Afghanistan
Taliban had a ‘massive chilling effect’ on Afghan crypto market: Report
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan has had a “massive chilling effect” on the local cryptocurrency market, bringing it to an effective “standstill,” according to a recent report. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis in an Oct. 5 report stated the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region saw the largest crypto market growth in 2022 but noted that Afghani crypto dealers had three options: “flee the country, cease operations, or risk arrest.” The report states after the Taliban seized power in August 2021, crypto value received in August and September that year spiked to a peak of over $150 million, then fell sharply the following month. Before the takeover, Afghani citizens would on average receive $68 million per month in crypto value mainly used for remittances. That ...
President Joe Biden Confirms Al-Qaeda Head al-Zawahiri Killed In Surprise Drone Strike
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Maher Attar / Getty In a surprising move, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization and a key engineer of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the U.S., was killed by an American drone strike in Afghanistan. According to reports, President Joe Biden gave the strike the green light, and it took place in the early morning hours last Sunday (July 31st). al-Zawahiri was hiding at a house in a central neighborhood in the capital city of Kabul. Intelligence agencies confirmed he was there earlier this year after relocating from a tribal area within neighboring Pakistan. Related Stories After the authorization, a drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agency fired two Hellfire missiles, striking the terror leader as he was on the ba...
How Spotify Helped Nearly 300 Afghan Music Students and Teachers Reach Portugal
On Dec. 1, Elizabeth Nieto‘s boss at Spotify — chief human resources officer Katarina Berg — learned that nearly 300 Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) students and teachers and their families were in limbo in Doha, Qatar. Promised asylum in Lisbon, Portugal, they were attempting to charter a plane to the European city and needed money. “See what we can do,” Berg told Nieto, the streaming giant’s global head of equity and impact. Nieto had to wrangle with Spotify’s in-house lawyers to cut a sizable check for the plane by Dec. 6; on Monday (Dec. 13), the SAS flight carrying 273 Afghans landed in Lisbon, where the musicians and faculty members will be able to recreate their school. “The renaissance of Afghanistan music will start in Lisbon,” Nieto says. “We have an opportunity to...
Taliban Bans Public Music In Afghanistan
In the wake of the United States’ ongoing withdrawal from Afghanistan and the impending takeover of the nation by the Taliban, the country is experiencing a concerted cultural shock impacting nearly all aspects of daily life. One Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, who Newsweek notes is a likely figure for the nation’s Minister of Information and Culture, has already indicated the public presence of music is going to be banned. “Music is forbidden in Islam,” Mujahid bluntly stated. “But we’re hoping that we can persuade people not to do such things, instead of pressuring them.” The regressive position was similarly held by the Taliban when they last ruled the country from 1996 to 2001. Such proclamations have already resu...
Afghanistan Music School for Girls Appeals for Help Escaping the Taliban
Afghanistan’s only music school for girls is sending out a cry for help to get its students safely out of the country following the takeover of the Taliban. “Today our lives are in great danger as the success we achieved in becoming part of Afghanistan’s cultural scene has now marked us for persecution and even death by the Taliban,” The Miraculous Love Kids, led by American guitarist and teacher Lanny Cordola, shared in a heartbreaking statement. “Now, with the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Kabul, we are literally in hiding, with our most senior students in particular danger. Our school is closed, and many of the people who were supposed to protect us now see us as a bargaining chip to gain favor or even a bounty from the Taliban. As girls playing Western music…we could not be at greater ri...
Lithuania begins building barrier on border with Belarus to block migrants
Lithuania began building a barrier along its border with Belarus on Friday after accusing Belarusian authorities of flying in migrants from abroad to send illegally into the European Union. The first stretch of barrier will run 500 metres (1,640 feet) in length, measure 1.8 metres (six feet) in height and consist of concertina and razor wire, the army defence chief’s spokeswoman Ruta Montvile told Reuters. Belarus in May decided to allow migrants to enter EU member Lithuania in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the bloc after Minsk forced a Ryanair flight to land on its soil and arrested a dissident blogger who was on board. “If someone thinks we will close our border with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine and will become a holding site for those running from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq...
Court jails three for Facebook scam
Justice C.L. Dabup of the Plateau State High Court sitting in Jos, on Wednesday sentenced three internet fraudsters, Nbubuisi Kerian Ozomba, Paul Obide and Samuel Chukwuebuka Nduchukwe to one-month imprisonment. The trio were convicted for obtaining money by false pretence through the social media platform, Facebook. They were arrested in a sting operation by the Abuja Zonal Office of the EFCC following intelligence on their alleged involvement in an internet-related scam. Investigation revealed that Ozomba created a Facebook Account with the name James Hicks with a profile picture of an American military officer and obtained the sum of $350 USD from Mary Lovely, a Filipino; while Obide (alias Javier Espinal) posed as a military officer from Spain and obtained $2000 from another Filipino, ...
ICC swears in Karim Khan as new chief prosecutor
British lawyer Karim Asad Ahmad Khan has been sworn in as the new chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He will perform his duties “honourably, faithfully, impartially and conscientiously,’’ Khan promised before the judges in The Hague on Wednesday. The representatives of the court’s 123 state parties had elected Khan in February. The 51-year-old succeeds Fatou Bensouda, 60, who must step down after nine years under the court’s rules. Khan wants to significantly improve the performance of the prosecution. Proceedings must become more effective and trials before the court more successful, he said in a brief statement. According to him, the criminal court is a sign of hope for justice. “It is an awful testament of the horror of mankind in this 21 century, as we s...
Russia hopes for progress as U.S. joins Afghan peace talks in Moscow
Russia said it hoped international talks in Moscow on Thursday would breathe new life into the Afghan peace process, after a high-level U.S. official joined the Russian-hosted talks for the first time. The talks, which also include representatives of Pakistan and China, are designed to give a boost to negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Qatar’s capital Doha, stalled lately by government accusations that the insurgents have done too little to halt violence. “We regret that so far the efforts to launch a political process in Doha have yet to yield a positive result,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in his opening remarks at the talks. “We hope today’s talks will facilitate the creation of conditions to achieve progress in intra-Afghan negotiations.” U.S. envoy Z...
PDP raps President Buhari over performance claims
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday berated President Muhammadu Buhari over his stewardship in the past five years, saying he has failed to justify the confidence reposed in him by Nigerians. This is even as the party noted Mr. President’s “illusory self-assessment” has validated its position that “he has since abandoned governance for the luxury and pleasures of Aso Presidential villa, having lost sync with the reality of the devastation his incompetent administration has brought to our nation in the last five years.” In a statement signed by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP insisted “that every fair criticism of Buhari’s administration only reveals a litany of failures and a reversal of fortune for our country in the last five years,” adding that, “it is unfortunate tha...
PDP: Nigerians fed up with President Buhari’s government
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Sunday, maintained that Nigerians have become fed up with the Muhammadu Buhari administration and are now rallying under the main opposition party. In a statement issued in Abuja by its national spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP described the recent attack on it by presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, “as a feeble kick of a weak horse, in another failed attempt to beguile Nigerians.” Recall that the presidential spokesman had described the PDP as “a university of lies.” The PDP said it is not surprised that “the Buhari Presidency is rattled by the bitter truth that Nigerians are fed up with President Muhammadu Buhari as well as his All Progressives Congress (APC) and are rallying on our platform to rescue our nation from misrule.” The party noted:...
PDP: Nigerians fed up with President Buhari’s government
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Sunday, maintained that Nigerians have become fed up with the Muhammadu Buhari administration and are now rallying under the main opposition party. In a statement issued in Abuja by its national spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP described the recent attack on it by presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, “as a feeble kick of a weak horse, in another failed attempt to beguile Nigerians.” Recall that the presidential spokesman had described the PDP as “a university of lies.” The PDP said it is not surprised that “the Buhari Presidency is rattled by the bitter truth that Nigerians are fed up with President Muhammadu Buhari as well as his All Progressives Congress (APC) and are rallying on our platform to rescue our nation from misrule.” The party noted:...
