Women could still be allowed to play cricket, the chairman of Afghanistan's Cricket Board has claimed to an Australian broadcaster in an apparent backflip on the Taliban's hardline stance.
Azizullah Fazli said the governing body would outline how this would happen "very soon", adding that all 25 of the women's team remained in Afghanistan and had chosen not to leave on evacuation flights.
"We will give you our clear position on how we will allow women to play cricket," he told SBS Radio Pashto late Friday, the broadcaster reported on its English-language website. "Very soon, we will give you good news on how we will proceed."
His comments appear to contradict the deputy head of the Taliban's cultural commission Ahmadullah Wasiq, who told the same broadcaster on Wednesday that it was "not necessary" for women to play sport.
Those remarks saw Australia threaten to cancel a historic maiden men's Test between the two countries, set to take place in Hobart in November.
Australian Test captain Tim Paine turned up the heat on Friday, saying he believed teams could pull out of next month's Twenty20 World Cup in protest, or boycott playing Afghanistan. The T20 World Cup starts on October 17 in the UAE and Oman.
In an overnight statement, the Afghanistan Cricket Board urged Australia not to punish its men's team over the Taliban's apparent ban, saying it was "powerless to change the culture and religious environment of Afghanistan".
"Do not isolate us and avoid penalising us," it added.
Cricket Australia said in brief comments Saturday that it remained in regular dialogue with the Afghanistan Cricket Board and that "we made our position very clear in the statement".
It was referring to a statement Thursday in which it supported "the game unequivocally for women at every level", adding that it would have "no alternative" but to cancel the Hobart Test if the Taliban banned women.
Under International Cricket Council regulations, nations with Test status must also have an active women's team.
Afghanistan's position as a full member was set to be discussed at the ICC's next board meeting in November, but Australian media said the governing body had brought it forward to within the next fortnight.
Despite recent reports that many of the women's team were in hiding in Kabul and that members of the Taliban had come looking for them, Fazli insisted they were safe.
"The women cricket coach Diana Barakzai and her players are all safe and living in their home country," he told SBS.
"Many countries have asked them to leave Afghanistan, but they have not left Afghanistan, and at the moment, they are in their places."
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
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Alia’s winning experiment examined how genes might change under the stresses caused by being in space, such as cosmic radiation and microgravity.
Her samples were placed in a machine on board the International Space Station. called a miniPCR thermal cycler, which can copy DNA multiple times.
After the samples were examined on return to Earth, scientists were able to successfully detect changes caused by being in space in the way DNA transmits instructions through proteins and other molecules in living organisms.
Although Alia’s samples were taken from nematode worms, the results have much bigger long term applications, especially for human space flight and long term missions, such as to Mars.
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Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
