AFGHANISTAN
Taliban detain UN workers
Some women employed by the UN have been detained, harassed and had restrictions placed on their movements since being banned by the Taliban from working for the world body, the UN said yesterday. The Taliban early last month informed the global body that Afghan women employed with its mission could no longer report for work. “This is the most recent in a series of discriminatory — and unlawful — measures implemented by the de facto authorities with the goal of severely restricting women and girls’ participation in most areas of public and daily life in Afghanistan,” the UN said in a report on the human rights situation in the country. Authorities continued to crack down on dissenting voices this year, in particular those who speak out on issues related to the rights of women and girls, the report said. It cited the March arrest of four women who were released the following day during a protest demanding access to education and work in the capital, Kabul, and the arrest of Matiullah Wesa, head of PenPath, a civil society organization campaigning for the reopening of girls’ schools.
NEW ZEALAND
State of emergency declared
Authorities in Auckland yesterday declared a state of emergency as flooding again hit the country’s largest city. Further north in Whangarei, a high-school student was missing after a school group that was exploring caves got into trouble when floodwaters hit. Fire and emergency crews said they had responded to more than 200 calls, most of them in Auckland. Many were for floodwaters entering buildings, but they also responded to landslides, falling trees and trapped vehicles. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said it was a difficult time for the region. “We will get through this. We will support Auckland through it,” he told reporters. “We know that it’s tough coming on top of everything else that they’ve been dealing with, but right now my request to people is just to keep yourself safe.” Authorities said heavy rain was expected to continue off and on until midnight, although they hoped the most severe downpours might have already passed.
UNITED KINGDOM
Police ‘regret’ arrests
Police on Monday expressed “regret” that anti-monarchy demonstrators arrested ahead of the coronation of King Charles III were unable to join the protest as planned and said they would not face further action. Six members of the group Republic, including leader Graham Smith, were detained in central London early on Saturday as they prepared to protest the coronation. The capital’s Metropolitan Police also seized hundreds of their placards, Republic said. They were released late on Saturday, more than 16 hours after being arrested, prompting criticism of the police. In a statement late on Monday, the Met said that the six were arrested “on suspicion of going equipped for locking on,” referring to newly outlawed contraptions used by demonstrators to attach themselves to each other, an object or the ground. Police were days earlier granted new anti-protest powers by the government that expanded, among other things, protest-related offenses to include locking-on and carrying lock-on devices. The Met said that an investigation of the seized items seized “has been unable to prove intent to use them to lock on and disrupt the event.” “We regret that those six people arrested were unable to join the wider group of protesters in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere on the procession route,” it said.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
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