Debate on Afghanistan's first post-Taliban constitution went on Friday, through the Muslim day of rest, as delegates tried to shake off controversy over the prominence of warlords at the historic convention. \nThe meeting in a huge tent at a Kabul college campus is supposed to decide critical issues such as how to share power in a country riven by ethnic divides inflamed by more than two decades of war. \nBut the slow-paced proceedings have been overshadowed by a row over a female delegate's outburst against powerful faction leaders who hold key posts at the grand council, or Loya Jirga. \n"Some of us have come from far away and don't want to waste our time," said Fazel-ul Rahman Samkanai, a delegate from the southeastern province of Paktia. "We want to make up for the days we have already lost." \nThe UN granted protection to Malalai Joya, a delegate from western Farah province, amid concern for her safety after she on Wednesday denounced as "criminals" faction leaders such as former president Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a deeply conservative Islamist. \nBoth men command respect for their role in the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s. But they were also participants in the ruinous civil war that followed. \nSamkanai, speaking to the Associated Press by telephone during a break in the closed-door discussions, said Joya was continuing to attend, but that she was spending the night under UN protection. \n"When she comes of the tent, two UN security guards escort her," Samkanai said. \nThe 500 delegates from across the country have broken up into 10 committees for article-by-article discussions on the draft constitution, presented last month by the government of President Hamid Karzai. \nDetailed talks only got under way Thursday, the fifth day of the gathering, and the council's deputy chairwoman, Safai Sediqi, said Friday that all of the committees were lagging. \nSome of the most sensitive issues -- the powers of the president, the role of Islam and the rights of women -- were among the first to be discussed. \nRights groups worry that references in the draft to citizens' rights could be overridden if Islamic conservatives control the legislature or the supreme court. \n"There is no article that talks specifically about women," Nadera Hayat Burhani, a delegate from northern Balkh province, said Thursday, pleading also for an explicit ban on trafficking in women. \nThe council is taking place under tight security amid fresh evidence that suspected Taliban rebels and their al-Qaeda allies might try to attack the session. \nInterior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said Thursday that police deactivated a bomb outside a Chinese restaurant in Kabul popular with foreigners. Three rockets slammed into Kabul early Tuesday, but none landed near the site of the council or caused major damage.
Sitting in a lotus position, four men weave glittering beads through gold thread on an organza sheet, carefully constructing a wedding dress that would soon wow crowds at Paris Fashion Week. For once, the French couturier behind the design, Julien Fournie, is determined to put these craftsmen in the spotlight. His new collection, which showed in Paris on Tuesday, was entirely made with fabrics from Mumbai. He said that a sort of “design imperialism” means that French fashion houses often play down that their fabrics are made outside France. “The houses which don’t admit it are perhaps afraid of losing their clientele,” Fournie
A court in Thailand sentenced a 27-year-old political activist to 28 years in prison on Thursday for posting messages on Facebook that it said defamed the country’s monarchy, while two young women charged with the same offense continued a hunger strike after being hospitalized. The court in the northern province of Chiang Rai found that Mongkhon Thirakot contravened the lese majeste law in 14 of 27 posts for which he was arrested in August last year. The law covers the king, queen and heirs, and any regent. The lese majeste law carries a prison term of three to 15 years per incident for
A gunman killed 10 people and wounded 10 others at a Los Angeles-area ballroom dance club following a Lunar New Year celebration, setting off a manhunt for the suspect in the latest mass shooting tragedy in an American community. Captain Andrew Meyer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said Sunday that the wounded were taken to hospitals and their conditions range from stable to critical. He said the 10 people died at the scene in the city of Monterey Park. Meyer said people were “pouring out of the location screaming” when officers arrived at around 10:30 pm Saturday. He said officers then
INSTABILITY: The country has seen a 33 percent increase in land that cultivates poppies since the military took over the government in 2021, a UN report said The production of opium in Myanmar has flourished since the military’s seizure of power, with the cultivation of poppies up by one-third in the past year, as eradication efforts have dropped and the faltering economy has led more people toward the drug trade, a UN report released yesterday showed. Last year, the first full growing season since the military wrested control of the country from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, saw a 33 percent increase in Myanmar’s cultivation area to 40,100 hectares, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report said. “Economic, security and governance disruptions
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