A female activist in Afghanistan made a heartfelt plea to the Munich Security Conference for the international community to help to tackle the nation's problems.
Panelist Mahbouba Seraj, executive director of the Afghan Women Skills Development Centre, addressed the conference from Kabul in a session titled Talibanned: Prospects for Afghanistan and said that the nation is now “lost”.
“We are dying here. I do not care what this world is saying. How you are coming about it, any kind of a thing for Afghanistan you have, use it right now and make it possible for us to get out of this situation,” she said.
“Right there is not just the fact that the Taliban do not let us study — because even if they let us study how are we going to do it? There are no proper schools, no teachers, no money. You are sitting in a country that is falling apart.
“What are your plans as the world? Because we are out of plans. Can you please sit down and make a solid plan because we are lost. The poverty is holding us by the neck and is taking us down.
“The lack of education and literacy — the same. No money — the same. Where are you?” she said.
“You were part of our lives for so long, you did so much for us, and we counted so much on you. Is there a voice, is there a plan or are you just going to sit down and have meeting after meeting?”
Her calls came as panelists from around the world discussed the problems faced by Afghanistan.
Moderator Michael Keating said that ignoring Afghanistan would be at the world's “peril”.
“Right now, the danger in Afghanistan is being deprioritised due to everything else going on. Ignoring the situation is not a good policy, not only for the people but for the region and for the rest of the world,” he said.
“You ignore Afghanistan at your peril.
“The issue is how to engage with Afghanistan, engagement is very upsetting for a lot of actors, but failure to engage could be even worse.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul said his priority was to see more women being employed in non-government organisations (NGOs).
“It’s very challenging and it’s a very dire situation,” he said.
“We left American citizens behind and 100,000 partners behind who we promised we would protect. The saddest thing to me is the women left behind and what is happening to them in Afghanistan.
“Right now we are looking at humanitarian assistance we ave NGOs on the ground and we want to make sure aid is getting to the victims and not war fighters, there is lots of commitment,” said Mr McCaul, a Republican Congressman from Texas.
“The biggest change for NGOs is that they do not want to hire women. Just hiring all male Taliban is not good behaviour. The women are being persecuted. We need to get more women involved in the NGO process.”
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, said tackling terrorist groups within Afghanistan is a major matter.
“The most important issue is, and should be, the potential security and terrorism threat emanating from Afghanistan,” he said.
“There is a whole alphabet soup of terror organisations basing themselves in Afghanistan.
“The key is to convince the interim government to take on terrorists within their borders and demonstrate their ability to do so.”
Belgium's Foreign Affairs Minister Hadja Lahbib said the situation could give rise to more terrorist incidents.
“It is creating a generation without hope or future. It is creating all the conditions that led to 9/11,” she said.
THE BIO
Bio Box
Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Favorite food: seafood
Favorite place to travel: Lebanon
Favorite movie: Braveheart
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In 2018, the ICRC received 27,756 trace requests in the Middle East alone. The global total was 45,507.
There are 139,018 global trace requests that have not been resolved yet, 55,672 of these are in the Middle East region.
More than 540,000 individuals approached the ICRC in the Middle East asking to be reunited with missing loved ones in 2018.
The total figure for the entire world was 654,000 in 2018.
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
SWEET%20TOOTH
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F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
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So what is Spicy Chickenjoy?
Just as McDonald’s has the Big Mac, Jollibee has Spicy Chickenjoy – a piece of fried chicken that’s crispy and spicy on the outside and comes with a side of spaghetti, all covered in tomato sauce and topped with sausage slices and ground beef. It sounds like a recipe that a child would come up with, but perhaps that’s the point – a flavourbomb combination of cheap comfort foods. Chickenjoy is Jollibee’s best-selling product in every country in which it has a presence.
RESULT
Uruguay 3 Russia 0
Uruguay: Suárez (10'), Cheryshev (23' og), Cavani (90')
Russia: Smolnikov (Red card: 36')
Man of the match: Diego Godin (Uruguay)
Scoreline
Al Wasl 1 (Caio Canedo 90 1')
Al Ain 2 (Ismail Ahmed 3', Marcus Berg 50')
Red cards: Ismail Ahmed (Al Ain) 77'
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
'Midnights'
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EArtist%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Taylor%20Swift%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ELabel%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Republic%20Records%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE%20v%20West%20Indies
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More from Neighbourhood Watch:
What is a robo-adviser?
Robo-advisers use an online sign-up process to gauge an investor’s risk tolerance by feeding information such as their age, income, saving goals and investment history into an algorithm, which then assigns them an investment portfolio, ranging from more conservative to higher risk ones.
These portfolios are made up of exchange traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to indices such as US and global equities, fixed-income products like bonds, though exposure to real estate, commodity ETFs or gold is also possible.
Investing in ETFs allows robo-advisers to offer fees far lower than traditional investments, such as actively managed mutual funds bought through a bank or broker. Investors can buy ETFs directly via a brokerage, but with robo-advisers they benefit from investment portfolios matched to their risk tolerance as well as being user friendly.
Many robo-advisers charge what are called wrap fees, meaning there are no additional fees such as subscription or withdrawal fees, success fees or fees for rebalancing.
