Six In The Morning Sunday 5 September 2021

 

Afghanistan: Taliban accused of killing pregnant police officer

Taliban militants in Afghanistan have shot dead a policewoman in a provincial city, witnesses have told the BBC.

The woman, named in local media as Banu Negar, was killed at the family home in front of relatives in Firozkoh, the capital of central Ghor province.

The killing comes amid increasing reports of escalating repression of women in Afghanistan.

The Taliban told the BBC they had no involvement in Negar's death and are investigating the incident.

Taliban break up Afghan women’s rights march with gunfire

Militia members fire shots into air and demonstrator says they also used teargas and stun guns

Jon Henley

@jonhenley

Sun 5 Sep 2021 13.22 BST

Taliban fighters have broken up a women’s rights march in Kabul with gunfire as bitter fighting continued in Afghanistan’s last rebel holdout and the US army’s most senior general warned that the country risked falling into wider civil war.

Camouflaged members of the Islamist militia fired shots into the air on Saturday to disperse the second protest march in as many days in the capital by Afghan women demanding equal rights from the new rulers.

“We are here to gain human rights in Afghanistan,” one protester, Maryam Naiby, told Associated Press. “I love my country.” Others in the dozen-strong march said the prophet Muhammad had given women rights, and they wanted theirs.

Yanis VaroufakisA Former Leftist Icon Turns to Science Fiction

As Greek finance minister, he made a name for himself for standing up to Germany. But his political star burned out quickly. Now, Yanis Varoufakis is trying his luck at writing novels.

By Alexander Kühn

It’s the end of July in Athens and the temperature has risen to almost 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). One week later, the forests will start burning. At around noon, Yanis Varoufakis drives up to an older building on his motorcycle, the same Yamaha XJR 1300 he used to ride to cabinet meetings in spring 2015, even as the rest of the ministers would show up in chauffeured sedans.

Varoufakis is wearing a blue T-shirt and cords. He takes off his helmet and gives that look of his, piercing, but not cold. Instead of bumping the fist reached out to him in a corona-greeting, he grabs it firmly. Unfortunately, he says, he doesn’t have much time – but in the end, he does.

Guinean special forces claim to have arrested President Condé

Guinean special forces on Sunday announced the arrest of President Alpha Condé in a statement broadcast on state TV as uncertainty gripped the West African nation amid reports of heavy gunfire around the presidential palace in the capital, Conakry.

In a short broadcast on state TV, soldiers who staged an uprising said they have dissolved the constitution and the government in the West African state.

However, the defence ministry said an attack on the presidential palace by mutinous forces had been put down.

Heavy gunfire had broken out near the presidential palace in Conakry on Sunday morning, with several sources saying an elite national army unit led by a former French legionnaire, Mamady Doumbouya, was behind the unrest.

New Zealand tried for years to deport Auckland knife attacker

Court documents identify Auckland attacker as a Tamil Muslim from Sri Lanka who was granted refugee status in 2013.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says her government had been trying for years to deport the man who wounded seven people in a knife attack in Auckland.

The statement came late on Saturday after a court in New Zealand lifted suppression orders and allowed the publication of details on the attacker.

He was identified in court documents as Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, a Tamil Muslim from Sri Lanka.

Suga's one-year term recalls Japan's revolving door era

By Hiroshi HIYAMA

After a year in office, a prime minister declares defeat and resigns. For a while in Japan, it was almost an annual tradition, and some wonder if it's making a comeback.

The catalyst? Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's shock announcement that he won't contest this month's ruling party leadership, meaning someone else will be leading the Liberal Democratic Party into general elections this year.

Since World War II, only five politicians have hung onto the prime minister's office for five years or longer.

After Yasuhiro Nakasone left office in 1987, Japan went through 10 prime ministers -- including one who lasted just two months.