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Islamabad — An American diplomat has condemned the Taliban’s new morality law in Afghanistan, warning that it “aims to complete the erasure of women from public life.” Rina Amiri, the United States special envoy for Afghan women, girls, and human rights, posted on social media late Tuesday that she raised concerns about the law during her recent meetings with counterparts in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. “My message was clear: Our support for the Afghan people remains steadfast, but patience with the Taliban is running out,” Amiri wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The way to legitimacy domestically & internationally is respecting the rights of the Afghan people.” The U.S. warning comes days after the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, enacted the contentious decree that orders Afghan women not to speak aloud in public and cover their bodies and faces entirely when outdoors. The 114-page, 35-article law also outlines various actions and specific conduct that the Taliban government, called the Islamic Emirate, considers mandatory or prohibited for Afghan men and women in line with its strict interpretation of Islam. The legal document empowers the Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, which the Taliban revived after coming back to power in August 2021, to enforce it strictly. Enforcers are empowered to discipline offenders, and penalties may include anything from a verbal warning to fines to imprisonment. The law requires them to prevent “evils” such as adultery, extramarital sex, lesbianism, taking pictures of living objects and befriending non-Muslims. Official Taliban media quoted Akhundzada this week as ordering authorities to “rigorously enforce” the new vice and virtue decree across Afghanistan “to bring the people closer to the Islamic system.” The law was enacted amid extensive restrictions on Afghan women's education and employment opportunities. Since regaining power three years ago, the Taliban have prohibited girls ages 12 and older from continuing their education beyond the sixth grade and restricted women from seeking employment, except in certain sectors such as health. Afghan females are not allowed to visit parks and other public places, and a male guardian must accompany them on road trips or air travel. The United Nations promptly responded to the new law last month, condemning it as a “distressing vision" for the impoverished country's future and urging de facto authorities to reverse it. The Taliban government, which is officially not recognized by any country, has dismissed U.N.-led foreign criticism as offensive. Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesperson, asserted that “non-Muslims should first educate themselves about Islamic laws and respect Islamic values” before expressing concerns or rejecting the law. “We find it blasphemous to our Islamic Sharia when objections are raised without understanding it,” he said.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Dhaka, Bangladesh — Bangladeshi security forces have launched an operation to recover thousands of guns, including those seized during deadly unrest that led to the ouster of autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, police said on Wednesday.   Weeks of student-led demonstrations escalated into mass protests, with Hasina fleeing by helicopter to neighboring India on August 5 after 15 years in power.   Police had tried to stem the protests with gunfire but protesters responded by storming and looting police stations, when weapons were seized.   Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus is now leading an interim government after Hasina's fall.   More than 3,700 weapons of different types had been recovered during an amnesty to surrender guns that ended on Tuesday.   However, more than 2,000 weapons, including rifles, are missing, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of tear gas canisters and stun grenades.   "Those arms which have not been submitted to the police stations within the deadline... the looted arms will be considered illegal," senior police official Enamul Haque Sagor told AFP.   The army and police, as well as other security force units including the paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and Ansar forces, are taking part in the weapons sweep.   Two former top police officers have also been detained in connection to the violent suppression of the protests and have been placed on remand, Dhaka deputy police commissioner Obaidur Rahman said.   Both men face accusations of murder, although formal charges have not yet been made.    They include former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun, who quit a day after Hasina fled and has been taken into custody, Dhaka Metropolitan Police said in a statement late on Tuesday.   Police said he had "expressed his willingness to surrender — due to a case against him — while he was under army custody."   He was placed under remand for eight days on Wednesday, Rahman said.     Another top officer, AKM Shahidul Haque, who had been police chief from 2014 to 2018, was detained on Tuesday and placed on remand for seven days, Rahman said.   More than 600 people were killed in the weeks leading up to Hasina's ouster, according to the preliminary report of a United Nations rights team that said the toll was "likely an underestimate."   Many of those killed were hit by police fire. 

Geneva — Workers have seen their slice of the global income pie shrink significantly over the past two decades, swelling inequality and depriving the combined labor force of trillions, the U.N. said Wednesday.  The United Nations' International Labor Organization said that the global labor income share — or the proportion of total income in an economy earned by working — had fallen by 1.6 percentage points since 2004.  "While the decrease appears modest in terms of percentage points, in 2024 it represents an annual shortfall in labor income of $2.4 trillion compared to what workers would have earned had the labor income share remained stable since 2004," the ILO said in a report.  The study highlighted the COVID-19 pandemic as a key driver of the decline, with almost half of the reduction in labor income share taking place during the pandemic years of 2020-2022.   The global crisis exacerbated existing inequalities, particularly as capital income has continued to concentrate ever more among the wealthiest, it said.  "Countries must take action to counter the risk of declining labor income share," Celeste Drake, the ILO deputy director-general, said in a statement.  "We need policies that promote an equitable distribution of economic benefits, including freedom of association, collective bargaining and effective labor administration, to achieve inclusive growth, and build a path to sustainable development for all."  Deepening inequality The ILO stressed that technological advances, including automation, were a key driver of the declines in labor income share.  "While these innovations have boosted productivity and output, the evidence suggests that workers are not sharing equitably from the resulting gains," the U.N. labor agency said.  It voiced particular concern that the artificial intelligence boom risked deepening inequality further.   "If historical patterns were to persist... the recent breakthroughs in generative AI could exert further downward pressure on the labor income share," the report said, stressing "the importance of ensuring that any benefits of AI are widely distributed".  The ILO found that workers currently rake in just 52.3 percent of global income, while capital income — earned by owners of assets like land, machines, buildings and patents — accounts for the rest.  Since capital income tends to be concentrated among wealthier individuals, the labor income share is widely used as a measure of inequality.  It also helps measure progress towards the U.N. sustainable development goal aimed at significantly reducing inequality between and within countries between 2015 and 2030.  "The report indicates slow progress as the 2030 deadline approaches," ILO said.  The report also emphasized the stubbornly high incidence of young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET).  Since 2015, the global percentage has slipped slightly, from 21.3% to 20.4% this year.  But there are major regional differences, with a third of youth in Arab states and nearly a quarter in Africa falling into the NEET category.   The report also highlighted a large gender gap, with the global NEET incidence among young women standing at 28.2% — more than double the 13.1% seen among young men. 

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SINGAPORE — Indonesia has looked this week to boost trade ties with African nations during a summit in Bali, although many leaders from the continent stayed away, instead opting to visit China for a high-profile forum in Beijing. Representatives from 29 African nations headed to the Indonesian resort island, well-short of the 47 countries that were represented during the inaugural Indonesia-Africa forum in 2018. Despite this, the Southeast Asian country is hoping to have sealed $3.5 billion worth of business deals from the three-day forum, according to President Joko Widodo. As the summit concluded Tuesday, some of the delegates headed to Beijing to join a larger representation of African leaders for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. Fifty African countries are slated to be represented at the forum in the Chinese capital, which takes place every third year. "Between Indonesia and China, the major African leaders chose China to be present at," said Christophe Dorigne-Thomson, an Indonesia-based foreign affairs academic. "That doesn't mean that the collaboration with Indonesia and the forum does not have important discussions and important outcomes. But symbolically, for sure, the choice was made for China," Dorigne-Thomson told VOA. Relations between Indonesia and the African continent date back to at least 1955, when former Indonesian President Sukarno hosted the Asian-Africa conference in the city of Bandung. Most of the African states represented were newly independent. "Jakarta can boast history and a legacy of relationship that stretches back to the Bandung Conference," said Elina Noor, senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Indonesia has really sought to leverage on that historical relationship to recall the spirit of Bandung - it's part of the theme at this year's Indonesia-Africa forum," Noor told VOA. While the historical ties have allowed for decades of solid relations, Dorigne-Thomson says Indonesia's interest in Africa increased when President Joko Widodo took office in 2014, adding that "the main focus is on the economy." The Indonesian government said that roughly $600 million of deals were signed during the inaugural Indonesia-Africa summit in 2018. This year, they have targeted nearly six-times that amount as they look to boost economic links with African countries. "There seem to be some concrete MOU's (memorandum of understanding) and letters of intent, like Indonesia's aircraft industry signing deals with several countries and the oil companies also signing deals," said Dewi Fortuna Anwar, senior researcher at Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency. Despite these agreements, Anwar said she's "not sure whether the $35 billion target will be realized," largely because of the lack of procedures to track the various deals and ensure they are developed and concluded in the years ahead. Announcements from the summit include an agreement between Indonesia's Energi Mega Persada and Guma Africa Group for a gas project in South Africa that could be worth up to $900 million. The project is aimed at increasing gas supplies to South Africa and Mozambique, with the two companies also agreeing to develop a new gas power plant. Such eye-catching deals generate a lot of attention, but, according to Noor, much of the business at this summit comes in the form of smaller agreements. "On the Indonesian side, a lot of the businesses in the country comprise micro, small and medium enterprises,'' Noor told VOA. ''I think it's particularly important that we keep this in mind, because a lot of the headlines tend to just focus on the large corporations." Though deal-making at this summit presents Indonesia opportunities to expand its export markets, the country is also looking to secure import deals with African nations to boost lithium supplies. The Southeast Asian nation has a booming nickel industry but needs lithium as another key component for assembling and producing batteries for electric vehicles. "Africa is an ideal partner due to its wealth of critical minerals, which Indonesia seeks to access. Indonesia's rapid industrialization also creates a growing demand for African commodities," said Sharyn Davies, director of the Herb Feith Indonesia Centre at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Opening new trade avenues with Africa also provides Indonesia with a chance to diversify away from traditional trading partners including the US and China. As tensions continue to simmer between the world's two biggest economies, Davies believes that Africa could be "a way for Indonesia to sidestep from picking sides between China and the US." While the main focus of the Bali forum was business, politics was also at play. President Widodo has looked to enhance Indonesia's standing on the international stage, promoting his country as a voice of the Global South. "Indonesia is not a follower in the Global South movement; it's been very much one of the founding members," Anwar, the researcher in Indonesia, told VOA. "The difference is that Indonesia also stresses the importance of, not just South-South cooperation, but also North-South cooperation. Indonesia sees itself as a bridge builder."

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.