Scripture and Strictures

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Scripture and Strictures

AFGHANISTAN

Three years after the US quit Afghanistan, the country’s ultraorthodox Islamic rulers, the Taliban, have been busy.

Recently, for example, officials from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice burned 21,000 musical instruments that they said were associated with anti-Islamic practices, reported Voice of America.

As the Asia Society explained, many – but not all – Islamic scholars believe music other than calling Muslims to prayer or chanting verses from the Koran is forbidden because it potentially could lead the faithful astray from concentrating on their religious devotion.

Charred violins and saxophones are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Taliban’s so-called moral reforms. They have also destroyed and deleted thousands of supposedly immoral films. Afghan officials have also curtailed press freedoms, banned women from working in radio and television stations and from appearing in dramatic performances, and compelled men to grow beards according to the government’s specifications. Images of all living things are banned from being published, as they would violate Sharia law.

The restrictions are even broader now than seen during the first year of Taliban rule, when they began restricting women from the workplace, schools and universities. For example, now, women are banned from speaking or exposing their bare faces in public in Afghanistan. Otherwise, they might tempt men into immoral behavior, the Associated Press wrote. Women shouldn’t even look at men who aren’t their husbands or relatives. And they will be punished for being outside of the home without a male relative.

Some Afghan men don’t like the new rules, especially those that took effect in August, which restrict their freedom to groom and dress themselves as they want. Essentially, they deem short hair, shaved faces and “Western dress” as illegal. “If men had raised their voices, we might also be in a different situation now,” an anonymous Afghan man who lives in the capital Kabul told the Washington Post. “Now, everyone is growing a beard because we don’t want to be questioned, humiliated.”

One positive development, some say, is how Taliban officials have moved to stop the heroin trade. As World Politics Review noted, they have fulfilled their pledge well enough that European experts are now worried that drug dealers will start slinging “highly potent synthetic opioids” to make up for the shortfall in supply.

These restrictions on heroin came, however, as the Taliban failed to improve the Afghan economy, which ignited a rare protest against the regime in May, Voice of America reported. Around 85 percent of the country’s population lives on less than a dollar a day, according to the United Nations. Afghan gross domestic product has decreased 29 percent compared with 2020, too. Forecasts show it will continue to decline.

Terrorists associated with Al Qaeda are not feeling the pinch, however. They have been mining for gold and gems while training fighters in Afghanistan for their next jihad.

An unpublished report by a risk analysis firm reviewed by Foreign Policy details how “deeply embedded the group is in the Taliban’s operations, as they loot Afghanistan’s natural wealth and steal international aid meant to alleviate the suffering of millions of Afghans.”

“Now that they can operate with impunity,” the magazine added, quoting the report, “the Taliban are once again providing Al Qaeda commanders and operatives with everything they need, from weapons to wives”.

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

Round Two

SINGAPORE

Singaporean opposition leader Pritam Singh appeared before a court Monday for allegedly lying during a parliamentary committee investigation, the latest political scandal to rock the Southeast Asian city-state’s politics in recent months, Bloomberg reported.

Singh, leader of the Worker’s Party (WP), is charged with two counts of lying under oath to a parliamentary committee investigating a lawmaker in his party. He has pled not guilty to the charges.

The case began in 2021 when parliament’s Committee of Privileges launched a probe against WP lawmaker Raeesah Khan, who claimed that she accompanied a rape victim to file a police report.

Khan said the officers at the precinct supposedly made insensitive comments about the victim’s attire and alcohol consumption. However, she later admitted to lying and was expelled from parliament, according to Channel News Asia.

Singaporean prosecutors accused Singh of knowing about Khan’s lie early on. If convicted, the opposition leader could face a maximum penalty of three years in prison or a fine of up to 7,000 Singaporean dollars (US$5,360) per charge.

Singapore’s constitution mandates that a legislator fined at least S$10,000, or imprisoned for a year or more, is disqualified from serving in parliament.

The trial puts the WP party under more scrutiny ahead of upcoming elections, expected to be held before November 2025. The opposition party has positioned itself as being able to check on the governing People’s Action Party (PAP) that has ruled Singapore since independence in 1965.

In the 2020 elections, PAP secured 89 percent of legislative seats, a victory that analysts nonetheless described as its worst showing. Meanwhile, WP won a record 10 seats.

Observers noted that the case also comes during a period of growing scrutiny of political accountability and parliamentary integrity in Singapore. Singh’s trial came about a week after former Transport Minister S. Iswaran was jailed for graft and obstruction of justice – the first official to be imprisoned in the history of the nation, which has a reputation for clean governance and transparency.

The Crime of Complaints

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

Human rights groups and advocates are voicing concern over the ongoing detention of dozens of residents of Annobón, a small island of Equatorial Guinea, who were arrested shortly after appealing to authorities to end mining-related environmental damage, the Guardian reported Monday.

Earlier this year, residents of the remote island complained of severe environmental degradation on their farmland and damage to homes, which they attributed to years of dynamite-fueled blasts from the mining sector.

In July, 16 islanders wrote to authorities in the capital of Malabo about the issue. But shortly after, authorities launched a swift crackdown, including arresting the signatories and their supporters and cutting off cell phone and Internet access on the island.

Three months later, only five detainees – all elderly women – have been released, while others remain held on charges of rebellion and the “abusive exercise of fundamental rights.”

Eleven detainees are incarcerated in Malabo’s “notorious” Black Beach prison. Meanwhile, 26 others, including poet Francisco Ballovera Estrada, are being held in a prison in the eastern town of Mongomo where they are being denied family visits and access to lawyers.

Annobón, a 6.5-square-mile island with around 5,000 inhabitants, lies about 425 miles from Malabo in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea, but has long suffered neglect and exploitation.

Despite the country’s substantial oil wealth, residents on the island lack basic amenities, and have limited access to electricity, potable water and healthcare.

Tensions on the island have been high for years: In 2022, two leaders of a 1993 youth uprising declared the island’s independence under the separatist group Ambô Legadu, sparking arrests and heightened surveillance by authorities.

Orlando Cartagena Lagar, a leader of Ambô Legadu, denounced the mining operations as “extermination” and said the government is excluding locals from decisions about their land and livelihood.

International organizations, including Access Now, have called for the release of the detainees, citing the government’s systematic violation of freedom of expression and the island’s isolation, which has prevented reliable communication with the outside world.

Since seizing power in a 1979 coup, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has ruled Equatorial Guinea as an authoritarian.

Obiang and his family have accumulated significant personal wealth, even as the majority of the country lives in poverty.

Catching Up With Killers

GERMANY

An 80-year-old former East German Secret Police (Stasi) officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday for killing a Polish man trying to escape to West Germany 50 years ago, the Washington Post reported.

The Berlin court, in a landmark ruling, found the former Stasi officer, Martin Naumann, guilty of shooting 38-year-old Czeslaw Kukuczka to death at close range as he tried to flee to West Berlin via the Friedrichstraße border crossing, better known as Checkpoint Charlie, according to France24.

It is the first time a former Stasi officer has been found guilty of murder. Presiding judge Bernd Miczajka said in his verdict that while Naumann “did not commit the crime for personal reasons, (he) executed it mercilessly.”

Suspects in killings by the former state of East Germany, or the DDR, have historically faced manslaughter charges instead of murder on the grounds that these officers were following orders and not acting with “malice.” Prosecutors, however, said that wasn’t the case in the Kukuzcka killing.

The shooting occurred after Kukuczka had threatened to detonate a bomb at the Polish embassy in East Berlin if he wasn’t allowed to cross into West Germany. Kukuczka, a father of two, wanted to start a new life in Florida.

The Pole thought he had secured his exit when he was shot by Naumann. Several young girls on a school field trip to East Berlin who were returning back to the West witnessed the killing.

Meanwhile, Stasi records show that Kukuczka had been bluffing about the bomb.

After he was shot, later dying in a Stasi prison clinic, Kukuzcka’s family was sent an urn of his cremated remains – but they never learned the truth about his death, reported the Guardian.

The details of the case were only unearthed years later by historian Stefan Appelius when he found documents detailing the shooting and the subsequent actions to cover it up in Stasi archives.

DISCOVERIES

The Big Mystery of Little Particles

In May 2022, a rocket launched from the icy, northernmost reaches of the archipelago of Svalbard in Norway. It was on a mission to solve a nearly 60-year-old mystery.

Named Endurance, after the ship that brought explorer Ernest Shackleton to Antarctica, the NASA rocket soared to 477 miles above Earth’s surface, collecting data that scientists hoped would reveal the source of an elusive atmospheric force.

Two years later, NASA researchers confirmed a groundbreaking discovery: The first direct measurements of Earth’s ambipolar electric field.

In their study, published in the journal Nature, the team explained that this weak electric field – about 0.55 volts, which is enough to power a watch – plays an essential role in driving a phenomenon called the “polar wind.”

“A half a volt is almost nothing,” Glyn Collinson, the Endurance mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement. “But that’s just the right amount to explain the polar wind.”

Scientists first noticed this electrical field back in the 1960s, when a US spacecraft detected particles streaming out of Earth’s atmosphere near the poles, according to Popular Mechanics.

This “polar wind” baffled scientists at the time, as the particles were cold, showing no signs of being heated by solar radiation. But because astronomers were shooting for the Moon at the time, they left the mystery for future generations to solve.

Now, data from Endurance showed that this ambipolar field tethers the particles together and pushes them into space. This field is generated around 150 miles above Earth’s surface where atoms split into electrons and ions – known as the ionosphere.

Despite having a weak electrical field, it lifts charged particles to escape Earth’s atmosphere at supersonic speeds, extending the ionosphere’s height by 271 percent. In turn, it acts as a protective shield that blocks harmful solar radiation from reaching us.

Collinson likened the field to “a conveyor belt, lifting the atmosphere up into space.”

He added that this elusive field has been subtly shaping Earth’s atmosphere since the planet’s formation. He hopes that further studies on the phenomenon can assess its impact on our planet’s evolution and its potential role in sustaining atmospheres across the cosmos.

The ambipolar field is believed to exist on other planets, including Mars and Venus, wrote the British Antarctic Society.

“Any planet with an atmosphere should have an ambipolar field,” said Collinson. “Now that we’ve finally measured it, we can begin learning how it’s shaped our planet as well as others over time.”

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