Since returning to power three years ago, the Taliban have been enforcing oppressive laws that violate people’s freedoms and human rights, especially those of women and girls.

But a newly passed “vice and virtue” law goes further. It is among the most repressive and discriminatory measures ever enacted by the Islamist fundamentalist group.

A human rights activist from Afghanistan, and as a scholar working on Afghanistan since 2002, have been documenting the Taliban’s attacks against women for decades.

Tehy say that "the new law seeks to completely silence women in public. They are prohibited from speaking, singing or praying aloud."

"The law also attempts to literally erase them from view, ordering women to cover every part of their body and face in public."

In May a huge iceberg broke off from an Antarctic ice shelf, drifted, and came to a stop - right in front of “maybe the world’s unluckiest” penguins. Like a door shutting, the iceberg's huge walls sealed off the Halley Bay colony from the sea.

It seemed to spell the end for hundreds of newly-hatched fluffy chicks whose mothers, out hunting for food, may no longer have been able to reach them.

Then, a few weeks ago, the iceberg shifted and got on the move again. Scientists have now discovered that the tenacious penguins found a way to beat the colossal iceberg - satellite pictures seen exclusively by BBC News this week show life in the colony.

But scientists endured a long, anxious wait until this point - and the chicks face another potentially deadly challenge in the coming months.

[...]

Kris Kristofferson, a truly legendary singer-songwriter as well as actor, has died at the age of 88. The news of his passing at his home in Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday, September 28, 2024, was announced by his family.

[...]

Kristoffer Kristofferson was born in the border town of Brownsville, Tex., on June 22, 1936. Among his many unique accomplishments, Kristofferson was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, a college football player, a bartender, a Golden Gloves boxer, a forest fighter and an Army Ranger who flew helicopters.

Kristofferson achieved remarkable success as a country songwriter at the start of the 1970s. His songs “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “For the Good Times” were all chart-topping hits. By 1987, it was estimated that more than 450 artists had recorded Kristofferson’s compositions.

Last week on MSNBC, the “Morning Joe” pundits were talking about Donald Trump’s latest scheme to con the rubes, his sale of Trump Watches.

Elisabeth Bumiller, the New York Times’ Washington bureau chief, told her fellow panelists: “He’s entertaining. Let’s not forget.”

But he’s not entertaining, Elisabeth. He’s frightening.

[...]

Time after time, the New York Times sands off the sharp edges of Trumpism:

• The Times described JD Vance’s denunciation of “childless cat ladies” and his lie about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats as “combative conservatism” when it’s really sexism and racism.

• When Trump posted “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,” the Times toned that down with a headline saying he “expressed disdain” for her.

• When top Republicans lied about Haitian immigrants, the Times’ headline said “Republicans Seize on False Theories” as if those theories came out of the ether instead of originating and being spread by the pro-Trump right wing.

• Early in the pet-eating hoax, the Times wrote this headline: “JD Vance Appears to Backtrack on False Claim About Haitian Migrants in Ohio.” But that was an embarrassing misreading of what Vance did. The correct headline would have been: “Vance Says Claim About Haitian Migrants May Be Hoax, but Urges People to Spread It Anyway.” That’s what he did. Three weeks later, Vance still hasn’t disavowed the lie and apologized.

• This past weekend, the Times wrote a ridiculously warm-and-fuzzy mentor-protege story about Trump and Vance, making them seem like Dumbledore and Harry Potter when they’re more like Dr. Evil and Mini-me. (Or not fictional characters at all, but real-life fascists.)

Archived link

Sentiment in NATO is growing to give Ukraine more scope for action. This month the European Parliament asked European Union members to “immediately” lift deep strike restrictions, and so have top U.S. House Republicans and several leading congressional Democrats. Nonetheless, the U.S. approach remains hesitant.

The Tor Project, a global non-profit developing tools for online privacy and anonymity, and Tails, a portable operating system that uses Tor to protect users from digital surveillance, have joined forces and merged operations.

Incorporating Tails into the Tor Project's structure allows for easier collaboration, better sustainability, reduced overhead, and expanded training and outreach programs to counter a larger number of digital threats, Tor says in a blog post. In short, coming together will strengthen both organizations' ability to protect people worldwide from surveillance and censorship.

Bibi Nazdana [have been granted divorce] after a two-year court battle to free herself from life as a child bride [which] a Taliban court has invalidated.

Nazdana is a victim of the group’s hardline interpretation on Sharia (religious law) which has seen women effectively silenced in Afghanistan’s legal system.

Nazdana’s divorce is one of tens of thousands of court rulings revoked since the Taliban took control of the country three years ago this month. It took just 10 days from them sweeping into the capital, Kabul, for the man she was promised to at seven to ask the courts to overturn the divorce ruling she had fought so hard for.

[...]

The Taliban have also systematically removed all judges – both male and female – and replaced them with people who supported their hardline views.

Women were also declared unfit to participate in the judicial system. "Women aren't qualified or able to judge because in our Sharia principles the judiciary work requires people with high intelligence," says Abdulrahim Rashid, director of foreign relations and communications at Taliban's Supreme Court.

[...]

Former Supreme Court judge Fawzia Amini - who fled the country after the Taliban returned - says there is little hope for women’s protections to improve under the law if there are no women in the courts.

"We played an important role," she says. "For example, the Elimination of Violence against Women law in 2009 was one of our achievements. We also worked on the regulation of shelters for women, orphan guardianship and the anti-human trafficking law, to name a few."

She also rubbishes the Taliban overturning previous rulings, like Nazdana's.

"If a woman divorces her husband and the court documents are available as evidence then that's final. Legal verdicts can't change because a regime changes," says Ms Amini.

Archived version

Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) has unveiled a leaked audit report, sent to their Washington, D.C., address, that exposes Volkswagen’s (VW) blatant attempts to whitewash its complicity in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) genocidal policies in Urumchi. The audit, conducted by Guangdong Liangma Law and overseen by Berlin-based consultancy Löning, failed to meet the most basic international social accountability standards. Volkswagen’s claims of being cleared of forced labor allegations are not just misleading–they are part of a deliberate cover-up that implicates VW in one of the world’s worst human rights atrocities.

VW’s December 2023 assertion that their audit found “no indication of forced labor” in their Urumchi factory has now been thoroughly discredited by this leaked audit report, which CFU exclusively received in August 2024.

[...]

The leaked audit shows that interviews were live-streamed to law offices in Shenzhen, directly enabling Chinese state surveillance. In addition, the report showed that only managers were asked questions related to forced labor. Volkswagen’s Urumchi plant, which operates in partnership with state-owned SAIC Motor Corporation, employs 197 staff, nearly a quarter of whom are Uyghur. However, the audit’s failure to directly question workers about forced labor practices undermines the integrity of the findings, further implicating VW in the region’s human rights abuses.

[...]

Volkswagen has yet to provide a detailed response to these allegations, citing “contractual confidentiality obligations.”

[...]

Archived version

Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) has unveiled a leaked audit report, sent to their Washington, D.C., address, that exposes Volkswagen’s (VW) blatant attempts to whitewash its complicity in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) genocidal policies in Urumchi. The audit, conducted by Guangdong Liangma Law and overseen by Berlin-based consultancy Löning, failed to meet the most basic international social accountability standards. Volkswagen’s claims of being cleared of forced labor allegations are not just misleading–they are part of a deliberate cover-up that implicates VW in one of the world’s worst human rights atrocities.

VW’s December 2023 assertion that their audit found “no indication of forced labor” in their Urumchi factory has now been thoroughly discredited by this leaked audit report, which CFU exclusively received in August 2024.

[...]

The leaked audit shows that interviews were live-streamed to law offices in Shenzhen, directly enabling Chinese state surveillance. In addition, the report showed that only managers were asked questions related to forced labor. Volkswagen’s Urumchi plant, which operates in partnership with state-owned SAIC Motor Corporation, employs 197 staff, nearly a quarter of whom are Uyghur. However, the audit’s failure to directly question workers about forced labor practices undermines the integrity of the findings, further implicating VW in the region’s human rights abuses.

[...]

Volkswagen has yet to provide a detailed response to these allegations, citing “contractual confidentiality obligations.”

[...]

Archived version

Campaign for Uyghurs (CFU) has unveiled a leaked audit report, sent to their Washington, D.C., address, that exposes Volkswagen’s (VW) blatant attempts to whitewash its complicity in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) genocidal policies in Urumchi. The audit, conducted by Guangdong Liangma Law and overseen by Berlin-based consultancy Löning, failed to meet the most basic international social accountability standards. Volkswagen’s claims of being cleared of forced labor allegations are not just misleading–they are part of a deliberate cover-up that implicates VW in one of the world’s worst human rights atrocities.

VW’s December 2023 assertion that their audit found “no indication of forced labor” in their Urumchi factory has now been thoroughly discredited by this leaked audit report, which CFU exclusively received in August 2024.

[...]

The leaked audit shows that interviews were live-streamed to law offices in Shenzhen, directly enabling Chinese state surveillance. In addition, the report showed that only managers were asked questions related to forced labor. Volkswagen’s Urumchi plant, which operates in partnership with state-owned SAIC Motor Corporation, employs 197 staff, nearly a quarter of whom are Uyghur. However, the audit’s failure to directly question workers about forced labor practices undermines the integrity of the findings, further implicating VW in the region’s human rights abuses.

[...]

Volkswagen has yet to provide a detailed response to these allegations, citing “contractual confidentiality obligations.”

[...]

Bibi Nazdana [have been granted divorce] after a two-year court battle to free herself from life as a child bride [which] a Taliban court has invalidated.

Nazdana is a victim of the group’s hardline interpretation on Sharia (religious law) which has seen women effectively silenced in Afghanistan’s legal system.

Nazdana’s divorce is one of tens of thousands of court rulings revoked since the Taliban took control of the country three years ago this month. It took just 10 days from them sweeping into the capital, Kabul, for the man she was promised to at seven to ask the courts to overturn the divorce ruling she had fought so hard for.

[...]

The Taliban have also systematically removed all judges – both male and female – and replaced them with people who supported their hardline views.

Women were also declared unfit to participate in the judicial system. "Women aren't qualified or able to judge because in our Sharia principles the judiciary work requires people with high intelligence," says Abdulrahim Rashid, director of foreign relations and communications at Taliban's Supreme Court.

[...]

Former Supreme Court judge Fawzia Amini - who fled the country after the Taliban returned - says there is little hope for women’s protections to improve under the law if there are no women in the courts.

"We played an important role," she says. "For example, the Elimination of Violence against Women law in 2009 was one of our achievements. We also worked on the regulation of shelters for women, orphan guardianship and the anti-human trafficking law, to name a few."

She also rubbishes the Taliban overturning previous rulings, like Nazdana's.

"If a woman divorces her husband and the court documents are available as evidence then that's final. Legal verdicts can't change because a regime changes," says Ms Amini.

Diplomats and other officials walked out of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Friday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to defend his nation's slaughter of more than 41,000 people in the Gaza Strip during the past year and over 700 in Lebanon this week.

Journalists and critics of the "global pariah" shared photos and videos of people filing out of the hall before Netanyahu's address—which came just a day after 25 anti-genocide protesters were arrested for blocking his motorcade in Manhattan.

While there was some audience applause from the sparsely populated room on Friday, Al Jazeera Arabic's Rami Ayari explained that "the people you hear cheering the PM during the speech are in the gallery who he brought for that purpose.".

[...]

Slovenia Prime Minister Robert Golob: "I want to say this out loud and clear to the Israeli Government: Stop the bloodshed. Stop the suffering. Bring the hostages home and end the occupation. Mr. Netanyahu, stop this war now!"

[...]

Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court prosecutor has sought arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—one of whom Israel recently assassinated in Iran. Israel also claims to have killed a second Hamas leader, which the group has denied.

Archived version

In what we can only assume is an effort to prove he’s not weird by standing next to people who may be even weirder than he is, JD Vance will be doing a town hall today with Christian extremist Lance Wallnau during a Monroeville stop on Wallnau’s “Courage Tour.”

[...]

Wallnau is a leader in the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement and one of the authors of Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate — a deeply disturbing Christian movement centered on them taking over the “seven spheres” of society — family, religion, education, media/entertainment, business, government, and science/technology (the science and technology mountain was added after COVID; media and entertainment used to be separate mountains). Once they do that, not only will they be in control of all of us … Jesus will come back!

[...]

Wallnau sees himself not just as a guy trying to practice his own religion in peace, but as engaging in “spiritual warfare” against the rest of us. Why? Because of how we are all demonic.

“The Left is loaded with demons,” Wallnau has said. “I don’t think it’s people anymore. I think you’re dealing with demons talking through people.”

[...]

Project 2025 intends to use U.S. foreign assistance programs to push conservative culture wars worldwide, conditioning aid on restricting abortion and pulling all funding for climate change.

Jeremy Konyndyk, who worked in the U.S. Agency for International Development under President Biden & Obama, says the culture war obsessions in this chapter would ally the U.S. with authoritarian countries around the world.

Archived version

[...]

Over the past three decades, Jimmy Lai’s name has become synonymous with Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy: his newspaper Apple Daily, which was launched in the mid-90s, morphed from a local tabloid to what was widely considered a bold pro-democracy voice and critic of Beijing — until it was shut down by authorities in 2021.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, was handed back to China in 1997. The civil liberties and freedoms enjoyed in the special administrative region were to be preserved for at least 50 years under the "one country, two systems" framework, however, Beijing has made increasing efforts to control Hong Kong’s political system and silence dissent in the less than 30 years since.

Lai has experienced China's encroachment first-hand.

He was first arrested during the Umbrella Movement of 2014 when tens of thousands of people took to the streets and staged a months-long sit-in in protest against the Chinese government's plan to restrict elections.

[...]

Jimmy Lai was arrested in August 2020 and has since been held in a maximum-security prison in Hong Kong on a number of charges under the national security law.

"They’re drawing out his trial and it’s inhumane because, at almost 77, he is being kept in a cell in solitary confinement for more than 1300 days; he doesn’t get any natural light," Sebastien [Lai, who is Jimmy Lai's son] says.

[...]

Archived version

[...]

Over the past three decades, Jimmy Lai’s name has become synonymous with Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy: his newspaper Apple Daily, which was launched in the mid-90s, morphed from a local tabloid to what was widely considered a bold pro-democracy voice and critic of Beijing — until it was shut down by authorities in 2021.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, was handed back to China in 1997. The civil liberties and freedoms enjoyed in the special administrative region were to be preserved for at least 50 years under the "one country, two systems" framework, however, Beijing has made increasing efforts to control Hong Kong’s political system and silence dissent in the less than 30 years since.

Lai has experienced China's encroachment first-hand.

He was first arrested during the Umbrella Movement of 2014 when tens of thousands of people took to the streets and staged a months-long sit-in in protest against the Chinese government's plan to restrict elections.

[...]

Jimmy Lai was arrested in August 2020 and has since been held in a maximum-security prison in Hong Kong on a number of charges under the national security law.

"They’re drawing out his trial and it’s inhumane because, at almost 77, he is being kept in a cell in solitary confinement for more than 1300 days; he doesn’t get any natural light," Sebastien [Lai, who is Jimmy Lai's son] says.

[...]

Archived version

[...]

Over the past three decades, Jimmy Lai’s name has become synonymous with Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy: his newspaper Apple Daily, which was launched in the mid-90s, morphed from a local tabloid to what was widely considered a bold pro-democracy voice and critic of Beijing — until it was shut down by authorities in 2021.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, was handed back to China in 1997. The civil liberties and freedoms enjoyed in the special administrative region were to be preserved for at least 50 years under the "one country, two systems" framework, however, Beijing has made increasing efforts to control Hong Kong’s political system and silence dissent in the less than 30 years since.

Lai has experienced China's encroachment first-hand.

He was first arrested during the Umbrella Movement of 2014 when tens of thousands of people took to the streets and staged a months-long sit-in in protest against the Chinese government's plan to restrict elections.

[...]

Jimmy Lai was arrested in August 2020 and has since been held in a maximum-security prison in Hong Kong on a number of charges under the national security law.

"They’re drawing out his trial and it’s inhumane because, at almost 77, he is being kept in a cell in solitary confinement for more than 1300 days; he doesn’t get any natural light," Sebastien [Lai, who is Jimmy Lai's son] says.

[...]

[Edit typo.]

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said on Sept 27 it has conducted secret inspections into recent allegations of forced shopping, with findings confirming that such practices exist on some level among tourism packages there.

The city hired several foreign nationals to pose as tourists in seven low-priced package tours – three that were sold in China and four sold in Vietnam – to check the programmes’ quality.

Most of the packages focused more on shopping than tourism, which the city government’s agents said hindered them from enjoying Seoul’s history and culture.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said on Sept 27 it has conducted secret inspections into recent allegations of forced shopping, with findings confirming that such practices exist on some level among tourism packages there.

The city hired several foreign nationals to pose as tourists in seven low-priced package tours – three that were sold in China and four sold in Vietnam – to check the programmes’ quality.

Most of the packages focused more on shopping than tourism, which the city government’s agents said hindered them from enjoying Seoul’s history and culture.

Microsoft says it has “listened to feedback” following a privacy row over a new tool which takes regular screenshots of users’ activity.

It was labelled a potential “privacy nightmare” by critics when it was unveiled in May 2024 - prompting the tech giant to postpone its release. It now plans to relaunch the artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool in November on its new CoPilot+ computers.

[...]

When it initially announced the tool at its developer conference in May, Microsoft said it used AI "to make it possible to access virtually anything you have ever seen on your PC", and likened it to having photographic memory. It said Recall could search through a users' past activity, including their files, photos, emails and browsing history.

[...]

But critics quickly raised concerns, given the quantity of sensitive data the system would harvest, with one expert labelling it a potential “privacy nightmare."

[...]

[Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Windows and devices says] that "Windows offers tools to help you control your privacy and customise what gets saved for you to find later".

However a technical blog about it states that “diagnostic data” from the tool may be shared with the firm depending on individual privacy settings.

[Microsoft says in a blog post that users can remove Recall entirely by using the optional features settings in Windows.]