https://arab.news/mcez9
ISTANBUL: Ukraine is ready to agree a ceasefire with Russia at talks in Istanbul on Wednesday but results from the meeting will depend on whether Russia takes a “constructive position,” a source in the Ukrainian delegation told AFP.
“Everything will depend on whether Russia stops speaking in ultimatums and takes a constructive position. This will determine whether results can be achieved at this meeting,” the source told AFP.
KABUL: Afghanistan is set to send 700 workers to Qatar under a new agreement marking the first formal deployment abroad since the Taliban takeover in 2021.
The Afghan Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs said on Monday that the agreement was reached between a joint public-sector company from Qatar and private employment firms in Afghanistan and the placement process will be supervised by the Afghan government.
“Based on this agreement, an initial 700 job opportunities have been allocated for Afghan workers,” it said. “The core objective is the legal, safe, and dignified deployment of Afghan workers abroad, with the necessary future support to uphold their rights.”
Samiullah Ebrahimi, the ministry’s spokesman, told Arab News on Wednesday that the “registration process will start very soon” and that the government “will identify in which sectors Qatar needs laborers.”
As Afghanistan faces very high unemployment, with many daily wage earners struggling to find work or earn a living inside the country, sending labor abroad could provide immediate economic relief.
“This agreement will bring continued and sustainable income to Afghan families. A major factor is that our economy is currently based on remittance. With more labor going abroad, the volume of remittance gets increased, helping the economy stabilize,” Abdul Hameed Jalili, former refugee affairs attache to Pakistan, told Arab News.
The new agreement will not only provide jobs but also help elevate Afghanistan’s standing in the international labor market, potentially opening doors for more Afghan workers abroad.
“Afghanistan is home to a skilled and talented workforce and enabling these individuals to work overseas can showcase the strength and professionalism of our labor force. This, in turn, could enhance the country’s reputation and encourage other nations to consider recruiting Afghan workers,” Jalili said.
Remittances have played a vital role in supporting both Afghan households and the national economy and used to contribute 4 percent to GDP, according to data from the Assessment Capacities Project, a non-governmental organization hosted by the Norwegian Refugee Council, which provides humanitarian analysis.
They dropped in 2021, when Afghanistan was hit with sanctions after US-led forces left the country and its Western-backed administration collapsed as the Taliban took control.
While since 2022 they have been on the rise, they are still below the pre-2021 level, according to ACAPS, also due to the reliance on unofficial hawala transfers, which are difficult to track.
Many households are reliant on these transfers as job opportunities in Afghanistan have shrunk.
It is unclear how high the unemployment rate currently is, but various reports suggest it has skyrocketed over the past four years with the withdrawal of foreign projects and aid. The UN Development Program warned in May that 75 percent of the Afghan population was subsistence-insecure, lacking access to adequate housing, health care, and essential goods.
With no job prospects at home and no labor deals between the Taliban administration and foreign governments, many Afghans have illegally traveled abroad in search of employment, often taking dangerous routes.
According to the International Organization for Migration, over 1.6 million Afghans left the country between 2021 and 2023.
Agreements like the one signed with Qatar could pave the way for essential protections of those working abroad.
“Expanding official labor agreements with additional countries could help slow the migration trend that followed the collapse of the former government by offering safe and legal pathways for work abroad,” Jalili said.
“This would also reduce the risks associated with human trafficking and irregular migration, allowing Afghans to pursue opportunities overseas through regulated and secure channels.”
DHAKA: When a Bangladesh Air Force fighter jet crashed into her school and erupted in a fireball on Monday, Maherin Chowdhury rushed to save some of the hundreds of students and teachers facing mortal danger, placing their safety before her own.
The 46-year-old English teacher went back again and again into a burning classroom to rescue her students, even as her own clothes were engulfed in flames, her brother, Munaf Mojib Chowdhury, told Reuters by telephone.
Maherin died on Monday after suffering near total burns on her body. She is survived by her husband and two teenaged sons.
“When her husband called her, pleading with her to leave the scene and think of her children, she refused, saying ‘they are also my children, they are burning. How can I leave them?’” Chowdhury said.
At least 29 people, most of them children, were killed when the F-7 BGI crashed into the school, trapping them in fire and debris. The military said the aircraft had suffered mechanical failure.
DHAKA: When a Bangladesh Air Force fighter jet crashed into her school and erupted in a fireball on Monday, Maherin Chowdhury rushed to save some of the hundreds of students and teachers facing mortal danger, placing their safety before her own.
The 46-year-old English teacher went back again and again into a burning classroom to rescue her students, even as her own clothes were engulfed in flames, her brother, Munaf Mojib Chowdhury, told Reuters by telephone.
Maherin died on Monday after suffering near total burns on her body. She is survived by her husband and two teenaged sons.
“When her husband called her, pleading with her to leave the scene and think of her children, she refused, saying ‘they are also my children, they are burning. How can I leave them?’” Chowdhury said.
At least 29 people, most of them children, were killed when the F-7 BGI crashed into the school, trapping them in fire and debris. The military said the aircraft had suffered mechanical failure.
“I don’t know exactly how many she saved, but it may have been at least 20. She pulled them out with her own hands,” he said, adding that he found out about his sister’s act of bravery when he visited the hospital and met students she had rescued.
The jet had taken off from a nearby air base on a routine training mission, the military said. After experiencing mechanical failure the pilot tried to divert the aircraft away from populated areas, but it crashed into the campus. The pilot was among those killed.
“When the plane crashed and fire broke out, everyone was running to save their lives, she ran to save others,” Khadija Akter, the headmistress of the school’s primary section, told Reuters on phone about Maherin.
She was buried on Tuesday in her home district of Nilphamari, in northern Bangladesh.
LONDON: The UK on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen people, groups and suppliers from China, the Middle East and Balkans accused of helping to smuggle migrants across the Channel, in what it called a “landmark” first use of new powers.
The move comes as Britain’s government faces growing domestic pressure to stem the migrant arrivals on small boats from northern France, as numbers hit record levels this year.
The asset freezes and travel bans announced target individuals and entities “driving irregular migration to the UK,” and include four “gangs” and “gangland bosses” operating in the Balkans, the Foreign Office said.
They also hit a small boat supplier in China, so-called “hawala” money movers in the Middle East, and seven alleged people-smugglers linked to Iraq.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy called it “a landmark moment in the government’s work to tackle organized immigration crime” impacting the UK.
“From Europe to Asia we are taking the fight to the people-smugglers who enable irregular migration, targeting them wherever they are in the world,” he added.
“My message to the gangs who callously risk vulnerable lives for profit is this: we know who you are, and we will work with our partners around the world to hold you to account.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer took power a year ago promising to curb the journeys by “smashing the gangs” facilitating the crossings, but has struggled to deliver on the pledge.
Nearly 24,000 migrants have made the perilous journey across the Channel so far in 2025, the highest ever tally at this point in a year.
The issue has become politically perilous in the UK, blamed for helping to fuel the rise of the far-right and violence at anti-migrant demonstrations.
Protests have erupted sporadically outside hotels believed to house asylum-seekers, with a recent demonstration outside one in Epping, east of London, descending into clashes that injured eight police officers.
The riots sparked by the Southport attacks in July 2024 also saw suspected asylum-seeker hotels attacked and anti-migrant sentiment on display.
Wednesday’s designations represent the UK’s first use of its new “Global Irregular Migration Sanctions Regime.”
It claims the regime is a “world first,” empowering the Foreign Office to target foreign financiers and companies as well as individuals allegedly involved in facilitating people-smuggling to the UK.
In all, it sanctioned 20 individuals, four gangs — two Balkan groups and two of North African origin operating in the Balkans — as well as the Chinese company.
Among those facing curbs was Bledar Lala, described as an Albanian controlling “the ‘Belgium operations’ of an organized criminal group” involved in the crossings.
The UK also targeted Alen Basil, a former police translator it accused of now leading a large smuggling network in Serbia, “terrorizing refugees, with the aid of corrupt policemen.”
miLondon hit alleged “gangland boss” Mohammed Tetwani with sanctions, noting he was dubbed the “King of Horgos” over his brutal running of a migrant camp in the Serbian town Horgos.
Tetwani leads the Tetwani people-smuggling gang, which the UK branded “one of the Balkans’ most violent” and accused of holding migrants for ransom and sexually abusing women unable to pay the fees demanded.
The sanctions package targets three people accused of using the ancestral “hawala” banking system, which allows cash transfers without money actually moving, for irregular migration.
The sanctioned company in China — Weihai Yamar Outdoor Product Co. — has advertised its small boats online “explicitly for the purpose of people-smuggling,” according to the Foreign Office.
Tom Keatinge, of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the sanctions were “a new front in the UK’s efforts to control a business model that brings profit to the enablers” and misery to victims.
“However, I would caution against overpromising,” he told AFP. “Talk of freezing assets and using sanctions to ‘smash the gangs’ seems far-fetched and remains to be seen.
“History suggests that such assertions hold governments hostage to fortune.”
