Taliban deputy says there is no excuse for education bans on Afghan women and girls
CBSN
A senior Taliban figure has urged the group's leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for them, in a rare public rebuke of government policy.
Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political deputy at the Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in a speech on Saturday in southeastern Khost province.
He told an audience at a religious school ceremony there was no reason to deny education to women and girls, "just as there was no justification for it in the past and there shouldn't be one at all."
London - Britain's Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced Thursday that there would be a number of new central government-backed local inquiries into years-old allegations of child grooming gangs, weeks after Elon Musk accused British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failings in relation to the handling of the crimes in a series of tweets. The crimes took place a decade ago when Starmer was the country's top prosecutor.
In a roughly 30-minute phone call Sunday afternoon, President Biden delivered difficult news to the families of three Americans held by the Taliban. He did not have a deal with the Taliban to free their loved ones from captivity, despite what U.S. officials described to CBS News as a significant offer the U.S. had extended in Doha days earlier. The U.S. considers Ryan Corbett and George Glezmann to be wrongfully detained by the Taliban, and describes Mahmood Habibi, who holds dual American and Afghan citizenship, as "unjustly held" since 2022.