Global Pulse

分类： world

  • Rescuers search for survivors of powerful Indonesia earthquake

    Rescuers search for survivors of powerful Indonesia earthquake

    Indonesia is grappling with the aftermath of a powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake that hit the island of Flores just before 5 a.m. local time on Saturday, claiming the lives of at least 47 people and leaving dozens more injured, according to official updates from the country’s disaster management agencies.

    Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency confirmed the quake originated at a depth of 15 kilometers, roughly 1,000 kilometers northeast of the popular tourist island of Bali. Tremors from the powerful seismic event were felt as far west as Bima Regency and Bima City, with the worst damage concentrated across multiple districts in East Nusa Tenggara province. As of preliminary counts, 24 fatalities were recorded in Manggarai, 17 in East Manggarai, three in Sikka, and one each in Ngada, Ende, and West Manggarai. At least two people sustained critical injuries, while 11 others suffered minor harm.

    In the hours after the initial quake, dozens of aftershocks rippled through the region, worsening structural damage. Early assessments confirm more than 150 private homes have been severely destroyed, alongside dozens of schools, multiple healthcare clinics, places of worship, government offices, and other public infrastructure. Footage captured at the port in Maumere, Flores’ largest urban center, shows large sections of concrete breaking away from the terminal building and falling onto passengers waiting for an inter-island ferry. When the ship’s gangway collapsed during the tremor, several people were thrown into the surrounding sea.

    Emanuel Melkiades Laka Lena, governor of East Nusa Tenggara province, told reporters that most victims were killed in their sleep as crumbling buildings and rubble collapsed on them. For many residents, the early-morning jolt threw them abruptly out of bed. Arnold Welianto, a resident of the coastal village Talibura in Sikka district, recalled waking in a panic and rushing to check on his child. Speaking to the BBC, he added that many local residents immediately fled to higher inland ground after noticing the sea had receded, a common warning sign of an incoming tsunami.

    Authorities initially issued a nationwide tsunami warning following the quake, prompting roughly 2,000 people in at-risk coastal areas to evacuate on their own. The warning was lifted roughly three hours later after monitoring detected no significant abnormal sea level changes. Despite the cancelled tsunami alert, secondary hazards including landslides have blocked road access to multiple remote mountain villages, slowing down damage assessments and rescue deployments.

    Search-and-rescue teams have worked around the clock to pull survivors trapped under collapsed rubble. In Ruteng, one of the hardest-hit urban areas, emergency workers have set up a temporary field medical tent outside the main local hospital to treat injured patients who cannot be accommodated inside the damaged facility. The country’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) reported that as of Sunday, more than 10,500 emergency aid packages have arrived at regional base operations, with more supplies en route to remote communities.

    Officials note that full assessments of the disaster’s scale will take time, as much of the affected region is made up of rugged, remote mountain terrain with limited transportation infrastructure. Adding to the sense of urgency, a separate 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck the opposite end of Indonesia just days later, a stark reminder of the country’s location along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically active zone where three major tectonic plates meet. Thousands of seismic events are recorded across Indonesia every year, ranging from minor tremors to major destructive quakes.

    In the latest public advisory, BNPB has urged all residents in affected areas to remain calm, avoid coastal lowlands as a precaution, and steer clear of any buildings that show visible signs of structural damage following the quake.

  • Deadly Israeli strikes kill nine in southern Lebanon as tensions escalate

    Deadly Israeli strikes kill nine in southern Lebanon as tensions escalate

    In a sudden escalation of cross-border violence early Saturday, pre-dawn Israeli air strikes targeting multiple towns and villages across southern Lebanon have left at least nine people dead and more than a dozen injured, according to Lebanese state media reports. Multiple local outlets have confirmed the details of the deadliest bombardment the region has seen since a US-brokered truce framework took effect in June.

    The deadliest single strike hit a residential home on the outskirts of Ansar, a community located in Lebanon’s southern Nabatieh district, where seven people lost their lives. Al Jazeera’s on-the-ground reporting confirmed that children and multiple members of a single family were among the fatalities, a revelation that has deepened widespread anxiety among already displaced local residents. A second Israeli strike in the nearby town of Deir al-Zahrani killed an additional two people and wounded several more. Beyond these two fatal attacks, Lebanese media documented widespread artillery fire and additional strikes across other southern Lebanese areas, including Ali al-Taher Heights near Nabatieh al-Fawqa, Kfar Tebnit, and Zawtar al-Sharqiya. The overwhelming intensity of the overnight bombardment forced hundreds of civilian residents to flee their homes in search of safer ground, local reports confirmed.

    The Israeli Defense Force issued a statement justifying the operation, claiming the strikes targeted Hezbollah military infrastructure in the Nabatieh and Ansar regions. The military added that the attacks were launched in direct response to prior hostile actions against Israeli soldiers. This narrative has been firmly rejected by top Lebanese political leaders, who have condemned the strikes as unlawful attacks on innocent civilians.

    Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam labeled the sudden escalation across Nabatieh, Ansar, Deir al-Zahrani and surrounding villages “extremely dangerous” in an official statement, arguing the attacks are actively undermining international and diplomatic efforts to stabilize the border region. “The seven people killed in the Israeli strike on Ansar are not ‘military infrastructure’, and the children and women killed in it are not military targets,” Salam emphasized. He added that any responsibility for addressing potential military infrastructure on Lebanese territory, should it exist, falls exclusively to the Lebanese state through its official army and other state institutions. “Its presence does not give Israel the right to violate Lebanese territory or put civilians at risk,” Salam said.

    Lebanese President Joseph Aoun also joined in condemning the attacks, noting that the escalation in Nabatieh and its surrounding areas constitutes a repeated violation of the existing truce framework designed to reduce hostilities and protect civilian populations. Aoun pointed out that the Ansar strike killed an entire family, framing the escalation as “a clear message” intended to undermine ongoing negotiations and US-led efforts to fully implement the June border agreement.

    Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group that has been at the center of the border dispute, issued a vow that all Israeli attacks will be met with an “appropriate” response. The group also called on Lebanese national authorities to abandon what it described as “humiliating” negotiations with Israel. “Israel must clearly understand that its attacks, violations and attempts to impose a fait accompli cannot continue, and will be met with an appropriate response,” Hezbollah said in its statement. The group added that Lebanese authorities “must not insist on continuing along the humiliating path of direct negotiations and providing the enemy with free concessions.”

    The latest outbreak of deadly violence comes even after a significant reduction in cross-border hostilities followed a June memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, and a subsequent US-sponsored truce agreement between Lebanon and Israel. The terms of the framework call for Hezbollah’s full disarmament, the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied southern Lebanese territory, and the deployment of the Lebanese army across southern border areas. However, major disagreements over the implementation of the deal have stalled progress for weeks.

    Just two days before Saturday’s strikes, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stated that Israel would not withdraw from the territory it currently controls in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is fully disarmed and what he categorized as the threat posed by the group is eliminated. A day before the strikes, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem criticized Lebanese authorities over their handling of the agreement’s implementation, accusing officials of placing unfair pressure on the Lebanese army while Israeli attacks continue unabated. “How can you accept this ongoing humiliation of the Lebanese army, exposing it to bombardment and Israeli pressures, instead of acting as its protectors?” Qassem asked.

    Diplomatic observers note that Saturday’s Ansar strike ranks among the deadliest single Israeli attacks in Lebanon since the June agreement first brought a reduction in large-scale hostilities, and it has thrown new doubt on the future of the fragile truce process. As of Saturday afternoon, no new diplomatic breakthrough has emerged to de-escalate the situation, with both sides holding firm to conflicting positions and violence threatening to spiral further.

  • Morocco detains dozens of migrants trying to cross into Ceuta

    Morocco detains dozens of migrants trying to cross into Ceuta

    On Saturday, Moroccan security officials intercepted more than 100 migrants who were attempting to cross the border into Ceuta, the Spanish-controlled North African exclave, ending a widely anticipated repeat of the unprecedented mass migration event that shook European border policy two weeks prior.

    According to Moroccan security sources quoted by Reuters and major Spanish media outlets, the 111 detainees were held in and around Fnideq — a town located just 3 kilometers from the Ceuta border, known as Castillejos in Spanish. The vast majority of those intercepted were migrants originating from sub-Saharan Africa, who had gathered on nearby hills ahead of a planned coordinated crossing. Local reports note that riot-equipped Moroccan police deployed tear gas to disperse the assembled groups, as security forces moved in to make detentions.

    This interception comes exactly two weeks after an unforeseen mass influx saw nearly 78,000 migrants cross into Ceuta by sea over a single 24-hour window. The city’s mayor confirmed that around 100 migrants lost their lives during that chaotic crossing event. In the weeks that followed, both Moroccan and Spanish authorities moved rapidly to reinforce border security, after unconfirmed social media posts from unknown sources began circulating calls for a second mass crossing attempt on Saturday. Days before the planned date, Moroccan officials in Rabat publicly confirmed they were monitoring these social media calls, and issued a clear warning that both organizers and participants in unauthorized crossing attempts would face criminal prosecution.

    To secure the border ahead of the weekend, Morocco deployed an extensive multi-layered security presence: beyond reinforced police units, the country sent army personnel, naval speedboats and surveillance drones to patrol the boundary, in addition to the new metal fencing and floating barriers installed earlier that week. On the Spanish side, authorities responded by deploying over 1,500 additional security officers to patrol Ceuta’s borders. Leading Spanish newspaper El País reported that security at the key breakwater entrance to the exclave was 10 times more robust than it had been just 24 hours prior to Saturday’s attempted crossing.

    While Saturday’s interception has averted a second large-scale influx, the original late-July migration crisis continues to send political ripples across the European Union. The mass arrival has already sparked sharp tensions between EU member states that participate in the bloc’s open-border Schengen Area, and drawn significant criticism to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government. Italy has already suspended its Schengen border arrangements with Spain, a move backed by Finland and Denmark, while the Czech Republic went so far as to call for a temporary suspension of Spain’s Schengen membership. Sánchez has pushed back against these measures, pointing out that Ceuta is not officially part of the Schengen border-free zone, but the political fallout over the crisis remains unresolved.

  • Despite booming economy, young Moroccans still dream of Europe

    Despite booming economy, young Moroccans still dream of Europe

    Last month, a massive wave of 72,000 aspiring migrants crossing from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta sent shockwaves across the Mediterranean, reviving haunting memories of Europe’s past migration emergencies. But this event carried a striking new twist: unlike earlier migration surges driven by war or extreme poverty, many of those who joined the crossing were not fleeing immediate destitution or conflict.

    On paper, Morocco’s economy is in the middle of an impressive expansion. The country registered 5% gross domestic product growth in 2025, fueled by billions in large-scale infrastructure investments tied to its co-hosting role for the 2030 FIFA World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal. Even with this visible growth, however, the dream of building a life in Europe retains an unshakable grip on many young Moroccans, rooted in deep-seated social and economic anxieties that official growth figures fail to capture.

    In the immediate aftermath of the mass crossing, Moroccan security forces pushed roughly 70,000 migrants back across the border, and dozens of people lost their lives during the dangerous journey. Still, the allure of Europe remains powerful enough that Moroccan authorities have already intervened to block new calls circulating on social media for another mass crossing this Saturday, a public holiday in Spain.

    Experts point to stark, persistent structural inequalities between Morocco’s urban centers and rural regions as a core driving force. Official data puts youth unemployment at 9.5% across the entire country, but that figure jumps to 27% for young people in rural communities. Even more striking are the gaps in overall wealth: World Bank data shows that Spain’s GDP per capita is roughly eight times higher than Morocco’s, despite both countries facing similarly high youth unemployment rates.

    What has surprised analysts most about the recent crossing is the diversity of people who participated, according to Mohamed Benaissa, a researcher with the Northern Observatory for Human Rights (ONDH), which is based in Morocco’s border region adjacent to Ceuta. Benaissa notes that a significant share of those who risked their lives to reach Ceuta actually come from relatively stable socio-economic backgrounds, with many quitting steady jobs as waiters, day laborers, and fishermen abruptly to join the migration attempt.

    One of those migrants, 38-year-old Tangiers-based craftsman Said Tribak, spoke to AFP shortly after leaving Ceuta during the peak of the crisis. Tribak explained he dropped all of his work and traveled to the border town of Fnideq with his children after seeing social media posts claiming the frontier was open. After witnessing the chaotic crowding at the crossing, he took his children back home before returning alone to swim across the border. “My life here was not bad,” Tribak told reporters, “but I thought I would earn more if I put the same amount of work in there as I do here.”

    For Benaissa, the participation of people like Tribak in the mass crossing is far more than an economic protest: it is a clear signal of a deeper crisis of confidence in Morocco’s future, and in the ability of national institutions to deliver reliable social protection and equal opportunity for young people.

    Sociologist Soumaya Naamane Guessos explains that the idea of Europe as a “European El Dorado” — a place of unlimited opportunity — remains deeply entrenched in Moroccan popular culture, especially among younger generations. “In the minds of young Moroccans, Europe is directly tied to success and upward social mobility that feels out of reach at home,” she said, adding that social media has played a powerful amplifying role in spreading this narrative. A recent ONDH survey of 500 young people living near the Morocco-Spain border underscores this: 74% of respondents said they actively follow social media accounts and content focused on preparing to emigrate to Europe.

    Morocco has already seen the rise of youth-led social movements in recent years, including the GenZ 212 collective, which organized large-scale nationwide protests last year demanding improved public health and education services. But Guessos argues that young Moroccans still lack accessible, legitimate spaces to voice their frustrations, advocate for their rights, and participate in shaping national policy. “Young people don’t see themselves as actors in Moroccan society,” she said. “They feel like spectators watching a country being built without them.”

  • Lebanon reports 11 dead in strikes that Israel says targeted Hezbollah

    Lebanon reports 11 dead in strikes that Israel says targeted Hezbollah

    Tensions have surged once again along the Israel-Lebanon border after a series of Israeli airstrikes on Saturday left 11 people dead — three of them children — in what marks the deadliest escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah since a June truce calmed violence in the region.

    The attack comes less than a month before the two sides are scheduled to convene in Rome for an eighth round of US-sponsored direct negotiations aimed at securing a long-term ceasefire and political settlement, turning a tentative period of calm into a major test of the fragile peace process.

    According to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, seven people, including three children and two women from a single family, were killed in an airstrike that leveled a residential building in the southern village of Ansar. Four additional fatalities and 17 injured people, including one child and 11 women, were recorded in a separate strike on the southern town of Deir Zahrani. Local witnesses described scenes of chaos and devastation, with rescue workers digging through concrete rubble for survivors and displaced residents fleeing north to Sidon with their most essential belongings packed into cars.

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the strikes, stating the Ansar attack targeted Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, a senior commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force. The IDF acknowledged that Hassan’s family was present at the property but defended the operation, claiming Hassan had deliberately used his relatives as human shields and that civilians were not the intended target. The military added that the strikes were launched in retaliation for a prior Hezbollah attack that left three Israeli soldiers seriously wounded in the Israeli-declared 10-kilometer-deep “security zone” inside southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces have been deployed since the conflict escalated.

    Lebanese political leaders across the spectrum have roundly condemned the attacks. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun framed the deadly raids as a deliberate violation of the June framework agreement reached in Washington, calling the strikes a clear challenge to ongoing US-led negotiation efforts. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam emphasized that the civilian casualties, including women and children, can never be justified as military targets, and urged Israel to immediately halt its “extremely dangerous” escalation of hostilities. Nabih Berri, Lebanon’s parliament speaker and a known Hezbollah ally, called on US negotiators and truce sponsors to take urgent responsibility to de-escalate before the situation spirals into full-scale war.

    Israeli officials have pushed back against this criticism, framing the strikes as a necessary step to move negotiations forward. A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that the raids should “jumpstart the talks and make them much more serious, not do the opposite,” adding that Israel remains committed to the terms of the June framework, which calls for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, the deployment of the Lebanese army to the border region, and the full disarmament of Hezbollah. Netanyahu’s spokesman also expressed hope that the Lebanese military would step up to secure the border and help remove Hezbollah’s armed presence from the region.

    Hezbollah has rejected the framework deal from its inception and has long opposed the ongoing direct negotiations. In a statement following the strikes, the militant group pledged that the attack will be met with a proportional, appropriate response, and called on Lebanese authorities to abandon what it described as the “humiliating path of direct negotiations.” Hezbollah also claimed the escalation was driven by domestic political calculations, arguing Netanyahu is seeking to ramp up conflict to bolster his re-election prospects in Israel’s upcoming national election later this year.

    The current flare-up comes amid a years-long escalation that saw Hezbollah draw Lebanon into the broader regional Middle East war in March, when the group launched large-scale rocket attacks on Israel in support of its Iranian backer. Israel responded with a sustained air campaign and limited ground incursion that Lebanese authorities confirm has killed more than 4,300 people to date, the vast majority of them civilians.

    A June memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran, followed by a framework ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon later that month, brought a sharp reduction in daily violence. But intermittent Israeli strikes and widespread demolition of civilian infrastructure in southern Lebanese villages have continued through the lull. In recent days, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reaffirmed Israel’s intention to maintain a permanent military presence in the southern Lebanon security zone, a position that directly contradicts the terms of the June framework. A senior US State Department official noted last week that “a permanent military presence in south Lebanon is not consistent with the commitments made in the framework,” setting up a point of contention even before the Rome talks get underway.

  • Family rescued after 16 hours floating on jet ski off Thailand

    Family rescued after 16 hours floating on jet ski off Thailand

    A harrowing ordeal at sea off the coast of Thailand ended in relief on [report date], when a lost family was successfully rescued after spending 16 hours adrift on a single jet ski, Thai maritime authorities confirmed.

    The incident began when the family set out on a short recreational jet ski trip from a popular beach resort along Thailand’s Andaman coast, according to initial reports from local rescue coordination teams. Unexpectedly strong ocean currents pulled the vessel far offshore, moving it out of visible range of coastal markers and cutting off the family’s ability to return to shore independently.

    With limited supplies on the small watercraft, the family faced dwindling access to fresh water and protection from the tropical sun as hours passed. Local search operations were launched immediately after the group was reported missing by other tourists staying at the same resort, involving multiple coastal police units, volunteer rescue teams, and small patrol vessels that combed a wide expanse of the Gulf of Thailand (Andaman Sea correction per regional location) overnight.

    After a 16-hour continuous search, rescuers spotted the jet ski early in the morning, locating the entire family alive despite dehydration and exhaustion. All members were transferred to a local medical facility for preliminary check-ups and have since been reported to be in stable condition.

    This incident highlights the ongoing risks of recreational water activities in open seas around Thailand’s popular tourist coasts, where unpredictable currents can quickly push small vessels off course. Local tourism officials have reminded visitors to always check weather and ocean conditions before departing on water activities, travel with guided groups when possible, and carry location beacons to ensure rapid help can be sent if an emergency occurs.

  • Family stranded at sea for 16 hours after jet ski capsized in Thailand

    Family stranded at sea for 16 hours after jet ski capsized in Thailand

    A French tourist family has emerged from a terrifying 16-hour ordeal stranded in the Gulf of Thailand, after an unexpected jet ski accident left them drifting overnight in open waters before search teams finally pulled them to safety. The incident, which unfolded on Thailand’s world-famous resort island of Koh Samui, began Thursday afternoon when the 50-year-old head of the family rented a jet ski for a planned 45-minute recreational ride, according to local Thai media outlet the Bangkok Post. The rental was scheduled to conclude by roughly 17:40 local time, but when the father and his two young sons failed to return the watercraft by the agreed-upon time, rental operators raised an alarm with local emergency authorities, triggering an immediate search operation.

    Local government official Amorn Chomchoey confirmed to Agence France-Presse that rough sea conditions disrupted the family’s trip unexpectedly. Toward the end of their rental period, large waves crashed into the jet ski, disabling its engine and leaving the craft dead in the water. The vehicle eventually capsized, leaving the three family members stranded in open sea between Koh Samui and the neighboring resort island of Koh Phangan. Search teams deployed speedboats and additional jet skis to comb the surrounding waters, but fading daylight and unsafe overnight sea conditions forced rescuers to pause their operation until dawn Friday.

    The missing family was finally located just before 10:00 local time Friday, more than 16 hours after they first set out on their ride. Chomchoey reported that when the rescue team reached the group, all three were severely exhausted, pale, and had ingested large amounts of seawater after hours struggling against choppy swells. Dramatic footage captured during the final moments of the rescue shows one of the young boys perched on the exposed bow of the half-submerged capsized jet ski, while his father floats nearby in a life jacket waving to approaching rescuers. Both the father and both sons were wearing properly fitted life jackets throughout their ordeal, a factor that officials credit with helping them survive the overnight drift.

    All three members of the stranded group were immediately transported to a local hospital for routine medical evaluations and observation. According to Chomchoey, none of the family members suffered serious injury, and all were released from care just a short time after arriving at the facility. While the three were being rescued and treated, the boys’ mother and older older sister remained on shore at Koh Samui, waiting anxiously for updates on their relatives, English-language Thai news outlet Nation Thailand reported. Once the family was reunited and cleared by medical staff, they chose to remain in Thailand and continue their scheduled holiday, officials confirmed to AFP.

    Koh Samui remains one of Thailand’s most popular international tourist destinations, drawing hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors each year for its tropical beaches and water-based recreational activities. This rescue highlights the risks that can accompany even short recreational water outings, even for experienced beachgoers, and underscores the effectiveness of coordinated local search efforts in bringing stranded tourists to safety.

  • UK-based Afghan writer pleads for country’s ‘abandoned’ women

    UK-based Afghan writer pleads for country’s ‘abandoned’ women

    LONDON — As the fifth anniversary of the Taliban’s 2021 return to power in Afghanistan approaches, exiled Afghan award-winning journalist and women’s rights advocate Zahra Joya has issued a urgent plea to the international community, warning that Afghan women are “fighting alone” against systemic gender discrimination and feel entirely abandoned by the global community.

    In an exclusive interview with Agence France-Presse conducted in London on August 14, 2026, the 34-year-old Hazara ethnic minority founder of Rukhshana Media reflected on the upheaval that has defined her life and the lives of millions of Afghan women since the hardline Islamist movement retook control of Kabul. “I lost everything in my country five years ago,” Joya said, her voice heavy with grief over the irreversible changes that have reshaped her homeland.

    Joya first launched Rukhshana Media in 2020, a groundbreaking independent news outlet dedicated to centering unheard voices and untold stories of Afghan women at a time when mainstream media largely sidelined their experiences. Just one year after founding the outlet, as Taliban forces swept across Afghanistan and seized the capital, Joya was forced to flee her home for the United Kingdom. She still recalls the jarring whiplash of those chaotic August days in 2021: a week before the fall of Kabul, she was working freely as a journalist across the capital, sharing lunch with a friend at a local Kabul restaurant. By the next week, she was trapped inside her own home, effectively a prisoner, as the new Taliban administration issued its first edict for women: all women must remain confined to their households.

    “I really can’t see or can’t bear how the Taliban are celebrating our sorrow in Afghanistan. It is a heavy day and I wish strength and power to women and girls in Afghanistan,” she said, ahead of the August 15 anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover.

    For Joya, life under Taliban rule is not a new experience. She spent part of her childhood during the group’s first period in power between 1996 and 2001, when the regime officially banned all girls from accessing formal education. Even as a child, however, Joya refused to accept that ban: with the help of her mother, she disguised herself as a boy named Muhammad, wearing hand-altered boys’ clothing and cutting her hair short to sneak into classes every day. “The idea came to my mum,” she recalled of that risky gambit. “She made me a boy. She made boy clothes for me. She cut my hair and I went to school.”

    Today, the situation for Afghan women and girls is far more restrictive than it was two decades ago, and unmatched anywhere else in the world. Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban administration has implemented a sweeping series of laws that bar all girls over the age of 12 from attending high school and university, effectively eliminating access to secondary and higher education for half the population. The regime has also banned women from most forms of employment, restricted their ability to travel independently, and pushed them entirely out of public life.

    From her base in the United Kingdom, where she currently serves as a by-fellow at the University of Cambridge, Joya has refused to stop amplifying Afghan women’s voices. She continues to collaborate secretly with journalists who have remained inside Afghanistan, working under extreme security constraints to document conditions on the ground. In a recent project with British national newspaper The Guardian, Joya asked dozens of Afghan women a simple question: what does an ordinary day look like for you now? The overwhelming, unanimous response echoed the isolation the entire community faces: “We’re surrounded by four walls.”

    This July, Joya released her long-awaited memoir, *The Vanishing Girl of Kabul*, which traces her own journey from a disguised schoolgirl in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to an exiled advocate fighting for her community, while chronicling the broader erasure of Afghan women’s rights under the current regime.

    For Joya, the crisis of Afghan women is not a regional issue — it is a global “gender war” that demands urgent international solidarity. “Afghan women are fighting alone,” she emphasized to AFP. “They are in a gender war. We need your solidarity. If there is any possibility to help us, share our stories, listen to us, and make your government accountable in terms of engagement with the Taliban.”

    As a member of the Hazara community, a historically marginalized and persecuted ethnic group in Afghanistan, Joya says that every part of her identity is considered “wrong” under the Taliban’s ideology: “My dignity, my identity as a woman, my gender, my career as a journalist, and also my ethnicity as a Hazara woman.” It is that overlapping marginalization, she says, that makes her work all the more critical to ensure the world does not turn away from the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan today.

  • While Taliban leaders mark 5 years in power in Afghanistan, a UN official warns of a rights crisis

    While Taliban leaders mark 5 years in power in Afghanistan, a UN official warns of a rights crisis

    Five years to the day after seizing power amid the full withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces, Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership gathered Saturday at Kabul’s historic Loya Jirga assembly hall to mark the anniversary of their return to governing control, framing the milestone as a victory that ended decades of foreign occupation and widespread conflict.

    The anniversary event, which drew thousands of attendees including high-ranking Taliban officials, a small number of foreign representatives, and ordinary Afghan citizens, was billed as a celebration of national liberation. No women were allowed to participate in the main gathering in Kabul, and parallel celebrations were held across Afghanistan’s provinces, with Taliban flags and pro-regime posters plastered along major highways and public marketplaces.

    Speaking at the Kabul ceremony, Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat framed the group’s five-year rule as a new era for the war-torn nation. “We pray to Almighty God to forever protect our homeland from occupation, aggression, wars, and insecurity, and to enable our people to enjoy peace, tranquility, and prosperity under the auspices of the Sharia-based government,” Fitrat told the crowd.

    The Taliban first took control of Kabul on August 15, 2021, as the United States wrapped up its withdrawal from the country after a 20-year military intervention that cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives. The final days of the withdrawal descended into chaos at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, where thousands of desperate Afghans crowded the facility in a frantic attempt to flee the country ahead of the Taliban’s full takeover. To date, the Taliban government remains widely isolated internationally, with only Russia formally recognizing its authority.

    In the years since taking power, the Taliban administration has rolled back decades of progress on gender equality, implementing sweeping restrictions that bar all girls over the age of 12 from accessing secondary education, and later extending the ban to bar women from university education entirely. The restrictions go far beyond education: women are banned from most public spaces including gyms and national parks, prohibited from competing in sports, and required to have a male guardian accompany them on all long-distance travel.

    Marking the anniversary in a sharply contrasting official statement, the United Nations’ top human rights monitor for Afghanistan warned that the country is now in the grips of a devastating, systemic human rights crisis that disproportionately targets women and girls. “While the era of war has ended, it’s questionable whether there’s real peace, and the human rights situation has steadily deteriorated, most dramatically for women and girls,” Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on Afghanistan’s human rights situation, said in a pre-recorded video address. Bennett’s investigation has concluded that the Taliban’s systemic gender-based discrimination amounts to a crime against humanity of gender persecution.

    Bennett emphasized that the crisis extends far beyond gender-based exclusion, documenting widespread abuses across all segments of Afghan society. “The crisis extends well beyond gender discrimination, even beyond gender apartheid,” he said. “Across Afghanistan we continue to document arbitrary arrests, torture and ill treatment, extrajudicial killings, corporal punishment, enforced disappearances, restrictions on freedom of expression, attacks on journalists and human rights defenders, persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, discrimination against LGBT plus persons, and the reduction of civic space.”

    He also urged the international community to reject calls to normalize diplomatic relations with the Taliban, warning that legitimizing the regime would abandon victims of human rights abuses. “Normalizing the Taliban’s policies would legitimize the discrimination and tell victims their suffering is negotiable,” he added.

    Taliban officials have pushed back on international criticism, framing their five-year rule as a success story for a country long plagued by instability. In an interview with the Associated Press this week, Molvi Hayatullah Mahajar Farahi, deputy minister for broadcasting at the Taliban’s Ministry of Information and Culture, acknowledged the administration faces “challenges and difficulties” but claimed the regime has delivered improved security, expanded infrastructure, and created new jobs for Afghans. When pressed on the ban on girls’ and women’s education, Farahi declined to address the issue directly, instead noting that investment in national universities has exceeded levels seen under previous governments.

    U.N. agencies have repeatedly highlighted the catastrophic long-term impact of the education bans. UNESCO estimates that roughly 2.4 million Afghan girls are currently locked out of secondary education. U.N. Women said in a statement this week that Afghan women and girls face the harshest set of gender restrictions anywhere in the world, and that the sweeping bans are eroding Afghanistan’s long-term future. The exclusion of women from education and work has created critical shortages of teachers, doctors, nurses, and midwives, threatening to collapse the country’s already fragile social and economic foundations.

  • Moment family rescued after 16 hours floating on jet ski off Thailand

    Moment family rescued after 16 hours floating on jet ski off Thailand

    A dramatic rescue operation off the coast of popular Thai tourist destination Koh Samui has concluded successfully, with a 50-year-old father and his two sons pulled to safety after spending 16 hours drifting on a jet ski across the open Gulf of Thailand, a local senior official confirmed to news agency AFP in an interview on Saturday.

    The unexpected ordeal unfolded when the family set out for a short recreational ride from the island’s shore, but encountered mechanical failure that left their watercraft stranded far from land, with no way to call for help immediately. As hours stretched into overnight, local search and rescue teams coordinated a multi-vessel sweep of the waters surrounding Koh Samui, scanning the horizon in shifting light to locate the missing group.

    By the time the family was spotted, they had been adrift for more than half a day, surviving exposure to the tropical sun during the day and cool ocean breezes overnight. The official confirmed that all three members of the family were alive when rescued, though they had experienced mild dehydration and fatigue from their extended time at sea. They were quickly transferred to shore for a routine medical check-up following their extraction from the jet ski.

    The incident comes amid a record rebound in international tourism to Thailand, with thousands of recreational water activities taking place around popular island destinations like Koh Samui each week. Local authorities have reminded visitors to always check vessel safety equipment before heading out, travel in groups close to shore, and carry waterproof communication devices to avoid similar emergencies.