Afghanistan’s female TV presenters must cover their faces, say Taliban

Aside May 19, 2022May 19, 2022 Markozen.com Geopolitics, Human condition

File photo: In this photograph taken on January 30, 2013 a female Afghan news presenter reads the news at a studio in Kabul. — Image caption,Female presenters – faces uncovered – have become common on screen in recent years

The Taliban have ordered female Afghan TV presenters and other women on screen to cover their faces while on air.

Media outlets were told of the decree on Wednesday, a religious police spokesman told BBC Pashto.

The ruling comes two weeks after all women were ordered to wear a face veil in public, or risk punishment.

Restrictions are being tightened on women – they are banned from travelling without a male guardian and secondary schools are shut for girls.

One female Afghan journalist working for a local TV station in Kabul, who did not want to be named, said she’d been shocked to hear the latest news.

“They are putting indirect pressure on us to stop us presenting on TV,” she told the BBC.

“How can I read the news with my mouth covered? I don’t know what to do now – I must work, I am the breadwinner of my family.”The new decree will take effect from 21 May, Reuters news agency reported, quoting a spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue.

(From August 2021) Female presenters return on Afghanistan’s Tolo News, with one interviewing the Taliban

The spokesman referred to the ruling as “advice” – it is not clear what will happen to anyone who fails to comply.

“Based on information received by Tolo news, the order has been issued to all media outlets in Afghanistan,” the news channel reported.

The decision is being widely criticised on Twitter, with many calling it another step by the Taliban to promote extremism.

“The world deploys masks to protect people from Covid. The Taliban deploys masks to protect people from seeing the faces of women journalists. For the Taliban, women are a disease,” one activist tweeted.

The private Shamshad news channel posted a photo of its news presenter wearing a mask, and other similar images are being shared on social media.

During their first stint in power in the 1990s the Taliban forced women to wear the all-encompassing burka in public.

The hardline Islamist movement was driven from power by US-led troops in 2001, after which many restrictions eased. Women appearing on television showing their faces became a common sight.

After retaking power last August, following the withdrawal of foreign forces, the Taliban had held off issuing new laws on what women should wear.

This raised hopes they would govern Afghanistan, a deeply conservative and patriarchal country, more flexibly this time.

A burka-clad woman and a girl on a street in Kandahar on 5 March 2022 — Image caption,The burka was enforced by the Taliban in the 1990s and still worn by many women

Many women still wore the burka, but in bigger cities it was also common to see women continuing to wear headscarves.

However in early May the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue announced that all women would have to cover their face in public, and indicated that a burka would be the ideal garment to achieve this.

Anyone refusing to comply with the ruling risks an escalating series of punishments.

Infographic showing different types of Muslim head coverings for women

Most Muslims around the world do not consider women covering their face mandatory, or oppose them working.

Women are still employed in some jobs in Afghanistan, such as healthcare and education, but many others have been told not to return to work now the Taliban are back in power.

The country has been plunged into economic crisis and famine under Taliban rule.

Western diplomats have indicated that resuming development funding and unlocking frozen cash depends on better treatment of women.

But early hopes the Taliban might relax their approach have been eroded amid signs influential hardliners in the group have the upper hand.

The journalist in Kabul who spoke to the BBC wanted the international community to put pressure on the Taliban.

“They should tell them you have 10 days to change otherwise we are going to cut off relations and aid.”

She said she believed the Taliban planned to stop women doing all kinds of work outside their homes. “They want women to live like prisoners at home. Every day they issued decrees against us – I don’t think we can survive.”

The Taliban are pretending that they are living in the 15th century.

A nice, calm place to worship.

Aside May 19, 2022 Markozen.com Religiousness

‘Freudian slip’: Bush decries ‘invasion of Iraq’ – not Ukraine

Aside May 19, 2022 Markozen.com Geopolitics

Former US President George W Bush appears to admit the 2003 invasion of Iraq was ‘wholly unjustified, brutal’ in a speech about the Russian war on Ukraine.

Former United States President George W Bush has decried the “wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq” in a gaffe during a speech in the US state of Texas.

The former president, who launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq under the false pretence that the country was developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), meant to decry the Russian invasion of Ukraine during the speech in Dallas on Wednesday.

Instead, while criticising Russia’s political system, he said: “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.

“I mean, of Ukraine,” he said quickly.

He then said “Iraq too” to laughter from the crowd.

Several investigations have detailed how the Bush administration relied on faulty intelligence while misleading the public in the lead up to the war, with advocates calling for years for Bush and other officials to be held accountable for what has been called an illegal invasion.

Andrew Stroehlein, the European media director of Human Rights Watch, called the stumble the “Freudian slip of the century”.

Wrote Pouya Alimagham, a modern Middle East historian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “Wow – the one time Bush told the truth about the invasion of #Iraq.”

Added writer Maris Kabas in a tweet: “If I could tell my 17-year-old self one thing it’s that George W Bush will admit to unjustly invading Iraq in 17 years.”

The US invasion of Iraq, which was officially completed in 2011, has been directly attributed to widespread instability in the country that led to the rise of the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.

The UK-based Iraq Body Count Project has recorded as many as 209,422 violent civilian deaths in Iraq since the March 2003 US invasion.

When the initial invasion began, the International Commission on Jurists in Geneva said it represented a “war of aggression” that constituted a crime under international law.

In 2010, a Dutch inquiry, the first-ever independent legal assessment of the war, determined the invasion had “no basis in international law”.

A year later, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission found Bush and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of crimes against humanity for the war. The verdict was not enforceable.

Video of Bush’s comment had been viewed about 10 million times on Twitter early Thursday, with some observers saying the slipup indicated more than just a guilty conscience.

“No but seriously, George W Bush whisperingly affirms his own self-description as launching a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq,” tweeted Will Greaves, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Victoria.

“He knows it, and he also knows that he’ll never face consequences even as they’re called for Putin,” he said. “So it’s not funny, it’s impunity.”

Christopher Walken can do it all!

Aside May 18, 2022May 18, 2022 Markozen.com Celebrities, Movies

Walken was a dancer in variety and musicals before he became a respected (and much loved) actor starring in such films as The Deerhunter, The Dead Zone, The Comfort of Strangers, The King of New York, Pulp Fiction, True Romance, The Prophecy Trilogy, Wild Side, The Addiction, The Funeral, Sleepy Hollow, Hairspray, and most recently Turks and Caicos.

It’s fair to say that if Mr Walken’s name is attached to any movie, you know it’s going to be fun—well, at least when he’s on screen. You might not like what happens before or after, but once he appears, you know the movie sings. Who can forget his scenes with Dennis Hopper in True Romance? Or, the casual soft shoe shuffle in King of New York? Or, his bravura dancing to Fat Boy Slim’s promo for “Weapon Of Choice”?

Such is his popularity that when an Internet forum ran a hoax Christopher Walken for President campaign, it seemed almost believable, and I’m sure there would have been quite a few people out there who would have given a big ‘X’ to Mr. W. had it been real.

Walken is so likable, so watchable, and seems such an interesting character (he likes cats and pineapple, and his mother came from Glasgow, where he still has relatives).

Tourist Busted for Driving Maserati Down Rome’s Famed Spanish Steps

Aside May 17, 2022 Markozen.com Bizarre

Video below

A tourist cruising the streets of Rome in a rented Maserati SUV took a wrong turn that has landed him in considerable legal trouble when he shockingly drove down the city’s famed Spanish Steps and badly damaged the legendary landmark. The jaw-dropping incident reportedly occurred last week as the unnamed Saudi national was visiting the Italian capital on vacation. While heading back to his hotel in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the man steered his SUV down the 18th-century marble monument and wound up getting the vehicle stuck on the iconic staircase, which has appeared in a myriad of movies and television shows.

Security camera footage from the mishap shows the man driving down the stairs, exiting the SUV, and expressing dismay at the unfathomable predicament. After an attempt to enlist a tow truck for help proved to be futile, the man eventually managed to escape the situation by turning the vehicle around and driving back up the steps, which no doubt caused additional damage to the landmark. Perhaps thinking that he could get away with the motorvehicle misadventure, the man eventually headed to the airport with the intention of going back home to Saudi Arabia, but police were waiting for him to return the rented SUV and subsequently arrested the tourist before he could leave the country.

Authorities say that the destructive detour caused two of the steps to become fractured and they will now need to be restored by experts. For his part, the man has apologized and taken full responsibility for the incident, though his attorney insists that the wrong turn was due to his GPS instructing him to head in that direction. Regardless of whether the man’s drive down the stairs was truly in error or actually the result of an ill-advised joyride, he could face considerable consequences for his actions as he has been charged with ‘aggravated damage to cultural heritage and monuments,’ which carries a possible prison sentence and a hefty fine.

Bloody idiot fool!

Interesting Planet

Aside May 17, 2022 Markozen.com Geography, Nature

Hyperion, the world’s tallest living tree.Hyperion is the name of a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) in California that was measured at 115.92 m (380.3 ft), which ranks it as the world’s tallest known living tree.

Comet Leonard in the frigid Canadian night. Spectacular photo!

Humpback whale salute In Monterey Bay, California.

A highland storm over Loch Etive, Scotland

Dog-sledding under the Northern lights in Norway.

The Wave is a sandstone rock formation located in Arizona, United States, near its northern border with Utah. The formation is situated on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness of the Colorado Plateau.

A lighthouse in Michigan, before and after major ice storm.

Week in pictures: 7-13 May 2022

Aside May 17, 2022May 17, 2022 Markozen.com Images

Trees planted around Karbala — Image caption,Workers look after trees planted in the “green belt” area around the city of Karbala, Iraq.

Dancers during the opening ceremony — Image caption,The opening ceremony at the My Dinh National Stadium in Hanoi, Vietnam, marked the beginning of the Southeast Asian Games. About 5,000 athletes will be competing in 40 sports.

The state opening of parliament — Image caption,Prince Charles stood in for the Queen for the first time to open a new session of Parliament, after she had to pull out because of mobility problems. The Prince of Wales, flanked by the Duke of Cambridge and the Duchess of Cornwall, read the Queen’s Speech during the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords.

Ukrainian soldier — Image caption,The Azov regiment released this photo of an injured Ukrainian serviceman inside the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, which is besieged by Russian troops. All elderly people, women and children have now been evacuated from the plant.

A home smoulders in the aftermath of a wildfire in Laguna Niguel, California — Image caption,Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate their homes due to a swift-moving wildfire in southern California. Meanwhile, the largest wildfire in the US continues to threaten communities and businesses in New Mexico.

Image caption,A bee-eater bird catches a bee in the village of Buszkowice in Podkarpacie, Poland.

Migrants wrapped in red blankets — Image caption,Migrants wait to disembark from a Spanish coastguard vessel at the port of Arguineguin, on the island of Gran Canaria, Spain.

British soldiers during a media open day at Krivolak army base, North Macedonia — Image caption,British soldiers participate in a Nato “Swift Response 22” exercise in North Macedonia, to test the military alliance’s deployment readiness along its eastern borders.

Image caption,Mayor of London Sadiq Khan walks through cannabis plants which are being legally cultivated at a licensed factory in Los Angeles. The mayor was seeing for himself how legalised cannabis production operates in California.

A policeman fires tear gas during a clash between government supporters and demonstrators outside the President's office in Colombo — Image caption,Sri Lankan security forces were ordered to shoot law-breakers on sight in a bid to quell anti-government protests. Demonstrators are calling for the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over the island’s worst ever economic

BBC

US Congress holds first public UFO hearing in over 50 years

Aside May 17, 2022 Markozen.com UFOs

The first public congressional hearing into UFO sightings in the US in over 50 years is being held on Tuesday.

The highly-anticipated testimony from two top military officials tasked with probing the sightings will be closely watched after decades of secrecy.

The Pentagon brass are expected to say that it has been a struggle to unearth witness accounts from government workers concerned about job security.

Is the hearing open to the public?

The hearing is being held in the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee.

The two officials testifying are Ronald Moultrie – the Pentagon’s top intelligence official – and Scott Bray, the deputy director of naval intelligence.

The officials will describe US efforts to investigate Unexplained Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) – the government’s term for UFOs – in a public hearing.

“The American people expect and deserve their leaders in government and intelligence to seriously evaluate and respond to any potential national security risks — especially those we do not fully understand,” Representative André Carson said in a statement.

Following the public hearing, the committee will close its doors for a private classified session with lawmakers.

Ahead of the hearing, scientists and experts have written draft questions that they hope lawmakers will ask the witnesses.

Christopher Mellon, a former top Pentagon intelligence official and critic of the government’s handling of UAP evidence, said that the most important question to ask is whether any have been observed outside Earth’s atmosphere.

“If members can confirm UAP in space, they’ll make history and help to eliminate an entire category of potential explanations having to do with atmospheric phenomenon, Chinese lanterns, civilian drones, etc,” he wrote on his blog.

Ronald Moultrie, the Pentagon's top intelligence official

Ronald Moultrie, the Pentagon’s top intelligence official, oversees the UFO inquiry office

How did we get here?

Public fascination with flying saucers, glowing lights and otherworldly aircrafts has been ongoing for generations.

The last public hearings into the issue began in 1966, when Republican congressman – and future president – Gerald Ford convened a pair of hearings to discuss a UFO sightings following one in Michigan that was observed by over 40 people, including a dozen policemen.

The Air Force officials attributed the incident to “swamp gas”, leading Ford to deride their description as “flippant” .

In 1969, an Air Force investigation into UFOs called Project Blue Book closed after determining that no flying object had ever been confirmed or deemed a threat to US national security.

Blast forward to 2017, when US media reported on the Pentagon’s secretive efforts to probe testimony from pilots and other US military members who had reported seeing strange objects in the sky.

The reports included footage of the UFOs, and descriptions of how they seemed to fly in unexpected ways, including hovering in place during high winds and changing elevation rapidly.

Pilots described seeing them on an almost “daily basis” outside military bases, and one whistleblower described how UAPs had interfered with US nuclear weapons facilities, even forcing some offline.

In 2020, a Covid relief bill signed by Donald Trump included a provision requiring US intelligence agencies to deliver an unclassified report on UAPs within 180 days.

In June 2021, the US Director of National Intelligence released a report saying it had no explanation for dozens of unidentified flying objects related to 144 incidents dating back to 2004. Only one could be easily explained as a deflating balloon, while the others were labelled “largely inconclusive”.

“Most of the UAP reported probably do represent physical objects,” the report stated, adding that 80 of them were detected on multiple advanced military sensors and radar systems.

The June 2021 report failed to reach any conclusive answers in regards to what the objects are, or how they function. It called for expanded investigation and better data collection, given the stigma government workers may have against their describing unexplained encounters.

Last December, Democrats succeeded in including a stronger disclosure requirement in the annual National Defense Authorization Act signed by Joe Biden.

The law requires the military to establish a permanent office on UAP research – now called the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group.

Watch: Silent Triangular UFO Filmed Over Ontario

Aside May 16, 2022 Markozen.com UFOs

A peculiar piece of footage from Canada shows an odd triangular object silently cruising across the sky and some suspect that the eerie anomaly could be some kind of clandestine military aircraft. The intriguing video was reportedly filmed in Ontario by an individual named Michael and an unidentified female companion as they were out for a walk around sunset. Alas, as is often the case with UFO footage that pops up online, the specific location and date of the strange sighting are unknown. Be that as it may, the video is rather compelling by virtue of the object at the center of the weird scene.

In the video, a triangular object sporting a light on each of its three points as well as red illumination in its center can be seen gliding through the sky while making no noise. “It doesn’t look like a plane,” exclaims Michael, while his friend echoes that bewilderment, marveling “that’s unusual. That is weird.” Fortunately, the footage captured by the couple provides a fairly clear look at the unknown object, although what it could have been remains a matter of conjecture.

Setting aside an extraterrestrial scenario, one popular and almost equally fantastic suggestion put forward by people online is that the UFO could be a clandestine military aircraft, specifically the apocryphal TR-3B, which is believed to be a secret spy plane that is said to be triangular shaped and, some say, powered by anti-gravity technology gleaned from a downed alien vehicle. More skeptical observers, however, argue that the object seen over Ontario was simply a drone.

Looks like a drone to me. Space Aliens wouldn’t have a red light blinking on their extrastellar spaceship.

Full lunar eclipse creates rare super blood Moon

Aside May 16, 2022 Markozen.com Nature

Image shows super blood moon — Image caption,The Moon turned a deep shade of copper-like red as it passed through the Earth’s shadow

Stargazers have been treated overnight to a stunning and unusual sight – a super blood Moon.

Shortly after 03:30 GMT on Monday, Earth’s orbit meant that for several minutes our planet was positioned directly between the Sun and the Moon.

In that time the Moon fell completely into Earth’s shadow – temporarily turning it a dusky shade of dark red.

Its hue was created by sunlight being projected through Earth’s atmosphere onto the Moon’s shadowed surface.

The lunar eclipse coincided with a separate event – a super Moon. This is when the Moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit and so appears larger than usual.

Image shows blood moon — Image caption,The super blood Moon sets over hilltops in the Republic of North Macedonia

Those watching out for the resulting super blood Moon got the best view from 03:29 GMT, the moment the full lunar eclipse started and the event became visible in the Western hemisphere.

For almost one and a half hours afterwards, the only sunlight reaching the Moon had passed through the Earth’s atmosphere turning it red.

Image shows super moon above Temple of Poseidon — Image caption,In Greece, spectators gathered at the Temple of Poseidon near Athens to watch the Moon before the full eclipse

In Europe, the phenomenon was only visible for some of that time because of the Moon beginning to set. But in the Americas areas under clear skies were treated to the full spectacle.

“If you were an astronaut standing on the Moon, looking back towards Earth, you’d see a red ring running around the outside of our planet,” he told the BBC.