World
Kabul's mannequins, hooded and masked under Taliban rules
Under the Taliban, the mannequins in women’s dress shops across the Afghan capital of Kabul are a haunting sight, their heads cloaked in cloth sacks or wrapped in black plastic bags.
The hooded mannequins are one symbol of the Taliban’s puritanical rule over Afghanistan. But in a way, they are also a small show of resistance and creativity by Kabul’s dress merchants.
Initially, the Taliban wanted the mannequins to be outright beheaded.
Read more: Ex-Afghan female lawmaker, guard shot dead at home
Not long after they seized power in August 2021, the Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue decreed that all mannequins must be removed from shop windows or their heads taken off, according to local media. They based the order on a strict interpretation of Islamic law that forbids statues and images of the human form since they could be worshipped as idols — though it also meshes with the Taliban's campaign to force women out of the public eye.
Some clothes sellers complied. But others pushed back.
They complained they’d be unable to display their clothes properly or would have to damage valuable mannequins. The Taliban had to amend their order and allowed the shop owners to cover the mannequins’ heads instead.
Shop owners then had to balance between obeying the Taliban and trying to attract customers. The variety of solutions they came up with are on display on Lycee Maryam Street, a middle-class commercial street lined with dress shops in a northern part of Kabul. The store windows and showrooms are lined with mannequins in evening gowns and dresses bursting with color and decoration — and all in various types of head coverings.
In one shop, the mannequins’ heads were cloaked in tailored sacks made out of the same material as the traditional dresses they modeled. One, in a purple dress beaded with cowrie shells, had a matching purple hood. Another, in a red gown elaborately embroidered in gold, was almost elegant in a mask of red velvet with a gold crown on her head.
“I can’t cover the mannequins’ heads with plastic or ugly things because it would make my window and shop look ugly,” said Bashir, the owner. Like other owners, he spoke to The Associated Press on condition he be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisals.
Shop owners need keep things attractive — the economy has collapsed since the Taliban takeover and the ensuing cutoff of international financing, throwing almost the entire population into poverty.
Elaborate dresses have always been popular in Afghanistan for weddings, which even before the Taliban were usually gender-segregated, giving women a chance to dress in their finest in the country’s conservative society. Under the Taliban, weddings are one of the few remaining opportunities for social gatherings. But with incomes so strained, they have become less elaborate.
Bashir said his sales are half what they used to be.
“Buying wedding, evening and traditional dresses is no longer a priority for people,” he said. “People think more about getting food and surviving.”
Another shop owner, Hakim, shaped aluminum foil over his mannequins’ heads. It adds a certain flash to his merchandise, he decided.
“I made an opportunity out of this threat and ban and did it so the mannequins are even more attractive than before,” he said.
Not all can be so elaborate. In one shop, the mannequins in sleeveless gowns all had black plastic sacks over their heads. The owner said he couldn't afford more.
Another shop owner, Aziz, said agents of the Ministry of Vice and Virtue regularly patrol shops and malls to make sure the mannequins are beheaded or covered. He was dismissive of the Taliban’s justification for the rules. “Everyone knows mannequins aren’t idols, and no one’s going to worship them. In all Muslim countries, mannequins are used to display clothes.”
Read more: Australia pulls out of Afghanistan cricket series
A small number of male mannequins can be seen in display windows, also with their heads covered, suggesting that the authorities are applying the ban uniformly.
The Taliban initially said they would not impose the same harsh rules over society as they did during their first rule in the late 1990s. But they have progressively imposed more restrictions, particularly on women. They have banned women and girls from schooling beyond the sixth grade, barred them from most jobs and demanded they cover their faces when outside.
On a recent day, a woman shopping on Lycee Maryam Street looked at the hooded mannequins.
“When I see them, I feel that these mannequins are also captured and trapped, and I get a sense of fear,” said the woman, who gave only her first name, Rahima.
“I feel like I see myself behind these shop windows, an Afghan woman who has been deprived of all her rights.”
Top US general visits training site for Ukrainian soldiers
Monday was just Day Two for Ukrainian soldiers at the U.S. military’s new training program, but the message was coming through loud and clear.
These are urgent times. And the lessons they will get in the next five weeks on weapons, armored vehicles and more sophisticated combat techniques are critical as they prepare to defend their country against the Russian invasion.
“This is not a run of the mill rotation,” U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday afternoon as he met with commanders. “This is one of those moments in time where if you want to make a difference, this is it.”
Milley, who visited the sprawling Grafenwoehr training area to get his first look at the new, so-called combined arms instruction, has said it will better prepare Ukrainian troops to launch an offensive or counter any surge in Russian attacks.
Read more: Ukraine building suffers deadliest civilian attack in months
He spent a bit less than two hours at “Camp Kherson” — a section of the base named after a city in Ukraine where Ukrainian troops scored a key victory against Russia last year. More than 600 Ukrainian troops began the expanded training program at the camp just a day before Milley arrived.
For the first time since the war began nearly a year ago, reporters were given broad access to watch various portions of the training. The reporters were allowed to follow Milley and watch his interactions with Ukrainian and U.S. troops and commanders, but were not allowed to report specific conversations with the Ukraine forces or take any photos or video. The restrictions reflect ongoing U.S. concerns about escalating Russian anger over the West’s involvement in the war or triggering a wider conflict.
The U.S. has conducted training at Grafenwoehr for years, including for allied forces in Europe. But limited instruction for Ukrainian forces began last year, shortly after the Russian invasion. At the time it was focused specifically on various weapons systems that were being supplied by the U.S., such as the howitzer.
Last month, the Pentagon announced it would expand the training in an effort to hone the skills of the Ukrainian forces. The five-week course will teach them to effectively move and coordinate their company- and battalion-size units in battle, using combined artillery, armor and ground forces.
It will include classroom instruction and field work that will begin with small squads and gradually grow to involve larger units. It will culminate with a more complex combat exercise bringing an entire battalion and a headquarters unit together.
The training at Grafenwoehr is being done by the 7th Army Training Command.
Speaking to two reporters traveling with him to Europe on Sunday, Milley said the complex training — combined with an array of new weapons, artillery, tanks and other vehicles heading to Ukraine — will be key to helping the country’s forces take back territory that has been captured by Russia in the nearly 11-month-old war.
Read more: US military's expanded combat training for Ukrainian forces begins in Germany
On Monday, as he walked through the training area, Milley bantered with troops, asking them about their combat experience and talking to them about their mission.
“The urgency was clear,” said Army Col. Dave Butler, Milley's spokesman. “These soldiers are going off to defend their country in combat.”
Milley said Sunday that the goal is for incoming weapons and equipment to be delivered to Ukraine so the newly trained forces will be able to use it “sometime before the spring rains show up. That would be ideal.”
The new instruction comes as Western analysts point to signs that the Kremlin is digging in for a drawn-out war, and say the Russian military command is preparing for an expanded mobilization effort.
Across the battlefield, Ukrainian forces face fierce fighting in the eastern Donetsk province, where the Russian military has claimed it has control of the small salt-mining town of Soledar. Ukraine asserts that its troops are still fighting, but if Moscow’s troops take control of Soledar it would allow them to inch closer to the bigger city of Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for months.
Russia also launched a widespread barrage of missile strikes over the weekend, including in Kyiv, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the southeastern city of Dnipro, where the death toll in one apartment building rose to 40.
Baby, teen mom among 6 killed in shooting at California home
Six people — including a 17-year-old mother and her 6-month-old baby — were killed in a shooting early Monday at a home in central California, and authorities are searching for at least two suspects, sheriff’s officials said.
Deputies responded around 3:30 a.m. to reports of multiple shots fired at the residence in unincorporated Goshen, just east of Visalia, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office said.
“Actually the report was that an active shooter was in the area because of the number of shots that were being fired,” Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told reporters.
Deputies found two victims dead in the street and a third person fatally shot in the doorway of the residence, Boudreaux said.
Three more victims were found inside the home, including a man who was still alive but later died at a hospital, he said.
The sheriff said investigators are searching for at least two suspects. They believe there is a gang connection to the killings. The sheriff’s office conducted a narcotics-related search warrant at the residence last week, Boudreaux said.
“We also believe this was not a random act of violence. We believe this was a targeted family,” he said.
Goshen is a semi-rural community of about 3,000 residents 35 miles (56 kilometres) southeast of Fresno in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley.
Read more: 9 killed in Walmart shooting in Virginia
Flight data, voice recorders retrieved from Nepal crash site
Search teams retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders Monday of a passenger plane that plummeted into a gorge on approach to a new airport in the foothills of the Himalayas, officials said, as investigators looked for the cause of Nepal's deadliest plane crash in 30 years.
At least 69 of the 72 people aboard were killed, and officials believe the three missing are also dead. Rescuers combed through the debris, scattered down a 300-meter-deep (984-foot-deep) gorge, for them.
Many of the passengers on Sunday's flight were returning home to Pokhara, though the city is also popular with tourists since it's the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit hiking trail. On Monday evening, relatives and friends were still gathered outside a local hospital, some shouting at officials to speed up the post mortems so they could hold funerals for their loved ones.
It's still not clear what caused the crash, which took place less than a minute's flight from the airport on a mild day with little wind.
In footage taken by a passenger out of a window as the plane came in for a landing, buildings, roads and greenery are visible below. The video, by Sonu Jaiswal and verified by The Associated Press, then shows a violent jolt and a series of jerky images accompanied by yelling before flames fill the screen.
Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said the aircraft last made contact with the airport, which began operations only two weeks ago, from near Seti Gorge. A witness who recorded footage of the plane’s descent said it looked like a normal landing until the plane suddenly veered to the left.
"I saw that, and I was shocked," said Diwas Bohora. “I thought that today everything will be finished here after it crashes, I will also be dead.”
After it crashed, red flames erupted and the ground shook violently, Bohora said. “Seeing that scene, I was scared,” he added.
Amit Singh, an experienced pilot and founder of India’s Safety Matters Foundation, said Bohora's video appears to show a stall, a situation in which a plane loses lift, especially likely at low airspeeds.
The twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was completing the 27-minute flight from the capital, Kathmandu, to Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west. It was carrying 68 passengers, including 15 foreign nationals, as well as four crew members, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. The foreigners included five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France.
Read more: Nepal begins national mourning after 68 killed in deadly plane crash
Jagannath Niraula, a spokesman for the authority, said the flight recorders will be handed over to investigators. Pemba Sherpa, spokesperson for Yeti Airlines, confirmed that both the flight data and the cockpit voice recorders were found.
Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains including Mount Everest. A pilot who routinely flies an ATR 72-500 plane from India to Nepal said the region’s topography, with its mountain peaks and narrow valleys, raises the risk of accidents and sometimes requires pilots to fly by sight rather than relying on instruments.
The pilot, who works for a private Indian airline and insisted on anonymity due to company policy, called the ATR 72-500 an “unforgiving aircraft” if the pilot isn’t highly skilled and familiar with the region’s terrain and wind speeds.
Hundreds of people have gathered outside the Pokhara Academy of Health and Science, Western Hospital, where the bodies are being kept.
Bimala Bhenderi said was planning to meet her friend, Tribhuban Paudel, on Tuesday when she heard that his flight had crashed. “I’m so sad, I can’t believe it still,” she said in tears.
Bikash Jaiswal said he could only identify his wife's brother only by the ring he wore, and that he had yet to tell his wife, who just gave birth to their daughter. Sanjay Jaiswal, who worked as a marketing agent for a private pharmaceutical company in Kathmandu, was flying to Pokhara for the birth. More than 24 hours after the crash, his body lay in the same hospital where his niece was born.
“He was a hardworking person, and now there’s no one left in his family to earn,” Bikash said.
Park Dae-seong, a minister and spokesperson of the Won Buddhist order, confirmed on Monday the deaths of Arun Paudel and his daughter, Prasiddi.
Arun Paudel, 47, had worked as a police officer in Nepal before being introduced into the religion by his brother. He studied the religion for years at a South Korean university before becoming a minister in 2009. He then returned to Nepal and established a school in the Lumbini province in 2013 where children received English, Korean and information technology instruction. Park said Paudel was returning to Nepal for work related to the school, called the Vishow Ekata Academy.
The Civil Aviation Authority said that 41 people have been identified. Gyan Khadka, a police spokesperson in the district, said the bodies would be handed over to family after officials finish post mortem reports.
The type of plane involved, the ATR 72, has been used by airlines around the world for short regional flights since the late 1980s. In Taiwan, two accidents involving ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 aircrafts in 2014 and 2015 led to the planes being grounded for a period.
ATR identified the plane involved in Sunday’s crash as an ATR 72-500 in a tweet. According to plane tracking data from flightradar24.com, the aircraft was 15 years old and “equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.” It was previously flown by India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Thailand’s Nok Air before Yeti took it over in 2019, according to records on Airfleets.net. ATR has not responded to a request for comment.
According to the Safety Matters Foundation’s data, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal since 1946.
Sunday’s crash is the country's deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it plowed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu.
The European Union has banned airlines from Nepal from flying into the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing weak safety standards. In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited improvements in Nepal’s aviation sector, but the EU continues to demand administrative reforms.
Ukraine strike deaths hit 40; Russia seen preparing long war
Ukrainian emergency crews on Monday sifted through what was left of a Dnipro apartment building destroyed by a Russian missile, placing bodies from one of the war’s deadliest single attacks in months in black bags and gingerly carrying them across steep piles of rubble.
Authorities said the death toll from Saturday’s strike rose to 40 and that 30 people remained missing Monday. Tall cranes swung across the jagged gaps in a row of residential towers, the engines growling as residents of one of Ukraine’s largest cities watched largely in silence under a gray sky.
About 1,700 people lived in the multistory building, and search and rescue crews have worked nonstop since the missile strike to locate victims and survivors in the wreckage. The regional administration said 39 people have been rescued and at least 75 were wounded.
The reported death toll put it among the deadliest attacks on Ukrainian civilians since before the summer, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project. Residents said the apartment tower did not house any military facilities.
Oleksander Anyskevych said he was in his apartment when the missile struck.
“Boom — and that’s it. We saw that we were alive and that’s all,” Anyskevych said Monday as he went to the site to see his wrecked apartment.
He told The Associated Press that he knew people who died under the rubble. One of his son’s classmates lost her parents.
Read more: Death toll in Russian strike on Ukrainian building up to 35
Dnipro residents took flowers, candles and toys to the ruins.
“All of us could be in that place,” local resident Iryna Skrypnyk said.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, called the strike, and others like it, “inhumane aggression” because it directly targeted civilians. “There will be no impunity for these crimes,” he said in a tweet Sunday.
Asked about the strike Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian military doesn’t target residential buildings and suggested the Dnipro building was hit as a result of Ukrainian air defense actions.
The strike on the building came amid a wider barrage of Russian cruise missiles across Ukraine. The Ukrainian military said Sunday that it did not have the means to intercept the type of Russian missile that hit the residential building in Dnipro.
Fierce fighting continued to rage Monday in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, where military analysts have said both sides are likely suffering heavy troop casualties. No independent verification of developments was possible.
Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province make up the Donbas, an expansive industrial region bordering Russia that Russian President Vladimir Putin identified as a focus from the war’s outset. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv’s forces there since 2014.
The Russian and Belarusian air forces began a joint exercise Monday in Belarus, which borders Ukraine and served as a staging ground for Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.The drills are set to run through Feb. 1, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said. Russia has sent its warplanes to Belarus for the drills.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, reported signs of the Kremlin taking steps to turn its Ukraine invasion into “a major conventional war” after months of embarrassing military reversals.
What Moscow calls “a special military operation” aimed to capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, within weeks and to install a Kremlin-friendly regime there, but Russian forces ultimately withdrew from around Kyiv, the think tank said. Then came a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in recent months before the onset of winter slowed military advances.
“The Kremlin is likely preparing to conduct a decisive strategic action in the next six months intended to regain the initiative and end Ukraine’s current string of operational successes,” the Institute for the Study of War said in a report late Sunday.
It noted reports indicating the Russian military command was in “serious preparations” for an expanded mobilization effort, conserving mobilized personnel for future use, while seeking to boost military industrial production and reshuffling its command structure.
That means Ukraine’s Western allies “will need to continue supporting Ukraine in the long run,” the think tank said.
Read more: Deaths from strike on Ukraine apartment building rise to 29
NATO member nations have sought in recent days to reassure Ukraine that they will stay the course. The United Kingdom has pledged tanks and the U.S. military’s new, expanded combat training of Ukrainian forces began in Germany on Sunday.
Poland’s prime minister urged the German government to supply a wide range of weapons to Kyiv and voiced hope that Berlin would soon approve a transfer of battle tanks.
Other developments on Monday:
— Russian forces shelled the city of Kherson and the Kherson region, killing three people and wounding 14 others over the last 24 hours, regional Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said. In the city of Kherson, the shelling damaged a hospital, a children disability center, a shipyard, critical infrastructure and apartment buildings.
— Russian forces struck the city of Zaporizhzhia, damaging industrial infrastructure and wounding five people, two of them children, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko reported.
— Russian air defenses downed 10 drones Monday over the Black Sea near the port of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed head of Sevastopol, reported.
Death toll in Russian strike on Ukrainian building up to 35
The death toll from the weekend Russian missile strike on the apartment building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to 35, an official said Monday.
Rescuers continued searching through the rubble for more victims, regional Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. At least 75 people were wounded and 35 others were still missing after Saturday’s strike.
About 1,700 people lived in the multi-story building, with residents saying there were no military facilities at the site. The reported death toll made it the deadliest attack in one place since a Sept. 30 strike in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project.
Read: Flight data, voice recorders retrieved from Nepal site after deadly plane crash
The strike on the building on Saturday came amid a major barrage of Russian cruise missiles across Ukraine.
Russia’s renewed air attacks came as fierce fighting raged in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, where the Russian military has claimed it has control of the small salt-mining town of Soledar but Ukraine asserts that its troops are still fighting.
If the Russian forces win full control of Soledar, it would allow them to inch closer to the bigger city of Bakhmut. The battle for Bakhmut has raged for months, causing substantial casualties on both sides.
With the grinding war nearing the 11-month mark, the U.K. government announced it would deliver tanks to Ukraine, its first donation of such heavy-duty weaponry. Although the pledge of 14 Challenger 2 tanks appeared modest, Ukrainian officials expect it will encourage other Western nations to supply more tanks.
Read: Cars collide on icy road in South Korea; 1 dead, dozens hurt
Other developments on Monday:
— Russian forces shelled the city of Kherson and the Kherson region, killing three people and wounding 14 others over the last 24 hours, regional Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said. In the city of Kherson, the shelling damaged a hospital, a children disability center, a shipyard, critical infrastructure and apartment buildings.
— Russian forces struck the city of Zaporizhzhia, damaging industrial infrastructure and wounding three people, two of them children, the regional administration said.
— The Russian and Belarusian air forces launched a joint exercise in Belarus that will run through Feb. 1, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said. Russia has sent its warplanes to Belarus for the drills.
— Air defenses shot down a drone over the bay of the port of Sevastopol in Crimea, Sevastopol head Mikhail Razvozhayev said.
Flight data, voice recorders retrieved from Nepal site after deadly plane crash
A spokesman for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority says a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder have been retrieved from the site of the crash of a passenger plane that went down on approach to a newly opened airport in the tourist town of Pokhara.
Jagannath Niraula said the boxes were found on Monday, a day after the ATR-72 aircraft crashed, killing 68 of the 72 people aboard. He said they will be handed over to investigators.
Pemba Sherpa, spokesperson for Yeti Airlines, also confirmed that both the flight data and the cockpit voice recorders have been found.
Nepal began a national day of mourning Monday, as rescue workers rappelled down a 300-meter (984 feet) gorge to continue the search. Two more bodies were found Monday morning.
It remains unclear what caused the crash, the Himalayan country's deadliest airplane accident in three decades. The weather was mild and not windy on the day of the crash.
Read more: Nepal begins national mourning after 68 killed in deadly plane crash
A witness who recorded footage of the plane’s descent from his balcony said he saw the plane flying low before it suddenly veered to its left. “I saw that and I was shocked… I thought that today everything will be finished here after it crashes, I will also be dead,” said Diwas Bohora. After it crashed, red flames erupted and the ground shook violently, like an earthquake, Bohora said. “I was scared. Seeing that scene, I was scared.”
Another witness said he saw the aircraft twist violently in the air after it began descending to land, watching from the terrace of his house. Finally, Gaurav Gurung said, the plane fell nose-first towards its left and crashed into the gorge.
Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said the aircraft last made contact with the airport from near Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. before crashing.
The twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was competing the 27-minute flight from the capital, Kathmandu, to Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west. It was carrying 68 passengers, including 15 foreign nationals, as well as four crew members, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. The foreigners included five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the Pokhara Academy of Health and Science, Western Hospital, where the bodies are being kept. Relatives and friends of victims, many of whom were from Pokhara, consoled each other as they waited.
Bimala Bhenderi was waiting outside the post-mortem room Monday. She was planning to meet her friend, Tribhuban Paudel, on Tuesday when she heard that his flight had crashed. “I’m so sad, I can’t believe it still,” she said in tears.
Gyan Khadka, a police spokesperson in the district, said 31 bodies have been identified and will be handed over to family after officials finish post mortem reports. The bodies of foreigners and those that are unrecognizable will be sent to Kathmandu for further investigation.
On Sunday, Twitter was awash with images that showed plumes of smoke billowing from the crash site, about 1.6 kilometers (nearly a mile) away from Pokhara International Airport. The aircraft’s fuselage was split into multiple parts that were scattered down the gorge.
Read more: Nepal begins national mourning after 68 killed in deadly plane crash
Hours after dark, scores of onlookers remained crowded around the crash site near the airport in the resort town of Pokhara as rescue workers combed the wreckage on the edge of the cliff and in the ravine below.
Local resident Bishnu Tiwari, who rushed to the crash site near the Seti River to help search for bodies, said the rescue efforts were hampered by thick smoke and a raging fire.
“The flames were so hot that we couldn’t go near the wreckage. I heard a man crying for help, but because of the flames and smoke we couldn’t help him,” Tiwari said.
At Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, family members appeared distraught as they waited for information.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal rushed to the airport after the crash and set up a panel to investigate the accident.
”The incident was tragic. The full force of the Nepali army, police has been deployed for rescue,” he said.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it’s still trying to confirm the fate of two South Korean passengers and has sent staff to the scene. The Russian Ambassador to Nepal, Alexei Novikov, confirmed the death of four Russian citizens who were on board the plane.
Omar Gutiérrez, governor of Argentina’s Neuquen province, wrote on his official Twitter account that an Argentine passenger on the flight was Jannet Palavecino, from his province.
The Facebook page of Palavecino says she was manager of the Hotel Suizo in Neuquen city. She described herself as a lover of travel and adventure tourism.
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers told reporters Monday that “our hearts go out to all of the families of the crew and passengers” who died, adding that the government was providing consular support to the family of an Australian who was aboard the plane.
Pokhara is the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit, a popular hiking trail in the Himalayas. The city’s new international airport began operations only two weeks ago.
The type of plane involved, the ATR 72, has been used by airlines around the world for short regional flights. Introduced in the late 1980s by a French and Italian partnership, the aircraft model has been involved in several deadly accidents over the years.
In Taiwan two earlier accidents involving ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 aircrafts happened just months apart.
In July 2014, a TransAsia ATR 72-500 flight crashed while trying to land on the scenic Penghu archipelago between Taiwan and China, killing 48 people onboard. An ATR 72-600 operated by the same Taiwanese airline crashed shortly after takeoff in Taipei in February 2015 after one of its engines failed and the second was shut down, apparently by mistake.
The 2015 crash, captured in dramatic footage that showed the plane striking a taxi as it hurtled out of control, killed 43, and prompted authorities to ground all Taiwanese-registered ATR 72s for some time. TransAsia ceased all flights in 2016 and later went out of business.
ATR identified the plane involved in Sunday’s crash as an ATR 72-500 in a tweet. According to plane tracking data from flightradar24.com, the aircraft was 15 years old and “equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.” It was previously flown by India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Thailand’s Nok Air before Yeti took it over in 2019, according to records on Airfleets.net.
Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR 72-500 planes, company spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula said.
Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest, has a history of air crashes. Sunday’s crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it plowed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu.
According to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety database, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal since 1946.
According to a 2019 safety report from Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority, the country’s “hostile topography” and “diverse weather patterns” were the biggest dangers to flights in the country. The report said such accidents happened at airports that had short strips of runway for takeoff and landing and most were due to pilot error.
The report added that 37% of all air crashes in Nepal between 2009 and 2018 were due to pilot error, not counting helicopters and recreational flights.
The European Union has banned airlines from Nepal from flying into the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing weak safety standards. In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited improvements in Nepal’s aviation sector, but the EU continues to demand administrative reforms.
Myanmar arms industry growing after army takeover: Report
Companies from at least 13 countries have helped Myanmar build up its capacity to produce weapons that are being used to commit atrocities following a 2021 military takeover, independent international experts have found.
The report released Monday by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar details how the country has stepped up arms production since the army seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, igniting a mass public opposition movement.
The army’s takeover from elected civilian leaders reversed nearly a decade of progress toward democracy after 50 years of military rule. After security forces used lethal force against peaceful demonstrators, opponents of military rule took up arms. Some U.N. experts have characterized the situation as a civil war.
Read more: Myanmar's military govt 'willing to take back Rohingyas' .
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has documented more than 2,700 civilian deaths in the violence, including 277 children, while more than 13,000 people have been detained. The true number is believed to be much higher.
Companies in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East are supporting the military supply chain, the report says, urging those businesses to ensure they are not facilitating human rights abuses.
The growth of the homegrown arms industry comes as some countries have enforced arms embargoes or sanctions against individuals and companies involved in trading or manufacturing arms.
In October, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions against Aung Moe Myint, a businessman close to the army who it said facilitates arms deals on its behalf. His brother, Hlaing Moe Myint, and the trading company they founded, Dynasty International Company Ltd., were also targeted. One of its directors, Myo Thitsar, also was designated for sanctions.
In November, the U.S. imposed sanctions on aircraft suppliers to the military, citing deadly air strikes on civilians.
Myanmar has no private arms makers, so any such companies are run by the Ministry of Defense and Directorate of Defense Industries, the report said.
Local factories still can draw upon licensed technology and overseas supply chains, technical support and other backing, sometimes by sending equipment to Singapore and Taiwan for upgrading and maintenance, it said.
In a statement, council expert Chris Sidoti urged that governments investigate and when justified initiate action against companies that enable Myanmar's military to make weapons used in “indiscriminate attacks on civilians."
“Foreign companies that profit from the suffering of the Myanmar people must be held accountable," said Sidoti, a human rights lawyer and a member of the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar from 2017 to 2019.
A report last year by the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights outlined some of those links, naming companies in Russia, China, Ukraine, Israel, Singapore and the Philippines.
A major factor driving the buildup in the domestic arms making industry is the risk that imports of arms, military aircraft and other weaponry will be cut off by embargoes or sanctions. The army is now self-reliant in making small arms and light weapons, the report says.
Myanmar's arms-making capacity includes a wide variety of items from assault rifles and machine guns to mortars, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, missiles and missile launchers and artillery and air defense systems, it said.
Read more: Myanmar's military regime must end its violence, release those unjustly detained: US
Land mines and naval mines are among other products being made in Myanmar, said the report, citing people who have worked in the industry and also photos of weapons displayed at a defense and security exhibition in Bangkok that showcased such products.
Weapons factories, known as “KaPaSa," an abbreviation of the local name for the Directorate of Defense Industries, draw on components such as fuses, optical sights and detonating caps imported from India and China. They also have computer numerical control, or CNC, machines for milling, grinding and other functions made in Austria, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and the United States, the report said.
The exact number of such factories is unclear but analysis of satellite images and other information has identified dozens of such facilities.
Much of the technology used in the arms-making industry was transferred for civilian use before the military took control, ousting the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
But more research is needed on the complex network of suppliers, licensors of technology and other details of weapons manufacturing, the report said.
Myanmar has endured decades of armed conflict between the central government and ethnic minorities seeking greater autonomy, mostly in border regions.
Ex-Afghan female lawmaker, guard shot dead at home: Police
A former Afghan female lawmaker and her bodyguard have been shot dead by unknown assailants at her home in the capital, Kabul, police said Sunday.
Mursal Nabizada was among the few female parliamentarians who stayed in Kabul after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.
Read more: Afghan women athletes barred from play, fear Taliban threats
It is the first time a lawmaker from the previous administration has been killed in the city since the takeover.
Local police chief Molvi Hamidullah Khalid said Nabizada and her guard were shot dead around 3 a.m. Saturday in the same room.
He said her brother and a second security guard were injured. A third security guard fled the scene with money and jewelry.
She died on the first floor of her home, which she used as her office. Khalid said investigations are underway. He did not answer questions about possible motives.
Abdullah Abdullah, who was a top official in Afghanistan's former Western-backed government, said he was saddened by Nabizada's death and hoped the perpetrators would be punished. He described her as a “representative and servant of the people.”
A former Kandahar parliamentarian, Malalai Ishaqzai, also offered her condolences.
Read more: Afghan Taliban kill 8 in raids of IS hideouts in Afghanistan
Nabizada was elected in 2019 to represent Kabul and stayed in office until the Taliban takeover.
She was a member of the parliamentary defense commission and worked at a private non-governmental group, the Institute for Human Resources Development and Research.
Biden: Americans should ‘pay attention’ to MLK’s legacy
President Joe Biden made a historical pilgrimage Sunday to “America’s freedom church” to mark Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, saying democracy was at a perilous moment and that the civil rights leader’s life and legacy “show us the way and we should pay attention.”
As the first sitting president to deliver a Sunday morning sermon at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, Biden cited the telling question that King himself once asked of the nation.
“He said, ‘Where do we go from here?’” Biden said from the pulpit. ”Well, my message to this nation on this day is we go forward, we go together, when we choose democracy over autocracy, a beloved community over chaos, when we choose believers and the dreams, to be doers, to be unafraid, always keeping the faith.”
In a divided country only two years removed from a violent insurrection, Biden told congregants, elected officials and dignitaries that “the battle for the soul of this nation is perennial. It’s a constant struggle ... between hope and fear, kindness and cruelty, justice and injustice.”
He spoke out against those who “traffic in racism, extremism, insurrection” and said the struggle to safeguard democracy was playing out in courthouses and ballot boxes, protests and other ways. ”At our best, the American promise wins out. … But I don’t need to tell you that we’re not always at our best. We’re fallible. We fail and fall.”
The stop at Ebenezer came at a delicate moment for Biden after Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate how the president handled classified documents after leaving the vice presidency in 2017. The White House on Saturday revealed that additional classified records were found at Biden’s home near Wilmington, Delaware.
Read more: US is invested in Bangladesh's success: Biden
In introducing Biden, the church’s senior pastor, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock noted that the president was “a devout Catholic” for whom “this Baptist service might be a little bit rambunctious and animated. But I saw him over there clapping his hands.”
King, “the greatest American prophet of the 20th century,” as Warnock put it, served as co-pastor from 1960 until he was assassinated in 1968.
Warnock, like many battleground state Democrats who won reelection in 2022, kept his distance during the campaign from Biden as the president’s approval rating lagged and the inflation rate climbed.
But with the election behind him and a full six-year term ahead, Warnock fully embraced Biden at the service. Near the close, he asked Biden to come to the front of the church and asked Ebenezer’s congregants to pray for the president as he listed several of Biden’s legislative achievements.
“That, my friends, is God’s work,” said Warnock, adding that Biden “had a little something to do with it.”
As Biden begins to turn his attention toward an expected 2024 reelection effort, Georgia is going to get plenty of his attention.
In 2020, Biden managed to win Georgia as well as closely contested Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Black votes made up a disproportionate share of the Democratic electorate. Turning out Black voters in those states will be essential to Biden’s 2024 hopes.
The White House has tried to promote Biden’s agenda in minority communities. The White House has cited efforts to encourage states to take equity into account for public works projects as they spend money from the administration’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill. The administration also has acted to end sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses, scrapping a policy widely seen as racist.
The administration also highlights Biden’s work to diversify the federal judiciary, including his appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court and the confirmation of 11 Black women judges to federal appeals courts — more than those installed to those powerful courts under all previous presidents combined.
Biden’s failure to win passage of a measure that would have bolstered voting right protections, a central campaign pledge, is one of his biggest disappointments of his first two years in office. The task is even steeper now that Republicans control the House.
Read more: More classified documents found at Biden's home by lawyers
In his remarks, the president said that for all the progress the United States has made, the country had now reached a critical point in its history. He said democracies can backslide, noting the collapse of the institutional structures of democracy in places such as Brazil.
“Progress is never easy, but it’s always possible and things do get better in our march to a more perfect union,” he said. “But at this inflection point, we know a lot of work that has to continue on economic justice civil rights, voting rights, protecting our democracy. And I’m remembering our job is to redeem the soul of America.”
This moment, he said, “is the time of choosing. … Are we a people who will choose democracy over autocracy? Couldn’t ask that question 15 years ago because everybody thought democracy was settled. ... But it’s not.” Americans, he said, ” have to choose a community over chaos. ... These are the vital questions of our time and the reason why I’m here as your president. I believe Dr. King’s life and legacy show us the way and we should pay attention.”
King, who was born on Jan. 15, 1929, was killed at age 39. He helped drive passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Members of King’s family attended the service, including his 95-year-old sister, Christine King Farris.
``I’ve spoken before parliaments, kings, queens, leaders of the world ... but this is intimidating,” Biden said in opening his sermon.
The president plans to be in Washington on Monday to speak at the National Action Network’s annual breakfast on the King holiday.