Vulnerable Afghans struggle as Taliban rebuild Kabul roads

This photograph taken on October 23, 2024 shows a general view of the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood of Kabul as seen from an apartment due for demolition under a redevelopment plan by Taliban authorities. (AFP)
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Updated 12 December 2024
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Vulnerable Afghans struggle as Taliban rebuild Kabul roads

  • Thousands affected by road development works spearheaded in Kabul by Taliban authorities since they swept to power in 2021
  • 3,515 families forced from homes between Apr-Oct when seven informal settlements demolished to make way for development plans

KABUL: Mohammed Naeem knew the Kabul street where he and his brothers built matching apartment buildings was too narrow, but he was still in disbelief as their homes were reduced to rubble to widen the road.

He had received notice 10 days earlier that he would have to destroy three-quarters of his building immediately, one of thousands affected by road development works spearheaded in Kabul by the Taliban authorities since they swept to power in 2021.

Afghanistan’s largest city, Kabul has seen rapid and unruly urban development in the past decades, with side effects of snarled traffic and unregulated building.

While authorities and some residents praise the city’s road improvements as long overdue, many in the country — one of the poorest in the world — have been devastated by the loss of homes and businesses.

“We are pleased the government is constructing the road, the country will be built up,” said 45-year-old Naeem, perched on a pile of bricks in his gutted house in western Kabul, but he is desperate for the compensation the government promised.

“I’m in debt and I don’t have money, otherwise I could take my children somewhere away from the dust and all the noise... I could restart my life.”




This photograph taken on October 30, 2024 shows Afghan school children walking past a house demolished under a redevelopment plan by Taliban authorities, in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood of Kabul. (AFP)

Unemployed for years and having lost his tenants, Naeem and his family had no option but to stay in the shorn-off building — even as the harsh winter approaches — with its spacious apartments reduced to two rooms and a kitchen cordoned off by tarpaulin at the top of a broken staircase.

His toddler son, the youngest of six, swings a hammer against jagged bricks, imitating the laborers his father hired to dismantle their home of a decade.

For now, it’s a game, his mother told AFP, but sometimes he asks, “Why are you breaking the house down, dad?” she said, tears in her eyes. “Will you build another one?“

Some residents told AFP they were rushed to leave, with nowhere else to go, or did not receive any support from the government.

The municipality says those whose homes and businesses were completely or partially destroyed would be compensated and given “more than enough” time to move out and find new residences.

Kabul municipality representative Nematullah Barakzai said the government had paid out two billion Afghanis (nearly $30 million) in compensation this year, with road construction accounting for more than half of 165 projects.

“If you want a city to be organized and city services to reach to everyone equally, you need a planned city... all these roads are approved and essential,” Barakzai said.

While Kabul’s roads are paved, they are often narrow, without traffic lights or markers, with chaotic bumper-to-bumper traffic and accidents a daily occurrence.

The Land Grabbing Prevention and Restitution Commission recovered nearly 33,000 acres of state land in Kabul in two years “from usurpers, power abusers and illegitimate descendants,” justice ministry spokesman Barakatullah Rasuli told AFP.

“This process is continuing rapidly in all of Afghanistan’s provinces,” he said.

This month, the authorities announced work had started on a construction project to tackle population growth and lack of housing in the capital.

Widowed Najiba — not her real name — lost all but one of the eight rooms of the mud-brick home she built for herself and her four children to road expansion.

After a year and a half she has not received compensation, she said.

“I want either that they give me my money or new land so I could build a house, I don’t have anything else,” she told AFP.

“They say these lands belong to the government, if it was government land they should have told us at first.”

Some residents have praised the demolition of homes belonging to former warlords that had blocked roads in central Kabul since a construction boom after the end of the first Taliban rule in 2001.

The removal of barriers and opening of the street at the US embassy, closed after the Taliban’s return to power, has also been met with approval.

But the most vulnerable people have been the hardest hit by the clearances, such as the many internally displaced by Afghanistan’s decades of war, non-governmental groups said.

Sources familiar with the Kabul evictions told AFP 3,515 families were forced from their homes between April and October when seven informal settlements were demolished to make way for development plans, 70 percent of them dispersing around Kabul.

In June, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reported that around 6,000 people became homeless when authorities demolished internally displaced people’s settlements in the capital and called for evictions to halt “until legal safeguards, due process, and the provision of alternative housing are in place.”


Sri Lankans rally to stop deportation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar

Sri Lankan rights activists demonstrate in front of the president’s office in Colombo on Jan. 10, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 10 sec ago
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Sri Lankans rally to stop deportation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar

  • Activists stage protests in northeastern Mullaitivu district and capital Colombo
  • Rohingya risk deadly sea crossings as fighting intensifies in Myanmar

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan civil society groups and activists are mobilizing to save more than 100 Rohingya refugees rescued off the Indian Ocean island nation last month following a government announcement that they will be deported. 

A group of about 100 Rohingya refugees, which reportedly included over two dozen children, was rescued off the coast of the northeastern Mullaitivu district on Dec. 19. 

Several protests were recently organized in Mullaitivu and the capital Colombo after Sri Lanka’s Minister of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs Ananda Wijepala announced on Jan. 3 that the government was in talks with Myanmar authorities over the deportation of the Rohingya refugees. 

“These are stateless people, they don’t have a home to go to,” social activist Thasneema Dahlan, who took part in a protest in Colombo on Friday, told Arab News.

“The Rohingya are massacred and chased and terrorized in their own home, and that is why they fled their own country looking for greener pastures elsewhere.”  

The mostly Muslim Rohingya — the “world’s most persecuted minority,” according to the UN — have faced decades of oppression in Myanmar. 

In 2017, more than 730,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State were forced to flee to neighboring Bangladesh to escape a brutal military crackdown that UN experts have referred to as a “genocidal campaign,” amid evidence of ethnic cleansing, mass rape, and killings. 

As Rakhine became a focal point in Myanmar’s intensifying nationwide civil war, hundreds of Rohingya have been fleeing the country in recent weeks through dangerous sea crossings, often on rickety boats. Last year, more than 7,800 people made such attempts, according to the UN refugee agency — an 80 percent increase compared with 2023. 

“Their objective wasn’t to get to Sri Lanka. Their objective was to get somewhere, anywhere where they could survive,” Dahlan said. “We are urging the government to … please not send them back, not repatriate them, not deport them, because that is just sending them back to death.”

Sri Lanka, which is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol, is a transit point for refugees until the UNHCR helps them resettle in another country. 

In 2022, its navy also rescued about 100 Rohingya refugees, who have been under the care of local NGOs as they await resettlement. 

Sri Lankan activists have also filed petitions with the government, urging authorities to relocate the new group of refugees from the Keppapulavu Air Force base in Mullaitivu, where they have stayed since Dec. 23. According to protesters, aid agencies, including the UN, have been stopped from meeting the Rohingya. 

“Sheltering the refugees under a militarized environment is incompatible with international humanitarian norms and basic human values,” the North-East Coordinating Committee, which organized the Mullaitivu protest on Thursday, said in a letter. 

Ruki Fernando, a human rights activist based in Colombo, said the Rohingya refugees should be “kept in a place under civil administration,” not military. 

“Many Sri Lankans have been refugees. We need to help others. It’s our legal obligation … under customary international law, non-refoulement is prohibited. It means no one fleeing a well-founded fear of persecution should be sent back,” Fernando told Arab News, referring to the hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils who fled the country’s civil war between 1983 and 2009. 

“We also have moral, ethical obligations to welcome, care and support those in distress. Our religious and spiritual values teach us this.”  


Islam ‘places no restrictions’ on girls’ education, forum told

Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Updated 16 min 38 sec ago
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Islam ‘places no restrictions’ on girls’ education, forum told

  • Muslim World League, global leaders focus on gender equality at Islamabad meeting

ISLAMABAD: Islam places no restrictions on girls’ education, Dr. Mohammed Al-Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, told an international conference in Pakistan on Saturday focusing on the issue.

The MWL leader added that anyone opposing education for women deviates from the global Muslim community.

Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference, “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities,” under the patronage of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad.

Sharif commended the MWL for its dedication to education, saying that ensuring equal access to education for girls remains one of the most pressing challenges of the present time.

“Entrenched societal norms intensify the problem of a lack of education for girls, leading to a cycle of deprivation that affects more than one generation,” he said.

The initiative aims to raise awareness in Muslim communities about the importance of girls’ education through various themes, joint programs, and collaborative agreements.

“Our Islamic faith has always celebrated the education of every Muslim, both male and female, because the message of Islam was to enlighten all, regardless of gender,” Al-Issa told participants.

“Therefore, Muslim women in Islam have had a significant and active presence in all spheres of life — in religious matters, the sciences, politics, economics, and societal affairs throughout history.”

The MWL chief said any reservations about girls’ education must be understood as stemming from non-Islamic customs that have no basis in the Muslim faith.

He lauded the initiative as a transformative step for advancing girls’ education, emphasizing its practical and results-oriented approach.

The forum addressed the issue by signing a consensus document, “the Islamabad Declaration for Girls’ Education,” reaffirming that Islam does not prohibit women’s education in any way.

It will be presented to international governmental and nongovernment organizations. The declaration calls for the establishment of an international day dedicated to advancing its primary goal.

Al-Issa said that the declaration will serve to solidify and strengthen the initiative.

The initiative also includes the launch of a platform for international partnerships, along with the signing of several agreements with regional and international organizations focused on women’s empowerment and girls’ education.

The summit brought together over 150 dignitaries from 44 Muslim and other friendly states, according to Pakistan’s Foreign Office. It was also attended by Hissein Brahim Taha, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Taha affirmed the organization’s readiness to support the initiative and contribute to its success for the benefit of girls across the Islamic world.

“Education forms the cornerstone of a strong society and represents a shared responsibility that facilitates progress and prosperity. At the OIC, we categorically oppose any policies or practices that violate Islam’s respectful and honorable teachings regarding women,” he said.


Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response

Updated 12 January 2025
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Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response

  • ‘The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols (politicians) have no idea how to put them out’
  • The fires have so far killed at least 16 people, displaced 150,000 more, and destroyed more than 12,000 structures

LOS ANGELES, United States: US President-elect Donald Trump accused California officials on Sunday of incompetence over their handling of deadly wildfires raging around Los Angeles.
“The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols (politicians) have no idea how to put them out,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country. They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?” he wrote.
The speed and intensity of the blazes ravaging Los Angeles have tested its firefighting infrastructure and given rise to questions and criticism about the state’s preparedness.
Hydrants ran dry in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood as it was ravaged by one of the region’s five separate fires, while water shortages additionally hampered efforts elsewhere.
With just over a week before he returns to the White House, Trump has launched a series of evidence-free broadsides accusing California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of failings in response to the blazes.
Newsom has meanwhile invited Trump to visit Los Angeles and survey the devastation with him.
The fires have so far killed at least 16 people, displaced 150,000 more, and destroyed more than 12,000 structures according to state officials.
“Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost. There is death all over the place,” Trump said in his post.
Despite firefighters’ heroic efforts, including precision sorties from aerial crews, the Palisades Fire has continued to push east toward the priceless collections of the Getty Center art museum and north to the densely populated San Fernando Valley.


Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols

Updated 12 January 2025
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Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols

  • Beijing claims most of the strategic waterway despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling that went against it
  • There have been frequent clashes or tense standoffs between Philippine and Chinese vessels

MANILA: The Philippines said Sunday it had deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea.
Beijing claims most of the strategic waterway despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling that went against it, and there have been frequent clashes or tense standoffs between Philippine and Chinese vessels.
Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to the waters.
Commodore Jay Tarriela, a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman, said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111 kilometers) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.
“Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement.
He later told reporters Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area to challenge the “unlawful” Chinese patrols.
He said the deployment aimed to ensure Chinese patrols “are not normalized, and that this bullying behavior does not succeed.”
Tarriela said the Chinese coast guard deployed three vessels from its Guangdong and Hainan bases to Philippine waters between December 30 and January 11.
The South China Sea confrontations have sparked concern they could draw the United States, Manila’s long-time security ally, into armed conflict with China.


India set for Maha Kumbh Mela, world’s largest gathering of humanity

Updated 12 January 2025
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India set for Maha Kumbh Mela, world’s largest gathering of humanity

  • Over 400 million people expected to take a holy dip in northern city of Prayagraj over six weeks
  • Kumbhs are big test for authorities to showcase India’s ability to manage movement of millions 

PRAYAGRAJ, India: A six-week Maha Kumbh Mela or Great Pitcher Festival begins in India on Monday, a Hindu sacred event that will be the world’s largest gathering of humanity as it showcases religion, spirituality, tourism and crowd management.

More than 400 million people are expected in the northern city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state over the course of six weeks to take a holy dip at the confluence of three sacred rivers — the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the mythical, invisible Saraswati.

Devout Hindus believe taking a dip in the sacred waters absolves people of sins, and during the Kumbh Mela, it also brings salvation from the cycle of life and death.

The festival has its roots in a Hindu tradition that says the god Vishnu wrested a golden pitcher containing the nectar of immortality from demons.

In a 12-day celestial fight for possession, four drops fell to earth, in the cities of Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik, which host the festival every three years by rotation. 

Hindu devotees carry their belongings as they arrive to attend the "Maha Kumbh Mela", or the Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, India, on January 12, 2025. (REUTERS)

The Kumbh held once every 12 years in this cycle has the prefix ‘maha’ (great) as it is considered more auspicious due to its timing and attracts the largest gathering.

The Kumbhs are a big test for authorities to showcase India’s ability to organize and manage the movement of millions of people and retain the ancient festival’s sanctity.

A Hindu devotee takes part in a religious procession of Naya Udasin Akhara ahead of the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on January 10, 2025. (REUTERS)

A sprawling 4,000 hectares of open land along the banks of the rivers has been converted into a temporary city to house the visitors in 150,000 tents and comes equipped with 3,000 kitchens, 145,000 restrooms and 99 parking lots.

Authorities are also installing up to 450,000 new electricity connections, with the Kumbh expected to drain more power than what 100,000 urban apartments in the region consume in a month.

Indian Railways has introduced 98 special trains that will make 3,300 trips during the festival to transport visitors besides regular trains that connect Prayagraj.

Prashant Kumar, the police chief of Uttar Pradesh, said around 40,000 police personnel and cybercrime experts have created a web of surveillance powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to protect and help navigate the sea of humanity at the site. “Security and safety of pilgrims is our priority,” said Kumar.

Emergency response capabilities include 125 road ambulances, seven river ambulances and air ambulances for swift medical assistance.

“I am fortunate to host one of the most auspicious Hindu festivals in my state,” state Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath told the Aaj Tak TV channel.

Women participate in the evening prayers ahead of the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on January 10, 2025. (AFP)

Adityanath is also a powerful Hindu monk and a popular hard-line Hindu politician in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

A successful Maha Kumbh is expected to burnish the BJP’s record of reclaiming and glorifying India’s religious and cultural symbols for its Hindu base, promised by Modi and Adityanath since their Hindu nationalist party swept to power nationally in 2014.

The state government has allocated 64 billion rupees ($765 million) for this year’s event, officials said. It has also promoted the Kumbh Mela at several international tourism expositions and invited foreign representatives.

In 2021, Modi’s government had refused to call off the Kumbh festival despite a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases and allowed thousands of ash-smeared ascetics and devout Hindus to take a dip in the Ganga, possibly fearing a backlash from religious leaders in the Hindu-majority country.

($1 = 86.1650 Indian rupees)