World
1,000 days have passed since Taliban banned girls from attending school past 6th grade: UNICEF
A thousand days have passed since girls in Afghanistan were banned from attending secondary schools, according to the U.N. children’s agency, which said Thursday that “no country can move forward when half its population is left behind.”
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in a statement urged Taliban authorities to allow all children to resume learning immediately, and called on the international community to support Afghan girls, who she said need it more than ever. The agency estimates that more than 1 million girls are affected.
The U.N. has warned that the ban on girls’ education remains the Taliban’s biggest obstacle to gaining recognition as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.
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The Taliban, who took over in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces in 2021, has said girls continuing their education goes against the group’s strict interpretation of Islamic law.
Despite initially promising a more moderate rule, the Taliban have also barred women from higher education, public spaces like parks and most jobs as part of harsh measures imposed. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, they also banned girls’ education.
FILE – Afghan girls attend school in a classroom, in Kabul, March 25, 2023. One thousand days have passed since girls in Afghanistan were banned from attending secondary schools. That’s according to the U.N. children’s agency, which says that “no country can move forward when half its population is left behind.” (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
The Taliban has barred girls from attending classes beyond sixth grade, making it the only country in the world with such restrictions on female education.
In March, the new school year started with girls barred from attending classes beyond the sixth grade. Female journalists were not allowed to attend the opening ceremony.
The Taliban also have been prioritizing Islamic knowledge over basic literacy and numeracy with their shift toward madrassas, or religious schools.
UNICEF’s executive director called the systematic exclusion of girls “not only a blatant violation of their right to education, but also results in dwindling opportunities and deteriorating mental health.”
She said UNICEF works with partners to run community-based education classes for 600,000 children, two-thirds of them girls, and train teachers.
Although Afghan boys have access to education, Human Rights Watch has said the Taliban’s “abusive” educational policies are harming them. In a report published in December, the group said deep harm has been inflicted on boys’ education as qualified teachers — including women — left, including an increase in corporal punishment.
Also on Thursday, a spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights Office said the Taliban have told female civil servants barred from working that their salaries would be cut to the lowest level regardless of their experience or qualifications.
The latest “discriminatory and profoundly arbitrary decision” further deepened the erosion of human rights in Afghanistan, said Liz Throssell.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called on authorities to rescind all laws, instructions, edicts and other measures that discriminated against women and girls, in clear violation of the country’s human rights obligations, Throssell added.
Nobody from the Taliban was immediately available for comment.
World
Landlords allegedly posting ‘Muslim-only’ apartment ads in violation of country’s equality act: report
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Some landlords in England are apparently advertising “Muslim-only” apartments online, according to a local media report.
An investigation by The Telegraph found that alleged listings posted in London on Facebook, Gumtree and Telegram feature phrases such as “only for Muslims,” “for 2 Muslim boys or 2 Muslim girls,” and “Muslims preferred.”
Other ads appeal to Punjabi and Gujarati speakers, while some job vacancies on the platforms are advertised for men only.
Some listings specify “Hindu only,” in addition to posts that likely use religious subtext by stating: “The house should be alcohol and smoke-free.”
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On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” “one double room is available for Muslims,” and “suitable for Punjabi boy.” A Meta spokesman told Fox News Digital that Facebook then removed the company’s page “for violating the platform’s policies on discriminatory practices.”
Apartment buildings in Westminster, London, U.K. (John Keeble/Getty Images)
The ads run afoul of Britain’s Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination based on religion or belief, race and other protected characteristics.
“These adverts are disgusting and anti-British. It goes without saying that there would be a national outrage if the tables were turned,” Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s economic spokesman, told The Telegraph. “All forms of racism are unacceptable, and no religious group should get a special exemption to discriminate in this way.”
Houses and properties line Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London, U.K. Some landlords in the city are illegally advertising for “Muslim only” tenants across the city, an investigation by The Telegraph has found. (Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images)
One landlord told The Telegraph to “go away” when asked about an ad for a “Muslims only” room for $1,150, and whether it was available to renters of other faiths.
A spokesperson for Gumtree told the newspaper that the company has clear policies in place that prohibit unlawful discrimination.
On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“We take reports of inappropriate listings very seriously,” the spokesperson said. “The ads referenced appear to relate to private rooms within shared homes, where existing occupants may express preferences about who they live with. This is different from renting out an entire property, which is subject to stricter rules under the Equality Act.”
Telegram did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Europe’s critical raw materials crisis has a partial answer sitting in the waste stream — but the continent has been too slow to see it.
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Dorota Włoch, CEO of Eneris Surowce, was direct: recycling is no longer optional.
Unlike plastics, metals can be recovered and reused indefinitely, making urban mining — the recovery of raw materials from existing products and waste — increasingly valuable, particularly for batteries.
“From recycling, we recover metallic aluminium and so-called black mass, which is a concentrate of metals, mainly cobalt-nickel. These are some of the most valuable battery metals. And batteries are crucial today, not only in the automotive sector, but also in storing energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar,” she said.
‘Europe is 25 years late’
Włoch put the scale of the problem plainly. “Deposits are critical — any machine can be bought, but natural resources are not. They are non-transferable and non-renewable. If we use them, they simply disappear,” she said.
Europe’s belated recognition of that reality has cost it dearly.
“The regulation of critical raw materials came 25 years after other regions of the world had invested heavily in deposits. Europe was too passive. Today we are catching up, but the regulations are often so demanding that countries like Poland have difficulty implementing them.”
Who benefits most from extraction?
Poland holds significant reserves of raw materials critical to the modern economy, such as copper, coking coal, nickel, platinum group metals, helium, rhenium, lead and silver.
But the minerals needed most for the energy transition, such as lithium, cobalt and graphite, exist only in limited quantities, forcing imports.
Arkadiusz Kustra, dean of the faculty of civil engineering and resource management at AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, told a panel at the European Economic Congress that awareness of the full supply chain, and who profits from it, was now essential.
He pointed to Serbia as a case study.
“Serbia has lithium deposits and is already in talks with Mercedes or Stellantis,” he said. Belgrade is using that leverage to attract investment in battery factories and car plants, keeping more of the value chain at home.
The goal, Kustra argued, should be regional supply chains that retain added value locally.
“You can earn the least at the beginning and the most from the end customer,” he said.
The bigger obstacle is Chinese dominance.
“Margins in critical raw materials largely go to the Chinese, who control more than 90% of processing and trading, even though they do not own most of the deposits,” he said.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo — among the world’s most resource-rich countries — Chinese entities control around 90% of deposits.
The panel also pointed to growing interest in new supply partnerships, with Poland eyeing assets in the Congo region and the Americas.
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