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British soldiers with NATO-led Resolute Support Mission arrive at the site of an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan March 6, 2020.
Hard Numbers: Secret British plan resettles Afghans, More Palestinians die at aid sites, US AIDS relief lives on, robots take the field, & more
19,000: According to a BBC report, the personal details of 19,000 Afghans who had applied to move to the United Kingdom following the 2021 Taliban takeover were leaked in February 2022. The government learned of the data breach in August 2023 and created a secret resettlement scheme for those affected, as it was deemed they were at risk of harm by the Taliban. Under the program, 4,500 Afghans have relocated to the UK.
20: At least 20 Palestinians were killed in a stampede at an aid distribution site operated by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund on Wednesday. The UN says at least 875 people have lost their lives in the past six weeks alone while trying to access aid at these sites, with the majority reportedly gunned down by Israeli security forces. While Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians, it has said it is investigating the incidents.
$400 million: US Republican senators reached a budget deal on Tuesday that will preserve the $400-million President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program, which helps to stem the spread of HIV in more than 50 countries and has reportedly saved 26 million lives. President Donald Trump had previously frozen funding for PEPFAR as part of his foreign-aid freeze.
2: A US citizen, Daniel Martindale, who spent more than two years spying on Ukrainian troops for Russia was awarded citizenship by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. Martindale reportedly biked from Poland to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in 2022, and surveyed key military positions and facilities from a Ukrainian village near the front line.
4: Our new robot umpire overlords have arrived! Last night’s Major League Baseball All-Star game – a meaningless but fun contest between the sport’s biggest stars – featured a trial system allowing players to appeal to a computerized system to challenge ball-and-strike calls made by human umps. Four out of the five challenges in the game were successful. The system could be introduced in meaningful games at the Major League level as soon as next season. Do we want this?
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to press before boarding Marine One to depart for Florida, on the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 1, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Trump peddles scent of “victory,” Iran expels Afghan refugees, Pharma factory fire rages in India, heatwave scorches Europe
$199: For the low low price of $199 you too can wear the scent of the US president. Donald Trump has just released a line of signature fragrances – “for patriots who never back down” – with names like “Fight Fight Fight” and “Victory 47.” For true enthusiasts there’s even a limited edition bottle featuring a golden (and deceptively svelte) statuette of Trump, costing a mere $249. Yes, by the way, it’s legal for the president to sell perfumes.
250,000: Over 250,000 Afghans left Iran last month, after the government ordered the expulsion of all undocumented Afghans – many of whom fled the Taliban – by July 6. The expulsions are part of a broader forcible repatriation effort by Iran and Pakistan that the UN’s Refugee Agency warns could destabilize an already fragile region.
39: More than 39 people have been killed so far in a factory fire in South India’s Telangana state. While the cause is still unclear, Sigachi Industries – the pharmaceutical company which operates the factory – has announced that it will suspend operations for 90 days.
115.9 (46.6): A heat wave is ripping across Europe, with temperatures soaring into the triple digits, reaching 115.9°F (46.6°C) in one Portuguese town on Sunday. The high temperatures are causing all manner of chaos: two Italians have died as a result, and heat-stoked wildfires are ravaging Turkey.71 Islamist militants have been killed along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in recent days.
The Graphic Truth: Pakistan kills Afghan militants
Pakistan accused the infiltrators of working for the Pakistani Taliban, a sister terrorist organization to the group that now controls Afghanistan. Islamabad says the Pakistani Taliban is orchestrating a campaign of violence that has rocked the country in recent months with high-profile bombings and shootings
Pakistan’s information minister claimed that India was encouraging the Taliban to strike in a bid to distract Islamabad’s forces from a simultaneous confrontation in Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan partially occupy the disputed mountain region and have traded fire in small skirmishes in recent days after Islamist militants killed 26 civilians last week in the largest terrorist attack to hit the region in years. Indian forces have detained over 1,500 people and destroyed several houses linked to alleged perpetrators. China, a major ally of Pakistan’s, is urging restraint on both sides.
Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, pictured here at the anniversary event of the departure of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 28, 2022.
US-Taliban relations thaw amid race for Afghanistan’s mineral riches
The Trump administration has dropped multimillion-dollar bounties on senior Afghan officials from the Haqqani network, a militant faction that carried out some of the deadliest attacks on American troops but has now positioned itself as a moderate wing within the Taliban government.
The “largely symbolic” move this week came days after the US sent its first major diplomatic mission to Kabul since the Taliban took power in 2021, securing the release of an American citizen detained for the past two years.
While the bounties have been lifted, the men, including Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, remain on the US list of “specially designated global terrorists.”
Thawing relations: While few countries formally recognize the Taliban’s government, a handful – including India, Turkey, and Tajikistan – have established limited ties with Kabul.
China was the first country to formally welcome a Taliban diplomat as the official Afghanistan ambassador last year. In the highest-profile state visit yet, Uzbekistan last summer sent its prime minister to Kabul. Last month, Japan received a delegation from the Taliban for the first time.
Mineral riches: Washington estimates that Afghanistan sits atop at least $1 trillion in mineral wealth, including copper, cobalt, and lithium, in addition to gems such as emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. Last year, Beijing stepped up efforts to help the Taliban tap what could be the world’s second biggest deposit of copper. Washington may now want to keep China from seizing a monopoly like the one it has over minerals in places such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Afghanistan’s crisis deepens: Fawzia Koofi on Taliban rule and global response
“The Taliban’s war is against women,” Fawzia Koofi, former Afghan parliamentarian and women’s rights activist, told GZERO’s Tony Maciulis on the sidelines of the 2025 Munich Security Conference.
Nearly four years since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Koofi described a country in economic collapse, political repression, and worsening humanitarian conditions. With women erased from public life and banned from education and employment, Afghanistan’s economy has suffered a $3 billion loss—all while 90% of Afghans live in poverty.
Despite international condemnations, Koofi argued that diplomatic efforts have failed to bring meaningful change. “It is naïve to believe the Taliban will reverse their edicts. Their survival depends on suppression.” Instead, she sees division within the Taliban’s ranks as a possible opening for change, provided sustained international pressure weakens the group’s control. As global leaders debate their approach, Koofi warned against engaging the Taliban without clear principles. “We don’t need to fix the Taliban. We need to fix Afghanistan.”
This interview, conducted by Tony Maciulis, is part of the Global Stage series at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, presented by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft.
FILE PHOTO: Afghan women walk after the recent earthquake in the district of Zinda Jan, in Herat, Afghanistan October 10, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Iran suspected of killing Afghan migrants, Meta busts lunch scheme, Venezuela jails more foreigners, US and NATO mark a decade of fighting ISIS
2 million: The United Nations has called for an investigation into reports that Iran’s security forces opened fire last weekend on roughly 200 Afghan migrants who had entered the country illegally, killing an unknown number of them. Iran has threatened to deport as many as 2 million undocumented Afghan migrants who live in the country as refugees from decades of war and famine in their home country.
25: There’s no free lunch, they say – but if there were, you certainly shouldn’t use the money to buy acne treatment pads, wine glasses, or laundry detergent. Meta has fired around two dozen employees in its Los Angeles office after they were caught using the company’s $25 meal allowances to purchase household items.
5: Venezuela has arrested five foreigners, including three Americans, on charges of terrorism. Since winning a heavily disputed election this summer, President Nicolas Maduro has cracked down on the opposition, accusing it of collaborating with foreign intelligence operatives. The recent arrests bring to 12 the number of foreigners detained in Venezuela.
10: The US and NATO allies on Thursday marked 10 years since the start of their campaign to defeat Islamic State, often referred to as “ISIS.” On the plus side, the terror organization was rooted out of its modern “caliphate” strongholds in Syria and Iraq. On the minus side, it has shown a growing presence and capability in the Sahel, where some local governments are pushing out Western forces, and Central Asia, where Islamic State is at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan and has managed to carry out attacks in Russia.
FILE PHOTO: Afghan women clad in burkas wait for transportation on a road in Kabul November 5, 2012.
UN: Taliban criminalizes sights and sounds of women
On Sunday, the United Nations condemned new laws enacted by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue that prohibit the display of women’s faces and bodies in public and said that “even the sound of a female voice” outside the home constitutes “a moral violation” and can be grounds for arrest.
Since 2022, Afghan women have been barred from education beyond the sixth grade and from employment outside the home. They are now forbidden from singing, reciting, and reading aloud in public. They are also not allowed to laugh very loud, and their laughter should not be heard by men. Women cannot look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.
As for men, they must grow beards, eschew Western dress and hairstyles, pray and observe religious fasts.
Breaking these rules may result in warnings, confiscation of property, or detention for up to three days. The ministry has already detained thousands for similar violations, but the new codification represents a further crackdown that women say has made life in the country completely intolerable. Roza Otunbayeva, the UN’s envoy to Afghanistan, said it represents a “distressing vision” for the country’s future.
In response, Vice and Virtue Minister Mohammad Khaled Hanafi claimed the regulations protect women’s rights under Islamic law. We’ll be watching whether Otunbayeva’s report to the UN, scheduled for Sept. 18, makes any difference, and whether the rest of the international community will join the condemnation — though serious action to help Afghan women and girls is unlikely.Talibans and their supporters gather in front of the American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 14, 2024, to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the take over. They decided to celebrate according to the Afghan calendar.
Hard Numbers: Taliban fires baby-faced cops, EU slaps tax on Tesla, Morocco pardons cannabis cultivators, Panama starts deportations, RFK Jr in signature scandal
281: Taliban security forces have found themselves in a hairy situation: 281 of them have been dismissed for failing to grow beards, which the fundamentalist religious group says is in accordance with Islamic laws. The crackdown came from Afghanistan’s morality ministry, which has detained more than 13,000 people for “immoral acts” over the last year.
19: The European Commission said Tuesday it will place a 19% tax on sales of Tesla automobiles manufactured in China — a steep surcharge, but far from the worst-case-scenario. Though the proposed tax is 9 percentage points higher than the levy applied to most foreign-made cars, it is far less than the 47% rate Brussels applies to Chinese EV manufacturers.
5,000: Legaliiiize it! Moroccan King Mohammed VI pardoned roughly 5,000 people convicted or wanted for illegal cannabis cultivation. Morocco is an odd bird in the weed world, as it is a major producer of marijuana, and cultivation, export, and medical use are all legal — but recreational use and cultivation for such use are not. The King hopes the pardons will encourage farmers to stick with legal cultivation efforts.
29: Panama on Monday began deporting undocumented migrants on US-funded flights, sending home 29 Colombians with criminal records. Panama and the US agreed in July to work together to stem the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing northward through the perilous Darien Gap, which lies along the Colombia-Panama border.
110,000: Fringe presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in hot water in Arizona after the revelation that the 110,000 signatures meant to give him ballot access in that state were not collected by his own campaign. Rather, they were gathered by a PAC backing Kennedy, which may violate laws forbidding PACs and campaigns from coordinating.