KABUL: Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, Serena Hotel in Kabul, closed down operations on Saturday as its management was taken over by a corporation run by the Taliban.
Set in landscaped gardens, overlooking the city’s Zarnegar Park in the Afghan capital’s downtown, it was opened in 1945 as the Kabul Hotel.
Heavily damaged during decades of war, the five-star property was rebuilt by the Aga Khan Development Network in 2005, according to a design by Canadian architect Ramesh Khosla, who adhered to the classical Islamic architectural style.
Renamed Serena Kabul Hotel, it was inaugurated by former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, during whose term it endured two major attacks by the Taliban in 2008 and 2014.
The last attack took place under the rule of former president Ashraf Ghani in 2021, the year when Afghanistan’s Western-backed administration collapsed, US-led foreign troops withdrew after 20 years of war and occupation, and the Taliban took over the country.
“After nearly two decades of dedicated services to Afghanistan and its citizens ... Kabul Serena Hotel shall be closing its operations effective February 01, 2025,” the hotel said in a notification on Friday.
“The operations of the hotel will, as from now on, be taken over by Hotel State Owned Corporation.”
The Taliban government-run corporation confirmed the takeover to Arab News, saying that the Serena Hotels group’s contract was terminated five years before it was due.
An official at the HSOC said it was fit to operate the hotel as it was “running several other hotels across the country.”
It was not clear whether the corporation would be able to uphold the five-star level of service as the hotel was the only luxury property in the country — an exclusive venue with expensive restaurants hosting mostly foreigners.
“Most Afghans couldn’t afford to spend the night or have a meal there, so they didn’t really have any attachment to it … There’s really only a select group of highly privileged people who have these fond memories of hours spent at the Serena. The average Afghan simply has no experience of it,” Ali Latifi, an Afghan American journalist based in Kabul, told Arab News.
It was also the subject of an infamous blunder by an Indian news anchor, who in 2021 claimed that Pakistan’s intelligence agency had an office on the hotel’s fourth floor, despite the fact that the Serena Kabul has only two floors.
While the hotel was both famous and infamous, it had never been a symbol of Kabul and its society, Latifi said.
“It took a real level of privilege to even walk through the door there ... It was an elite place for privileged people.”
Mirwais Agha, a taxi driver who remembers construction works when the hotel was being rebuilt, had even no idea how the property looked inside.
“I only saw the cement walls and big cars getting in through the doors every time I passed by the place,” he said.
“It was not for common people like us. It was for foreigners and some rich people. You had to pay dollars to get a meal in the hotel. It doesn’t really mean anything for us if it’s closing or its management is being charged. It never belonged to us.”
Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, Serena, closes as Taliban take over operations
https://arab.news/5t5ys
Afghanistan’s only luxury hotel, Serena, closes as Taliban take over operations
- Serena Kabul Hotel was an exclusive property hosting mostly foreigners, diplomats
- It was the site of several Taliban attacks when US-led troops were in Afghanistan
Thailand repatriates hundreds more Chinese scam center workers
BANGKOK: Hundreds of Chinese nationals freed from Myanmar online scam centers flew home through Thailand on Thursday, as the kingdom said it aimed to repatriate 1,500 such workers a week. Thailand, Myanmar and China have been making efforts in recent weeks to clear out illegal cyberscam compounds on the Thai-Myanmar border where thousands of foreigners — mostly Chinese nationals — have been working.
Under pressure from key ally Beijing, Myanmar has cracked down on some of the compounds, freeing around 7,000 workers from more than two dozen countries.
Around 600 Chinese nationals were returned from Myanmar through Thailand two weeks ago, and last week the three countries held talks in Bangkok to arrange further transferrals.
Thai media broadcast footage on Thursday of coaches bringing hundreds of Chinese workers from Myanmar and offloading them on to planes destined for China at Mae Sot airport.
The Thai border force later said that 456 Chinese nationals were sent back on six China Southern chartered aircraft.
Thai Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura told reporters that the government plans to repatriate 1,500 people per week, or 300 each weekday, with “regular repatriations of Chinese nationals every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.”
Mondays and Tuesdays will see other foreign nationals including Africans repatriated, he said, with the ministry coordinating with foreign embassies to help with “immediate” repatriations.
The remaining freed workers have been languishing for weeks in sometimes squalid conditions in holding camps near the Thai border while officials organize their repatriation.
Amnesty calls for global controls on electric shock equipment
LONDON: Amnesty International has called for a global, legally binding treaty to regulate the production and use of electric shock equipment such as stun guns and electric shock batons.
The rights monitor said the “inherently abusive” equipment was being used by law enforcement agencies for “torture and other ill-treatment” in countries.
Electric shock equipment was being used in a range of detention settings, including prisons, mental health institutions, and migrant and refugee detention centers, the London-based group said in a report.
“Direct contact electric shock weapons can cause severe suffering, long-lasting physical disability and psychological distress. Prolonged use can even result in death,” said Patrick Wilcken, Amnesty International’s researcher on military, security, and policing issues.
The study also looked at the “escalating” use of projectile electric shock weapons, or PESWs, which attach to the target and can deliver an immobilizing shock.
According to the report, PESWs could sometimes have a legitimate role in law enforcement but were often misused, including cases of “unnecessary and discriminatory use.”
“Direct contact electric shock weapons need to be banned immediately and PESWs subject to strict human-rights-based trade controls,” Wilcken said.
He added that despite “clear human rights risks,” no global regulations control the production of and trade in electric shock equipment.
This lack of clarity is exacerbated in cases when PESWs are used for torture and other ill-treatment, as the reports often do not indicate whether the weapon was employed from a distance or was instead used in “drive-stun” mode as a direct-contact weapon.
Kabila holds talks on political outlook amid Congo rebellion
- The discussions, which involve civil society members, represent potential threat to President Tshisekedi
GOMA: Congo’s former President Joseph Kabila has initiated talks with opposition politicians about the country’s political future as Rwanda-backed rebels seize territory in the east, five sources familiar with the outreach told Reuters.
The discussions, which have also involved civil society members, represent a potential additional threat to current President Felix Tshisekedi, who has faced criticism over his response to the unprecedented advance by M23 rebels.
Tshisekedi and Kabila once formed an awkward power-sharing deal following Congo’s disputed 2018 election, but Tshisekedi eventually began chipping away at his predecessor’s influence while accusing him of blocking reforms.
The two men’s relationship soured to the point that, as M23 marched on east Congo’s second-largest city of Bukavu last month, Tshisekedi told the Munich Security Conference that Kabila had sponsored the insurgency.
Kabila did not make any public statements on the crisis or respond to the accusation until he published an op-ed in a South African newspaper on Feb. 23 that accused Tshisekedi of violating the constitution, committing human rights abuses, and bringing Congo to the brink of civil war.
The ex-president has been equally withering in private, according to sources that either spoke to Kabila directly or had knowledge of his recent exchanges with opposition politicians and civil society members.
One source who spoke to Kabila said the message was that “the Tshisekedi regime is soon over.”
“We will see what they do,” said the source, who did not wish to be named due to the sensitivity of the discussions.
All the sources said that, while Kabila and his lieutenants had spoken about some political transition, there was no clear plan or details about how this might potentially unfold.
The talks have been private, though Kabila met openly in December in Addis Ababa with opposition leaders Moise Katumbi and Claudel Lubaya.
Asked for comment on Thursday on Kabila’s reported outreach to the opposition, a spokesperson for Katumbi, former governor of Congo’s copper-rich Katanga province, referred Reuters to past statements criticizing Tshisekedi.
Lubaya, for his part, told Reuters on Thursday: “The sky is grey and the outcome uncertain for the country since Tshisekedi seems more concerned with retaining his power than with finding a solution.”
In a rare interview this week with the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation, Kabila called for an inclusive peace process but was vague about his own goals.
“Our intentions are to be very much available to serve our country, serve our people,” Kabila said after attending the funeral of Namibia’s former President Sam Nujoma and meeting several African leaders.
Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, one of Kabila’s political party leaders, told Reuters that while it would be “good” to exclude Tshisekedi from talks about Congo’s political future, it was important to respect the constitution.
Tshisekedi announced on Feb. 22 that he would launch a unity government, though that plan has not yet been implemented.
Tshisekedi’s government is wary of Kabila.
A Congolese security source and a senior government official told Reuters this week that authorities had blocked a Kabila-owned boat on Lake Tanganyika on suspicion it would be used to transport weapons to groups that would side with M23.
Nehemie Mwilanya Wilondja, a former chief of staff for Kabila, said officials had failed to provide any evidence of those allegations.
Congo, UN experts, and Western powers accuse Rwanda of backing M23.
Rwanda denies this and says it is defending itself against ethnic Hutu-led militias bent on slaughtering Tutsis in Congo and threatening Rwanda.
Mwilanya said the current crisis was reminiscent of 2001 when Kabila took office after the assassination of his father.
Then, as now, forces from Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi were active on Congo’s soil, threatening the government in Kinshasa.
Mwilanya said Kabila, aged 29 when he was sworn in as president, had managed to navigate the crisis far better than Tshisekedi has.
“Given the state the country is in, who should be blamed?” Mwilanya said. “Or better, who should be saved? Congo or its rulers?“
FBI committed to bringing home American hostages held in foreign countries, director says
- Trump administration working to bring home Americans from multiple countries, including Russia and Venezuela
- US government also trying to secure the release of remaining American hostages held by Hamas
WASHINGTON: The FBI will work to “zero out” the population of Americans detained or held hostage in foreign countries, Director Kash Patel said Thursday at a State Department ceremony honoring the hostage community and their families.
“My singular promise to you in this community is that I will do everything as the director of the FBI to marshal the resources necessary to make sure that no other American family feels that pain,” he said during the flag-raising event.
Patel spoke as the Trump administration is working to bring home Americans from multiple countries, including Russia and Venezuela. The government is also trying to secure the release of remaining American hostages held by Hamas, with Adam Boehler, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be special envoy for hostage affairs, leading direct talks with the militant group.
“We still don’t have everybody back,” Patel said. “Whatever lawful authorities we have at the FBI, we are going to give 24/7, 365 days to make sure that we zero out this number and to make sure we prevent others from going into situations that you are now all too familiar with.”
The FBI houses a multiagency fusion cell that handles hostage cases involving Americans in foreign countries. The State Department, meanwhile, relies on a special presidential envoy — the position for which Boehler has been tapped — to negotiate the release of Americans who are wrongfully detained.
“When the president asked me if there was any job that I thought that I wanted to focus on,” Boehler said Thursday, “I told him that this was the only one I would look at because I think there’s nothing more important for this country than for everyone to know that if they’re abroad and they’re taken, that the country has their back.”
The Trump administration last month returned home Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher jailed in Russia on drug charges, as part of a prisoner swap.
Malala Yousafzai revisits hometown after 13 years, recalls childhood memories
- Nobel Peace Prize laureate visits family, schools during short trip to Shangla district
- Education activist was shot by Pakistani Taliban in 2012 when she was a schoolgirl
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai reminisced on Thursday about her childhood memories during a return to her hometown in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Shangla district, her first visit since being shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan targeted Yousafzai when she was 15 years old and returning from school. The attack was in retaliation for her open advocacy of women’s right to education at a time when her district had fallen under TTP control, with the militant group enforcing strict restrictions on women’s mobility and education.
Yousafzai had visited Pakistan in January as a speaker at the global summit on girls’ education in the Islamic world, which brought together representatives from Muslim-majority countries in which millions of girls remain out of school. However, she was unable to visit her hometown during that trip.
She said in a post on X: “As a child I spent every holiday in Shangla, Pakistan, playing by the river and sharing meals with my extended family.
“It was such a joy for me to return there today — after 13 long years — to be surrounded by the mountains, dip my hands in the cold river, and laugh with my beloved cousins.”
She said her hometown held a “dear place” in her heart and expressed hope to return “again and again,” adding that she prayed for peace in “every corner of Pakistan.”
She also extended condolences to the victims and families of an attack at a military cantonment in Bannu this week, in which five Pakistan army soldiers, 13 civilians and 16 militants were killed.
News agency Agence France-Presse reported that the area was sealed off to provide security for her visit, which took place on Wednesday and included a stop at local education projects backed by her Malala Fund.
“Her visit was kept highly secret to avoid any untoward incidents,” AFP quoted a senior administration official as saying, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
“Even the locals were unaware of her plans to visit.”
Local media reported that Yousafzai also reunited with her family in Barkana and visited her ancestral graveyard during the three-hour trip.
Yousafzai gained global recognition after the 2012 attack, when she was evacuated to the UK for treatment. She later became a prominent advocate for girls’ education and, at the age of 17, became the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Her first return to Pakistan after being shot was in 2018. She returned again in 2022 to visit flood-affected areas in the country.
She has been living in the UK since 2012.
