sunday to demand Hasina’s resignation was quickly dispersed by police.
Protests began this month over the reintroduction of a quota scheme reserving more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.
With around 18 million young Bangladeshis out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute employment crisis.
Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to the ruling Awami League.
The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs last week but fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the quotas entirely.
Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Protests had remained largely peaceful until attacks by police and pro-government student groups on demonstrators last week.
Bangladesh students vow to resume protests unless leaders freed
- Last week’s violent protests in Bangladesh killed at least 205 people
- Army patrols, nationwide curfew remain in place over a week after imposition
DHAKA: A Bangladeshi student group has vowed to resume protests that sparked a lethal police crackdown and nationwide unrest unless several of their leaders are released from custody on Sunday.
Last week’s violence killed at least 205 people, according to an AFP count of police and hospital data, in one of the biggest upheavals of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
Army patrols and a nationwide curfew remain in place more than a week after they were imposed, and a police dragnet has scooped up thousands of protesters including at least half a dozen student leaders.
Members of Students Against Discrimination, whose campaign against civil service job quotas precipitated the unrest, said they would end their weeklong protest moratorium.
The group’s chief Nahid Islam and others “should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn,” Abdul Hannan Masud told reporters in an online briefing late Saturday.
Masud, who did not disclose his location because he was in hiding from authorities, also demanded “visible actions” be taken against government ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters.
“Otherwise, Students Against Discrimination will be forced to launch tough protests” from Monday, he said.
Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were on Friday forcibly discharged from hospital in the capital Dhaka and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.
Earlier in the week Islam told AFP he was being treated at the hospital for injuries police inflicted on him during an earlier round of detention and said he was in fear for his life.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters Friday that the trio were taken into custody for their own safety but did not confirm if they had been formally arrested.
Police told AFP on Sunday that detectives had taken two others into custody, while a Students Against Discrimination activist told AFP that a third had been taken on Sunday morning.
At least 9,000 people have been arrested nationwide since the unrest began according to Prothom Alo, Bangladesh’s largest daily newspaper.
While a curfew imposed last weekend remains in force, it has been progressively eased through the week, in a sign of the Hasina government’s confidence that order was gradually being restored.
Telecommunications minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak told reporters the country’s mobile Internet network would be restored later on Sunday, 11 days after a nationwide blackout imposed at the height of the unrest.
Fixed line broadband connections had already been restored on Tuesday but the vast majority of Bangladesh’s 141 million Internet users rely on their mobile devices to connect with the world, according to the national telecoms regulator.
Protests began this month over the reintroduction of a quota scheme reserving more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.
With around 18 million young Bangladeshis out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute employment crisis.
Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to the ruling Awami League.
The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs last week but fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the quotas entirely.
Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Protests had remained largely peaceful until attacks by police and pro-government student groups on demonstrators last week.
Putin threatens to restart production of intermediate-range nuclear weapons
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday threatened to relaunch production of intermediate-range nuclear weapons if the United States confirmed its intention to deploy missiles to Germany or elsewhere in Europe.
“If the United States carries out such plans, we will consider ourselves liberated from the unilateral moratorium previously adopted on the deployment of medium- and short-range strike capabilities,” Putin said during a naval parade in Saint Petersburg.
Such missiles, which can travel between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (300-3,400 miles), were the subject of an arms control treaty signed by the US and the Soviet Union in 1987.
But both Washington and Moscow withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, each accusing the other of violations.
Russia subsequently said it would not restart production of such missiles as long as the United States did not deploy missiles abroad.
In early July, Washington and Berlin announced that the “episodic deployments” of long-range US missiles, including Tomahawk cruise missiles, to Germany would begin in 2026.
Putin said that “important Russian administrative and military sites” would fall within the range of such missiles that “could in the future be equipped with nuclear warheads, such that our territories would be within around 10 minutes” of a strike being launched.
“This situation reminds us of the events of the Cold War linked to the deployment of American Pershing medium-range missiles in Europe,” said Putin.
The Kremlin had already warned in mid-July that the proposed US deployment would mean that European capitals would become a target for Russian missiles.
