World
Afghan diplomat shuns Taliban rule by refusing to leave post, calls on West to 'mobilize' against abuses
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, Afghan Ambassador to Austria Manizha Bakhtari faced a serious dilemma. Should she continue to represent the former government from her Viennese post or abandon her title and role?
“We were in a state of shock,” Bakhtari told Fox News Digital. “After a couple of days, my team and I came to the conclusion that we must continue as the representatives of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.” The Taliban now calls the country the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
For more than two years following that monumental decision, Bakhtari remains the only female ambassador to stay the course, operating with a lean team from a small office in Vienna. In addition to helping diaspora Afghans with their consular needs, Bakhtari continues to travel to conferences and meetings with fellow world leaders to speak about the tragedies unfolding in Afghanistan. Chief on her list of concerns is the Taliban’s treatment of Afghan women.
UN ADDS AFGHAN CRISIS ONTO AGENDA AFTER TALIBAN BANS WOMEN AND GIRLS FROM SCHOOL, PUBLIC SPACES, JOBS
Afghan women protest against a new Taliban ban on women accessing university education on Dec. 22, 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan. A group of Afghan women rallied in Kabul against a governmental order banning women from universities. (Stringer/Getty Images)
“Five years before, we had hundreds of women in our parliament, in our government, in the civil societies … and now a woman cannot exhibit her rights,” Bakhtari explained. She noted that the Taliban’s “violations and discriminatory measures” against women have escalated in recent months. After closing domestic violence shelters in 2021, Afghanistan’s rulers have begun imprisoning women to protect them from gender-based violence.
Flouting their own decrees, the Taliban have recently arrested young girls and women who disobeyed rulings about proper dress codes. These arrests have specifically targeted women in areas populated predominantly by members of Tajik and Hazara minority groups. These events are accompanied by the stricter enforcement of laws governing travel without a male escort, and the mass layoffs of 600 women at two Afghan manufacturing plants.
Recent reports have highlighted the edicts and directives – over 100 to date – which have whittled away women’s freedoms, depriving them of access to education beyond the sixth grade, and keeping them from moving about freely, accessing public services, or holding a growing variety of jobs.
Austrian Ambassador Manizha Bakhtari operates a small consular office in Vienna, where she advocates for the Afghan women and girls who have lost their rights under the Taliban. (Manizha Bakhtari)
Bakhtari is urging the West to look beyond these rulings to see the societal impact of the Taliban’s misogyny. The ambassador noted that human trafficking was on the rise, particularly as women-led families seek assistance to escape the country due to Taliban restrictions. Bakhtari related that some women have been sexually victimized while being ferried to their destinations.
The State Department’s 2023 report on trafficking in persons in Afghanistan corroborates Bakhtari’s concerns. According to the report, “some intermediaries and employers force Afghans into labor or sex trafficking,” while some Afghan women and girls “are exploited into sex trafficking and domestic servitude” after being sold in neighboring countries, or within Afghanistan. While the prior Afghan government had myriad laws and penalties for various trafficking offenses, the Taliban “did not report any law enforcement efforts to combat human trafficking.”
TALIBAN TO BAN WOMEN FROM GYMS, PARKS BECAUSE GENDER SEGREGATION, HEADSCARF LAWS ‘NOT OBSERVED’
Afghan women wear burkas as they walk along a market in Kandahar. (JAVED TANVEER/AFP via Getty Images)
Bakhtari is also concerned about increases in child and forced marriages. According to a report from human rights organization Rawadari, the Taliban continues to force underage girls into marriage despite Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada forbidding this practice.
In a climate of economic desperation, Afghan girls who lack education or employment prospects retain value in the form of the dowry price they command. A recent Washington Post opinion piece found that in a single settlement in Herat province, 40% of surveyed families had either sold their young daughters into marriage or awaited buyers for their daughters. While the Taliban have refuted these findings, author Stephanie Sinclair insists that life will soon be a “nightmare” for child brides who are “saddled with housework and often subject to verbal, physical and sexual abuse.”
Bakhtari noted that loss of employment, social access, education and freedom have led to “dire mental health consequences,” with “reports of depression and suicide, especially among young girls.” The Taliban reported that 360 suicides occurred in Afghanistan in 2022. Comparatively, Rawadari found that in Badakhshan, one of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, 35 children had committed suicide between August 2021 and October 2023.
2 YEARS AFTER BIDEN EXITED AFGHANISTAN, TALIBAN BANS WOMEN FROM CLASSROOMS, MOST JOBS
A member of Taliban forces fires in the air to disperse Afghan women during a rally to protest against what the protesters say is Taliban restrictions on women, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 28, 2021. (Reuters/Ali Khara)
Bakhtari believes that the Taliban’s actions “constitute a grave form of gender apartheid.” She has joined Afghan women and women’s rights advocates in advocating for gender apartheid to be included in a United Nations draft treaty concerning crimes against humanity. “Only by putting a label on these atrocities will we be able to mobilize real actions against the perpetrators,” Bakhtari explained.
Current international reactions to the human rights disaster underway in Afghanistan frustrate Bakhtari.
She believes that the exclusion of Afghan women from international discussions about the future of Afghanistan “is [a form of] violence against women.” So too are suggestions that the Taliban have achieved enduring peace in Afghanistan. “Peace does not mean the absence of war,” Bakhtari retorted. “Peace means justice. Peace means equality for everyone in the country.”
For the leaders who urge that the Taliban need time to change and modernize before facing international condemnation, Bakhtari points out the generational setbacks Afghan women have already endured. “We have already lost three, four, or five generations of our women going to school [so] even if the Taliban goes today, we need at least 20 years to build once again,” the ambassador insisted.
Taliban militants holding rifles. (WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)
Bakhtari believes some Western leaders remain silent about the Taliban’s rulings out of a belief that they reflect overall cultural attitudes about women among Afghans. Bakhtari admits that there remain small pockets of Afghans in rural areas who see no value in educating girls, and who expect women to don the burka.
The ambassador fights for a more inclusive Afghan culture. She demonstrated family pictures taken after her mother and her mother-in-law graduated from college in the 1970s. Neither woman wears a head covering. Another photograph showed Bakhtari’s parents on the day of their wedding. Her father wore a western suit, his hair slicked back in a style reminiscent of Elvis. Her mother wore a form-fitting dress with a beehive hairdo.
“These are the good examples of how Afghan society works,” Bakhtari said.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Democrat Xavier Becerra advanced to the general election for California governor Friday after pitching himself as an experienced choice to lead the nation’s most populous state and succeed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Becerra leaned on his more than 35 years in public office — including as state attorney general and U.S. health secretary — to argue that he was the most qualified candidate in a crowded field.
“The people of the great state of California, in the greatest nation on earth, have spoken — loudly and proudly,” Becerra said in a statement. “We are never backing down. November, here we come.”
It was not yet clear who Becerra will face in the general election. His top rivals came down to Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator backed by President Donald Trump, and Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire climate activist who poured $215 million of his own money into his campaign.
Born and raised in Sacramento by Mexican immigrant parents, Becerra has a wife and three daughters. He has said his family’s immigrant background mirrored his “underdog” gubernatorial campaign, in which he initially failed to garner substantial support before surging in the final months.
After one of the top Democratic contenders, Rep. Eric Swalwell, was accused of sexual assault and dropped out of the race, Becerra benefited from an opening to coalesce Democratic support. He quickly racked up key endorsements from labor groups and Latino legislative leaders.
Becerra has vowed to maintain the state’s mantle as a chief antagonist to President Donald Trump. As attorney general he filed more than 120 legal actions against the first Trump administration on everything from immigration to climate policy.
The president has also been in a spat with the state over its drawn-out vote count. Trump made baseless claims mass fraud Thursday, and on Friday federal prosecutors said they opened investigations into allegations of election fraud. Hilton called for California to limit mail ballots to those who request them, rather sending them to all registered voters.
During the campaign Becerra’s rivals scrutinized his leadership as health secretary during the COVID-19 pandemic and unaccompanied migrant children crisis in 2021, when Becerra’s Department of Health and Human Services was responsible for shelters where they were housed. Some of them were criticized as having inadequate living conditions, and there were also concerns about authorities failing to thoroughly vet sponsors with whom some children were placed.
If elected, Becerra said, he would declare states of emergency to address high energy costs and housing shortages and to freeze home insurance rates.
Though California is one of the nation’s most diverse states, almost all its governors have been white men. Becerra would be the first Latino to hold the office since the late 1800s.
Newsom was barred by term limits from seeking a third stint in office.
World
US, Shield of the Americas condemn ‘ongoing efforts’ to overthrow Bolivia’s elected president amid unrest
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The United States, along with the other countries that make up the Shield of the Americas, condemned the “ongoing efforts” in Bolivia to “overthrow the legitimately and overwhelmingly elected” government of President Rodrigo Paz on Friday.
“The member countries of Shield of the Americas denounce ongoing efforts to overthrow the legitimately and overwhelmingly elected government of President Rodrigo Paz in Bolivia,” the statement read. “We stand with Paz’s democratic government as it fights back against attempts to drag Bolivia backwards through cynical efforts to prevent the delivery of food, medicine and other vital supplies to the Bolivian people through fake road blockades.”
The statement added that “Mob rule cannot replace the decision that a majority of Bolivians made at the ballot box to turn the page on two decades of corrupt governments.”
It also said that anyone who is funding protests with “dirty money” from drug trafficking and transnational crime “should be held accountable. Those who have legitimate grievances should take advantage of the government’s willingness to dialogue, and denounce those who would abuse their causes to regain power.”
PETE HEGSETH WARNS NARCO-TERRORISTS AS U.S. BACKS BOLIVIA’S GOVERNMENT AMID COUP WARNINGS
Demonstrators march in La Paz, Bolivia, on May 20, 2026, rallying against road blockades and pressure tactics used by protesters demanding the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz amid the country’s economic and fuel crisis. (Claudia Morales/Reuters)
The State Department made the joint statement along with Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The statement comes as Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, has been rocked by weeks of social unrest as mass protests have blocked streets in major cities amid economic inflation and rising fuel prices.
Bolivian Defense Minister Marcelo Salinas resigned Tuesday.
Upon taking office, Paz supported a land reform bill to boost agribusiness that Indigenous farmers said put them at risk of eviction. He further scrapped fuel subsidies, sending prices surging by nearly 90%. Motorists complained that the gasoline was contaminated and ruined their cars.
PETE HEGSETH MAKES HOMELAND SECURITY TOP MISSION IN FIRST INTERVIEW AS SECRETARY OF WAR
The Trump administration has said drug traffickers are responsible for inciting the mass unrest.
Meanwhile, former President Evo Morales of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, the country’s first Indigenous president who ruled for an unprecedented 14 years, is calling for early elections. “Paz only has two paths left: a suicidal decision like militarization or … an election in the next 90 days,” he wrote on X.
Police officers fired tear gas at community members who seized the Humberto Suarez oil facility during protests calling for President Rodrigo Paz’s resignation in Santa Rosa del Sara, Bolivia, on June 3, 2026. The protests have caused fuel and food shortages. (Ipa Ibanez/Reuters)
For almost two years now, Morales has been hiding out in Bolivia’s central coca-growing Chapare region, evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges relating to allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl. He rejects the allegations as politically motivated.
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Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz delivers a speech in La Paz on June 3, 2026, after naming Ernesto Justiniano as defense minister following the resignation of Marcelo Salinas amid protests. (Claudia Morales/Reuters)
On Thursday, War Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X, that the War Department and the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C), a recently established multinational military and political alliance, reject all attempts to overthrow the government of Rodrigo Paz Pereira six months into his term.
Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales greets a member of the country’s anti-drugs forces in Santa Cruz province near the Paraguay border on March 28, 2009. T (Stringer/Reuters)
“The United States is watching. Bolivia must not allow itself to fall prey to the old status quo of narco-terrorist dominance in the region,” Hegseth wrote. “We will continue to support our A3C partners like Bolivia to ensure that narco-terrorists are deterred from profiting on death and destruction in our hemisphere.”
Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
Published on
A court in Mali has handed a 20-year jail term to an official at the French embassy accused of being a spy and “undermining state security,” judicial sources told the AFP news agency on Friday.
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The sentence is a new blow to relations between the west African nation, ruled by a military junta since a 2021 coup, and former colonial ruler France.
Detained since his arrest in August 2025, the Frenchman was also hit on Thursday with a €5,400 fine and a 20-year ban on entering Mali, three separate court sources confirmed.
At the time of his arrest, Malian authorities accused the official, identified as Yann V., of working for the French intelligence services and railed against “foreign states” trying to destabilise the insurgency-plagued country.
He was detained on 13 August in the company of several Malian officers, who were allegedly plotting a coup to overthrow the military junta.
France again insisted that the charges against the official, who was working at the French embassy in the capital Bamako, were without merit.
“Our agent is the subject of legal proceedings involving baseless accusations,” the French foreign ministry said on Friday.
“Our official was carrying out a security cooperation mission and under no circumstances has France participated, directly or indirectly, in the destabilisation of Mali.”
Mali has been gripped by a security crisis since 2012, fuelled notably by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State group, as well as local criminal gangs.
Under junta chief Assimi Goita, the country has turned its back on the West, especially France, in favour of closer ties with Russia.
Mali, alongside its neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, is ruled by military leaders who took power by force in recent years, pledging to provide more security to citizens.
But the security situation in the Sahel region has worsened since the juntas took power, analysts say, with a record number of attacks and a record number of civilians killed both by Islamic militants and government forces.
Additional sources • AP, AFP
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