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China’s transnational repression is real, and host governments themselves are now playing a role in pressuring Uyghur communities.

Social callousness pushes even the prosperous to seek new lives overseas.

After Hormuz, global waterways will return to being sites of bloody contention.

Premier League newcomers Coventry City have completed the club-record signing of Ghana midfielder Caleb Yirenkyi.

La métropole Rouen Normandie a déposé plainte contre l'entreprise BASF pour ses rejets "massifs" dans la Seine de polluants éternels, en l'occurrence le TFA, a-t-elle annoncé vendredi. Une plainte qui concerne l'usine de Saint-Aubin-lès-Elbeuf, classée Seveso seuil haut, qui produit notamment le Fipronil, un insecticide interdit en Europe mais exporté vers le Brésil.

Le feu qui s'était déclaré fin juillet dans le massif du Gros Bessillon, dans le centre Var, est "fixé" après deux semaines et demie de mobilisation des pompiers, a annoncé vendredi la préfecture.

The war is also creating strategic opportunities for Washington and new challenges for Beijing in the Middle East.

The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 expired in 2022. An important bipartisan effort seeks to reauthorize it. 

Alors qu’une femme assure avoir été violée par le prêtre, l’Eglise a classé l’affaire au printemps. L’enquête sur Cristobal Lopez Romero se poursuit, quant à elle, avec la venue à Rabat de deux enquêteurs du Vatican, mardi.

“They say driving is only for men. But women have proved that they, too, can drive.” Credit: Learning Together.

By External Source
KABUL, Aug 7 2026 (IPS)

The Taliban’s rise to power robbed Mehrmaa of her husband, her job and her chance to live freely.

It was a cold, snowy night in March 2022 when Mehrmaa’s neighbors brought her husband’s lifeless body home. He had disappeared more than seven months earlier. Mehrmaa had barely managed to cope with the new restrictions imposed on women by the Taliban, and now she felt as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

“At the end of our road home, there were seven coffins containing bodies that had been delivered to their families. Seven months ago they had been taken alive and now they have been returned dead,” Mehrmaa says.

“I will continue to fight against forced marriage for the sake of my children and in memory of my late husband, until my last breath,” Mehrmaa says

Mehrmaa describes how, in July 2021, the Taliban took over the provinces and its forces entered her hometown on motorbikes. The Taliban raised their flag in the centre of the city as a sign of victory. Government helicopters bombed the city, leaving many people homeless and without shelter. Mehrmaa’s province was the first to fall under Taliban oppression. Many fled in panic.

“The state kidnapped many young men to defend the city, including my husband.”

After the Taliban takeover, women were threatened with imprisonment if they walked the streets alone.

“Women were flogged in public for small and frivolous reasons. Widowed women and underage girls were forced into marriages without their consent.”

Women faced daily hardships, regardless of whether they had male relatives to protect them.

“Now that the Taliban are in power in Afghanistan, what can we do? We only live for our children. Women want to work so they can earn money for their families.”

Under the Taliban, women were forbidden from working. Mehrmaa wanted to continue working to support her children. That drove her onto the streets.

“Now I live a nomadic life with my children. We have no permanent home and we don’t stay in one place for long.”

 

Work became a means of survival

Mehrmaa is a trained teacher and midwife. She treats women’s fertility problems with herbs and gives massages for knee, back and joint pain. Under her late husband’s guidance, Mehrmaa learned to drive. She ran the first driving school for women in her province and taught hundreds of women how to drive.

Then the Taliban banned women from driving. Under the direction of the Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, or morality police, local Taliban authorities reprimanded Mehrmaa and issued her a warning.

“They say driving is only for men. But women have proved that they, too, can drive. Even those who don’t have a husband in their family have learnt to drive.”

After her husband died, Mehrmaa had to continue working to feed her children. To survive, she returned to the city and began working as a teacher.

Despite changing careers, Mehrmaa was once again banned from working. Girls were banned from attending school from high school onwards, and educational institutions were closed to them. Mehrmaa took up work as a domestic helper and also provided personal physical education lessons to girls and women who had been excluded from school.

She is also a skilled physiotherapist. She founded the first women-only sports and massage centre so that she could help women manage their weight and improve their overall health. Mehrmaa’s health advice has given hope to women who had lost faith in their recovery.

Through her work, Mehrmaa met an 18-year-old girl who had fallen into a well two years earlier, damaging her legs, arms and ribs in the accident. Mehrmaa treated the girl’s muscles by massaging them with olive and black cumin oil. In less than two months, the girl was able to move.

The girl’s father praised Mehrmaa’s skills at the local mosque. Men heard about her healing abilities and rushed to propose marriage to her.

The Taliban regime considers it shameful for an unmarried woman to work alone. When the morality police learnt that Mehrmaa had rejected all offers of marriage, they banned her from working.

Mehrmaa rejected a life of dependence on others.

“For the sake of my children, I want to earn my own honest living and not live under the humiliation of anyone,” she says.

Sometimes injustice is a greater pain than poverty.

“I will continue to fight against forced marriage for the sake of my children and in memory of my late husband, until my last breath,” Mehrmaa says.

Once again, Mehrmaa moved with her children, this time to the northeast of the country. She brought with her hope for justice and a better future.

The women of her new village encouraged Mehrmaa to stay and help provide healthcare at local clinics. They told her about the countless pregnant women who die before they can reach a hospital.

The women in the village speak of Mehrmaa with admiration, describing her as incredibly kind and capable.

“It’s as if there’s light in every finger of hers,” they say, using an Afghan proverb to describe someone who is highly skilled and brings much good to those around them.

Despite constant losses, threats, and marriage proposals, Mehrmaa keeps going. She fights for her children, for women in need, and for a better future. Mehrmaa envisions an Afghanistan where women can work freely, study, and take care of their families.

Excerpt:

The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons

Il n'y a plus un brin d'herbe dans les prés de la Martinique et cela a des effets visibles sur le poids du bétail. Les vaches, notamment, sont en grande souffrance et leur survie est devenue un sujet préoccupant.

Longtemps, Thessalonique — qu'on appelait encore Salonique au début du XXe siècle — fut surnommée la « Jérusalem des Balkans ». Mais le nationalisme grec puis la déportation de 96 % des 50 000 Juifs saloniciens et leur extermination, principalement à Auschwitz, lors de la seconde guerre (…) / Grèce, Histoire, Judaïsme, Ville

Conventional deterrence alone overlooks the vector of conflict most likely to define a cross-strait crisis: civil defense.

What does that mean for the future of human control in war – including a war over Taiwan? 

Beijing’s June white paper leaves the U.N.-centered architecture intact – but re-interprets the priorities. 

The conditions in and around Australia’s Aboriginal camps, such as the one where a 5-year-old girl was murdered in April, are shameful for one of the world’s wealthiest countries.

No description

Rising demand will keep coal the backbone of India’s power grid in the coming years. This buys time for executing an energy transition, if India can see through its plans. 

Le pape Léon XIV rencontrera, lors de son voyage en France du 25 au 28 septembre, des victimes de violences sexuelles dans l'Église, a annoncé, vendredi, le Vatican sans donner de détails dans l'immédiat.

Après plusieurs mois de conflit, le détroit d’Ormuz devrait prochainement rouvrir à la circulation maritime. Alors que le détroit avaient été fermé par l’Iran à la suite des frappes israélo-américaine et est utilisé par Téhéran comme levier stratégique, Donald Trump, qui avait fait de cette réouverture un objectif majeur de sa stratégie, présente cette avancée comme une victoire. Pourtant, l’accord ayant permis cette réouverture fait suite à des négociations menées entre l’Iran et Oman, sans participation des États-Unis. Cette situation relance les interrogations sur l’influence réelle de Washington au Moyen-Orient.

En quoi les tensions autour du détroit d’Ormuz fragilisent-elles la crédibilité des États-Unis sur la scène internationale ? L’Iran est-il en train de s’imposer comme un acteur incontournable de la recomposition géopolitique du Moyen-Orient ?

L’article Trump : de Superman à la mouche du coche est apparu en premier sur IRIS.