KABUL: The Taliban’s supreme leader has issued an order banning the construction of windows in residential buildings that overlook areas used by Afghan women and saying that existing ones should be blocked.
According to a statement released late Saturday by the Taliban government spokesman, new buildings should not have windows through which it is possible to see “the courtyard, kitchen, neighbor’s well and other places usually used by women.”
“Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts,” according to the decree posted by government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on social media platform X.
Municipal authorities and other relevant departments would have to monitor construction sites to ensure it is not possible to see into neighbors’ homes.
In the event that such windows exist, owners would be encouraged to build a wall or obstruct the view “to avoid nuisances caused to neighbors,” the decree states.
Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, women have been progressively erased from public spaces, prompting the United Nations to denounce the “gender apartheid” the administration has established.
Taliban authorities have banned post-primary education for girls and women, restricted employment and blocked access to parks and other public places.
A recent law even prohibits women from singing or reciting poetry in public under the Taliban government’s ultra-strict application of Islamic law. It also encourages them to “veil” their voices and bodies outside the home.
Some local radio and television stations have also stopped broadcasting female voices.
Taliban leader bans windows overlooking women’s areas
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Taliban leader bans windows overlooking women’s areas
- “Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts,” according to decree posted by Taliban spokesman
Russia hammers Kyiv in largest missile and drone barrage since war in Ukraine began
- Russia launched 550 drones and missiles across Ukraine overnight, the country’s air force said
- Ukrainian air defenses shot down 270 targets, including two cruise missiles
Russia launched 550 drones and missiles across Ukraine overnight, the country’s air force said. The majority were Shahed drones, while Russia used 11 missiles in the attack.
Throughout the night, Associated Press journalists in Kyiv heard the constant buzzing of drones overhead and the sound of explosions and intense machine gun fire as Ukrainian forces tried to intercept the aerial assault.
Kyiv was the primary target of the attack. At least 23 people were injured, with 14 hospitalized, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Ukrainian air defenses shot down 270 targets, including two cruise missiles. Another 208 targets were lost from radar and presumed jammed.
Russia successfully hit eight locations with nine missiles and 63 drones. Debris from intercepted drones fell across at least 33 sites.
The attack came hours after President Donald Trump held a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and made his first public comments on his administration’s decision to pause some shipments of weapons to Ukraine.
That decision affects munitions, including Patriot missiles, the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile and shorter-range Stinger missiles. They are needed to counter incoming missiles and drones, and to bring down Russian aircraft.
It’s been less than a week since Russia’s previous largest aerial assault of the war. Ukraine’s air force reported that Russia fired 537 drones, decoys and 60 missiles in that attack.
Emergency services reported damage in at least five of the capital’s 10 districts. In Solomianskyi district, a five-story residential building was partially destroyed and the roof of a seven-story building caught fire. Fires also broke out at a warehouse, a garage complex and an auto repair facility.
In Sviatoshynskyi district, a strike hit a 14-story residential building, sparking a fire. Several vehicles also caught fire nearby. Blazes were also reported at non-residential facilities.
In Shevchenkivskyi district, an eight-story building came under attack, with the first floor sustaining damage. Falling debris was recorded in Darnytskyi and Holosiivskyi districts.
Ukraine’s national railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, said drone strikes damaged rail infrastructure in Kyiv.
Indonesian rescuers widen search for missing after ferry sinks
- As of Friday morning, 30 people were still missing after 29 were plucked from the water to safety
- At least four survivors were found early on Thursday after saving themselves by climbing into the ferry’s lifeboat
Gilimanuk, Indonesia: Hundreds of Indonesian rescuers widened their search for dozens of missing people Friday after a ferry sank in rough seas on the way to the resort island of Bali, with six bodies recovered.
The ferry carrying at least 65 people, including passengers and crew, was making a five-kilometer (3.2-mile) crossing from eastern Java island to Bali when it tilted and sank in bad weather late Wednesday, witnesses and officials said.
As of Friday morning, 30 people were still missing after 29 were plucked from the water to safety.
Rescuers said one of the six found dead was a three-year-old boy.
Tearful survivors described their horror when the ship went down, including one man who lost his wife.
“I was joking around with my wife. And then... the ferry tilted. The accident was very fast,” Febriani, who like many Indonesians has one name, told AFP late Thursday.
“I resigned my fate... and asked God to save my wife. It turned out... my wife died but I survived,” said the 27-year-old, welling up with tears.
“I jumped with my wife. I managed to get back up but my wife slipped away.”
Rescuers carried out searches by sea and air on Friday, expanding their efforts along the coastlines of eastern Java and Bali, national search and rescue agency operations official Ribut Eko Suyatno told reporters.
“The land search rescue unit... we ask to comb through the Ketapang beach from north to south. Also likewise for Gilimanuk,” he said.
But as of Friday afternoon, no further victims had been found.
“From the communication that we received, it’s still zero (victims found) from the search,” Yudi, a captain of one of the deployed rescue vessels, told broadcaster Metro TV.
The ferry passage from Java’s Ketapang port to Gilimanuk port on Bali — one of the busiest crossings in the country — takes around one hour and is often used by people traveling between the islands with a car.
Local rescue officials said the KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya vessel sank 25 minutes into its journey.
At least 306 rescuers were deployed Friday for the search effort, the Java-based Surabaya search and rescue agency said.
The search was temporarily halted overnight and resumed around 8:00 am (0000 GMT) Friday in Bali.
Rescuers had deployed inflatable boats, larger rescue vessels and a helicopter to aid the search on Thursday, made up of dozens of personnel, including navy and police officers.
At least four survivors were found early on Thursday after saving themselves by climbing into the ferry’s lifeboat.
Initial search efforts were hampered by bad weather, with waves as high as 2.5 meters (8 feet) and strong winds.
The ferry’s manifest showed 53 passengers and 12 crew members but it is common in Indonesia for the actual number of passengers on a boat to differ from that document.
Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago nation of around 17,000 islands, in part due to lax safety standards and sometimes due to bad weather.
In March, a boat carrying 16 people capsized in rough waters off Bali, killing an Australian woman and injuring at least one other person.
In 2018, more than 150 people drowned when a ferry sank in one of the world’s deepest lakes on Sumatra island.
Pakistan army kills 30 militants trying to cross from Afghanistan
- The militants belong to the Pakistan Taliban or its affiliated groups
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s army said Friday it had killed 30 militants attempting to cross the border from Afghanistan over the last three days, after 16 soldiers died in a suicide attack in the same frontier region last week.
The militants belonged to the Pakistan Taliban or its affiliated groups, the military said in a statement accusing archfoe India of backing them.
“The security forces demonstrated exceptional professionalism, vigilance preparedness, and prevented a potential catastrophe,” it said.
“A large quantity of weapons, ammunition and explosives was also recovered,” the statement added.
The killings took place in the border district of North Waziristan, where last week 16 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a suicide attack claimed by a faction of the Pakistan Taliban.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif lauded the security forces for “thwarting an infiltration attempt.”
“We are determined to completely eliminate all forms of terrorism from the country,” his office said in a statement Friday.
The prime minister’s statement also accused India of fomenting militancy in Pakistan.
The nuclear-armed neighbors regularly trade accusations that the other supports militant groups operating in their territory.
Trump says he is disappointed in Putin
- US leader will also speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday
- The Kremlin earlier said Putin told Trump that Moscow will not ‘give up’ on its aims in Ukraine
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump told reporters early on Friday he is disappointed in Russian President Vladimir Putin and does not think Putin will stop the war in Ukraine.
Trump also said he will speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump said that a phone call Putin resulted in no progress at all on efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
“No, I didn’t make any progress with him at all,” Trump told reporters on Thursday when asked if he had moved closer toward a deal to end Russia’s invasion, adding that he was “not happy” about the ongoing war.
The Kremlin earlier said Putin told Trump that Moscow will not “give up” on its aims in Ukraine.
The pair spoke as US-led peace talks on ending the more than three-year-old conflict in Ukraine have stalled and after Washington paused some weapons shipments to Kyiv.
The Kremlin said the call lasted almost an hour.
Trump has been frustrated with both Moscow and Kyiv as US efforts to end fighting have yielded no breakthrough.
“Our president said that Russia will achieve the aims it set, that is to say the elimination of the root causes that led to the current state of affairs,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
“Russia will not give up on these aims.”
Moscow has long described its maximalist aims in Ukraine as getting rid of the “root causes” of the conflict, demanding that Kyiv give up its NATO ambitions.
Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of people and Russia now controls large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Even so, Putin told Trump that Moscow would continue to take part in negotiations.
“He also spoke of the readiness of the Russian side to continue the negotiation process,” Ushakov added.
“Vladimir Putin said that we are continuing to look for a political, negotiated solution to the conflict,” Ushakov said.
Moscow has for months refused to agree to a US-proposed ceasefire in Ukraine.
Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Putin of dragging out the process while pushing on with Russia’s advance in Ukraine.
The Kremlin said that Putin had also “stressed” to Trump that all conflicts in the Middle East should be solved “diplomatically,” after the US struck nuclear sites in Russia’s ally Iran.
Putin and Trump spoke as Kyiv said that Russian strikes on Thursday killed at least eight people in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was visiting ally Denmark on Thursday.
A senior Ukrainian official said that Trump and Zelensky planned to speak to each other on Friday.
The US deciding to pause some weapons shipments has severely hampered Kyiv, which has been reliant on Western military support since Moscow launched its offensive in 2022.
Zelensky told EU allies in Denmark that doubts over US military aid reinforced the need for greater cooperation with Brussels and NATO.
He stressed again that Kyiv had always supported Trump’s “unconditional ceasefire.”
On Wednesday, Kyiv scrambled to clarify with the US what a White House announcement on pausing some weapons shipments meant.
“Continued American support for Ukraine, for our defense, for our people is in our common interest,” Zelensky had said on Wednesday.
Russia has consistently called for Western countries to stop sending weapons to Kyiv.
North Korean detained after crossing land border: Seoul military
- The Military Demarcation Line is the de facto border area separating the two Koreas
- ‘Relevant authorities’ to investigate the detailed circumstances of the incident
SEOUL: A North Korean who crossed the heavily fortified land border into the South has been detained and taken into custody, Seoul’s military said Friday.
The North Korean, identified as a male civilian, managed to cross the Military Demarcation Line in the midwestern part of the Demilitarized Zone on Thursday, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The MDL is the de facto border, which runs through the middle of the DMZ – the border area separating the two Koreas, which is one of the most heavily mined places on earth.
“The military identified the individual near the MDL, conducted tracking and surveillance,” the JCS said in a statement.
It then “successfully carried out a standard guiding operation to secure custody,” it added.
The operation took about 20 hours, according to Seoul, after the man was detected by a military surveillance device sometime between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. Thursday (1800 to 1900 GMT).
The mission to safely guide him to the South involved a considerable number of South Korean troops, the JCS said, and took place in an area difficult to navigate due to dense vegetation and land mine risks.
The man stayed mostly still during the day, and South Korea’s military approached him at night.
He willingly followed the troops after they offered to guide him safely out of the DMZ, according to the JCS.
It said “relevant authorities” will investigate the detailed circumstances of the incident.
North Koreans are typically handed over to Seoul’s intelligence agency for screening when they arrive in the South.
The incident comes after a North Korean soldier defected to the South by crossing the MDL in August last year.
Also last year, another North Korean defected to the South across the de facto border in the Yellow Sea, arriving on Gyodong island off the peninsula’s west coast near the border between the Koreas.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, with most going overland to neighboring China first, then entering a third country such as Thailand before finally making it to the South.
Defections across the land border that divides the peninsula are relatively rare.
The number of successful escapes dropped significantly from 2020 after the North sealed its borders – purportedly with shoot-on-sight orders along the land frontier with China – to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
No unusual activities by the North Korean military have been detected, the JCS said Friday.
South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung, who took office last month, has vowed a more dovish approach toward Pyongyang compared with his hawkish predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.
“Politics and diplomacy must be handled without emotion and approached with reason and logic,” Lee said Thursday.
“Completely cutting off dialogue is really a foolish thing to do.”
