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Tens of thousands of girls were due to return to secondary school across Afghanistan Wednesday, more than seven months after the Taliban seized power and imposed harsh restrictions on the rights of women to be educated, NDTV reported.

All schools were closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic when the Taliban took over in August -- but only boys and some younger girls were allowed to resume classes two months later.

The international community has made the right to education for all a sticking point in negotiations over aid and recognition, with several nations and organisations offering to pay teachers.

The education ministry said schools would reopen Wednesday across several provinces -- including the capital Kabul -- but those in the southern region of Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual heartland, will not open until next month.

The ministry said reopening the schools was always a government objective and the Taliban were not bowing to pressure, according to NDTV.

"We are not reopening the schools to make the international community happy, nor are we doing it to gain recognition from the world," said Aziz Ahmad Rayan, a ministry spokesman.

"We are doing it as part of our responsibility to provide education and other facilities to our students," he told AFP.

The Taliban had insisted they wanted to ensure schools for girls aged 12 to 19 were segregated and would operate according to Islamic principles.

"We are behind in our studies already," said Raihana Azizi, 17, as she prepared to attend class dressed in a black abaya, headscarf and veil over her face.

The Taliban have imposed a slew of restrictions on women, effectively banning them from many government jobs, policing what they wear and preventing them from travelling outside of their cities alone.

They have also detained several women's rights activists, NDTV reported.

Despite the schools reopening, barriers to girls returning to education remain, with many families suspicious of the Taliban and reluctant to allow their daughters outside.

Others see little point in girls learning at all.

"Those girls who have finished their education have ended up sitting at home and their future is uncertain," said Heela Haya, 20, from Kandahar, who has decided to quit school.

China refused to assist Sri Lanka which appealed to reschedule its huge Chinese debt burden in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak that has adversely affected the tourism sector, said a media report, ANI reported.

Colombo appealed if a restructuring of the debt could be arranged to mitigate the economic crisis that had arisen in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak.

President of Sri Lanka Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a meeting with Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi sought the assistance of Beijing in the face of the deepening foreign exchange crisis of Sri Lanka and spiralling external debt. 

"Replying to a question on the pending request from Sri Lanka for a debt relief, Foreign Ministry spokesman of China Zhao Lijian said in a news conference this month,that China had been providing assistance for the socio-economic development of Sri Lanka to the best of its ability and would continue to do so. In concrete terms, this meant nothing," the hong Kong post reported, according to ANI.

China has shed some crocodile tears over the economy of Sri Lanka getting caught in a quagmire after hobnobbing with the BRI projects of China: record inflation, soaring food prices and the sufferings of the people said a media report.

"The key concern, however, is how such a negative situation would impact the attitude of Colombo towards borrowings from China,and what it would mean for the ultimate relation between China and Sri Lanka.

There is concern that the experience of Sri Lanka is prompting countries like Myanmar, Malaysia and Nepal to suspend Chinese investment projects, it added, ANI reported.

Though the crisis in Sri Lanka was apparent after the pandemic that dried up the international tourist traffic to the island nation, one of its main foreign exchange-earners, the country's debts spiralled and foreign exchange reserves shrunk as the end result of reckless borrowings from China to finance infrastructure projects, reported The Hong Kong Post.

With tourism hit by the pandemic, the economic structure of Sri Lanka, which was already tottering under the heavy burden of loans, crumbled. A major part of this debt was owed to China, which accounts for nearly USD 8 billion.

This debt burden was a result of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects like Hambantota Port and Colombo Port City for which Chinese agencies lent large amounts to Sri Lanka under stiff terms of repayment.
Notably, in 2021-22, Colombo's debt repayment to Beijing amounted to nearly USD 2 billion.

Further, Hambantota port has already been leased out to China for 99 years against USD 1.2 billion, according to ANI.

In the face of the deepening foreign exchange crisis, Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa sought China's help in December 2021 as he requested a debt restructuring in a meeting with China Foreign Minister Wang Yi. However, Beijing has reportedly shown Colombo the door, according to the media outlet.

Ironically, the deeply pro-China Rajapaksa government dug its own grave as it had booted out the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the USA with its offer to extend developmental assistance grant to Colombo as the Board of Directors of MCC discontinued its USD 480 million contract with Sri Lanka in December 2020 "due to lack of partner country engagement," the publication reported citing the US embassy.

Further, China-assisted projects in Sri Lanka are likely to deepen the indebtedness of the island nation. Moreover, locals of Sri Lanka are protesting against some of these projects which will affect their livelihood.

One of these projects is an industrial park attached to the Hambantota International Port which has incited violent protests by local people as they fear that the area would become a Chinese colony, reported the media outlet, ANI reported.

Given the current crisis coupled with the absence of any assurances from China for concrete support, Sri Lanka seems to be reassessing the extent to which it can bank on China.

However, it is nearly impossible for Rajapaksas to deny China its committed space in Sri Lanka due to arbitration threats and likely obligations. It is an economic annexation of a sovereign country and not a debt trap alone.

Russian military forces have destroyed a new laboratory at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that among other things works to improve management of radioactive waste, the Ukrainian state agency responsible for the Chernobyl exclusion zone said Tuesday, Associated Press reported.

The Russian military seized the decommissioned plant at the beginning of the war. The exclusion zone is the contaminated area around the plant, site of the world’s worst nuclear meltdown in 1986.

The state agency said the laboratory, built at a cost of 6 million euros with support from the European Commission, opened in 2015.

The laboratory contained “highly active samples and samples of radionuclides that are now in the hands of the enemy, which we hope will harm itself and not the civilized world,” the agency said in its statement.

Radionuclides are unstable atoms of chemical elements that release radiation, according to the Associated Press.

In another worrying development, Ukraine’s nuclear regulatory agency said Monday that radiation monitors around the plant had stopped working.

Russia’s false accusation that Ukraine has biological and chemical weapons is a “clear sign” that a desperate Vladimir Putin is considering using them himself, Joe Biden has said, The Guardian reported.

The US president said Putin’s “back is against the wall and now he’s talking about new false flags he’s setting up including, asserting that we in America have biological as well as chemical weapons in Europe – simply not true. I guarantee you,” Biden said at an event on Monday.

“They are also suggesting that Ukrainehas biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine. That’s a clear sign he’s considering using both of those.

He’s already used chemical weapons in the past, and we should be careful of what’s about to come.”

Putin “knows there’ll be severe consequences because of the united Nato front,” he said, without specifying what actions the alliance would take, according to The Guardian.

The remarks echo previous comments by officials in Washington and allied countries, who have accused Russia of spreading an unproven claim that Ukraine had a biological weapons program as a possible prelude to potentially launching its own biological or chemical attacks.

Biden spoke after the Pentagon said it had seen “clear evidence” Russian forces were committing war crimes and that it was helping collect evidence. Last week, the US president said he thought Putin was a “war criminal”, as well as a “murderous dictator” and “thug”, comments the Russian foreign ministry said were “unworthy of a state figure of such a high rank” and risked rupturing US-Russian ties.

The UN’s international court of justice has already ordered Moscow to halt its invasion, and a prosecutor at the international criminal court has launched a war crimes investigation, The Guardian reported.

On Monday night, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy again urged direct talks with Putin, saying: “Without this meeting it is impossible to fully understand what they are ready for in order to stop the war.”

He also said his country will never bow to ultimatums from Russia and cities directly under attack, including the capital, Kyiv, and Mariupol and Kharkiv would not accept Russian occupation, according to The Guardian.

Ukrainian forces battled continuing Russian efforts to occupy Mariupol and claimed to have retaken a strategic suburb of Kyiv on Tuesday, mounting a defense so dogged that it is stoking fears Russia’s Vladimir Putin will escalate the war to new heights, Associated Press reported.

“Putin’s back is against the wall,” said US President Joe Biden, who is heading to Europe this week to meet with allies. “And the more his back is against the wall, the greater the severity of the tactics he may employ.”

Biden reiterated accusations that Putin is considering resorting to using chemical or biological weapons, though Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the US has seen no evidence to suggest that such an escalation is imminent.

The warnings came as attacks continued in and around Kyiv and Mariupol, and people escaped the battered and besieged port city. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of not only blocking a humanitarian convoy trying to take desperately needed aid to Mariupol but seizing what another Ukrainian official said were 15 of the bus drivers and rescue workers on the aid mission, along with their vehicles.

Zelenskyy said the Russians had agreed to the route ahead of time, according to the Associated Press.

“We are trying to organize stable humanitarian corridors for Mariupol residents, but almost all of our attempts, unfortunately, are foiled by the Russian occupiers, by shelling or deliberate terror,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation.

The hands of one exhausted Mariupol survivor were shaking as she arrived by train in the western city of Lviv.

“There’s no connection with the world. We couldn’t ask for help,” said Julia Krytska, who was helped by volunteers to make it out with her husband and son. “People don’t even have water there.” 

Explosions and bursts of gunfire shook Kyiv, and heavy artillery fire could be heard from the northwest, where Russia has sought to encircle and capture several of the capital’s suburban areas.

Early Tuesday, Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces from the Kyiv suburb of Makariv after a fierce battle, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said. The regained territory allowed Ukrainian forces to retake control of a key highway and block Russian troops from surrounding Kyiv from the northwest.

A video posted by Ukrainian police showed them surveying damage in Makariv, including to the town’s police station, which an officer says took a direct hit to its roof. The police drove by destroyed residential buildings and along a road pocked by shelling. The town appeared all but deserted, Associated Press reported.

Still, the Defense Ministry said Russian forces partially took other northwest suburbs, Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin, some of which have been under attack almost since Russia invaded nearly a month ago.

A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments, said Ukrainian resistance has brought much of Russia’s advance to a halt but has not sent Moscow’s forces into retreat.

“We have seen indications that the Ukrainians are going a bit more on the offensive now,” Kirby told reporters separately in Washington. He said that was particularly true in southern Ukraine, including near Kherson, where “they have tried to regain territory.”

Asked on CNN what Russian President Vladimir Putin had achieved in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Well, first of all, not yet. He hasn’t achieved yet.” But he insisted that the military operation was going “strictly in accordance with the plans and purposes that were established beforehand.”

Putin’s aims remain to “get rid of the military potential of Ukraine” and to “ensure that Ukraine changes from an anti-Russian center to a neutral country,” Peskov said.

Russia’s far stronger, bigger military has many Western military experts warning against overconfidence in Ukraine’s long-term odds. Russia’s practice in past wars in Chechnya and Syria was to grind down resistance with strikes that flattened cities, killed countless civilians and sent millions fleeing, according to the Associated Press.

But Russian forces appeared unprepared and have often performed badly against Ukrainian resistance. The U.S. estimates Russia has lost a bit more than 10 percent of the overall combat capability it had at the start of the fight, including troops and tanks and other materiel.

The Supreme Court has issued an interim order not to immediately implement the election code of conduct’s requirement for people’s representatives to resign before filing nominations for the local elections.

Responding to a writ petition filed by Helambu Rural Municipality Chairman Nima Gyalzen Sherpa, a single bench of Justice Bam Kumar Shrestha on Tuesday ordered not to implement such provision till March 27.

Both the petitioner and defendant have been called on that day for discussion.

Former minister Prem Bahadur Singh along with his party—Samajbadi Janata Party—joined the CPN-UML on Tuesday.

During a programe organized in the Capital this afternoon, Singh announced that the entire party has joined the UML.

The main opposition party Chairman KP Sharma Oli welcomed the team along with former minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation Singh.

CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal said the decision to forge an electoral alliance among the five-party alliance in the upcoming local level elections rests on the Nepali Congress.

Talking to media at Janakpur Airport on Tuesday, Dahal said, “So far the five-party alliance have no differing issues and proposals are tabled for forging the electoral alliance, but the final decision is in the hands of Nepali Congress.” 

 He was here to address the Province-level political orientation of the party.

According to him, the party wished to continue with the existing alliance till the elections, but NC’s role is vital in determining the future course.

 “If NC declines the idea of electoral alliance, we will face the elections on our own strength.”

He further said that discussions are underway among the government coalition partners to reshuffle the Council of Ministers. But the formal decision is awaited, the leader said, hinting at the possibility of the entry of some new faces as well.  

Chairman Dahal said that the next session of the House of Representatives is expected to endorse the citizenship bill and the bill to operate railway service. RSS