🌏 The Taliban Take Over Afghanistan, Haiti Is Hit By An Earthquake And A Tropical Storm And More

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• 🌏 This Week’s Top Stories
• 👩 Women To Know
• 🙌 Good News For Your Weekend

On Sunday Aug. 15, Taliban insurgents entered Afghanistan’s presidential palace in Kabul and declared the country was under their control.

• The insurgents launched a military campaign after US president Joe Biden announced in April that the US would withdraw its troops from the country.
• The country’s president, Ashraf Ghani, fled earlier in the day and the government collapsed.
• During its rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban enforced a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, committing massacres against civilians, denying hundreds of thousands of starving Afghans UN food supplies and carrying out a scorched earth policy of burning fertile land and destroying homes.
• They also banned girls from going to school and workplaces and required them to be accompanied by a male relative and wear a burqa at all times in public. Women who disobeyed were whipped or executed. Arts and cultural activities and media were also prohibited.
• The Taliban were overthrown in Nov. 2001 by a US-led military coalition launched in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, which were orchestrated by al-Qaida while it was being sheltered by the Taliban, according to AP.

Also Happening In The World

• 🇭🇹 At least 2,189 people are dead and more than 10,000 injured in Haiti after the island was struck by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on the morning of Saturday Aug. 14. A few days later, the island was hit by Tropical Storm Grace, which complicated relief efforts.
• 🇯🇵 More than five million people have been evacuated in southwestern Japan after torrential rains triggered severe flooding and landslides.

A group of Afghan women marched through Kabul to protest for women’s rights after the Taliban took control over the country’s capital on Sunday Aug. 15.

• The women marched to demand protection of the rights of women in Afghanistan, such as the right to work, the right for education and the right to political participation.
• Many were concerned that the Taliban would roll back two decades of gains women and ethnic minorities had made while US troops were in the country, AP reported.
• In its first press conference since taking power on Tuesday, the Taliban spokesperson said that women would be “very active within our society” and would be allowed to work and study “within the bounds of Islamic law.”
• However, there have already been reports of women being ordered to leave their offices and turned away from schools.

More Badass Women You Should Know About

• 🇵🇰 Nobel peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating for girls’ rights to education in Pakistan, spoke out for the women and girls of Afghanistan and called on governments to provide aid and protect refugees and civilians.
• 🇦🇫 After the Taliban took over, Afghanistan’s first woman paralympic athlete Zakia Khudadadi stood up for her right to compete in the Tokyo Paralympics in a video, despite Afghanistan’s Paralympic Committee announcing that its athletes were withdrawing from the Games.
• 🇭🇹 🇯🇵 Haitian-Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka announced she would be donating all her prize money from the Western & Southern Open to Haiti earthquake relief efforts.

Jamaican track athlete Hansle Parchment tracked down a volunteer who gave him some taxi money to get to his Olympic race after he got on the wrong bus. He later went on to win a gold medal.

• Parchment was on his way to compete for the semi-finals of the men’s 110 meter hurdles at the Tokyo Olympic Games when he accidentally got on the wrong bus and ended up at the Tokyo Aquatics Center instead of the Japan National Stadium for his event.
• With no direct alternative routes that would get him to the event on time for a proper warm up, the 31-year-old Olympic hurdler asked a nearby volunteer, Trijana Stojkovic, for some money for a taxi.
• He ended up placing second in the semi-final, thus securing his spot in the finals, which he then went on to win.
• “I saw this volunteer and I had to beg... and she actually gave me some money to take one of the taxis,” he said in a video on his Instagram. “And that’s how I was able to get to the warm-up track at the stadium, and with enough time to warm up to compete.”
• A day after winning the gold medal race, Parchment retraced his steps and found Stojkovic to thank her and pay her back for the cab fare.

More Good News For Your Weekend

• 🇷🇴 Around 8,000 people in Romania showed their support for the LGBTQ community on Saturday Aug. 14, as they joined the annual Bucharest Pride Parade. This year, the event also marked 20 years since the country repealed Article 200, a law that criminalized homosexuality.

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