News stories by External Source

2025 was one of the three hottest years ever recorded. The years from 2015 to 2025 were the hottest eleven years on record.

KABUL, June 1 (IPS) - While Afghanistan faces a serious shortage of female doctors, the country’s Islamist regime has placed restrictions on female students from graduating, further exacerbating the situation. Female medical graduates are barred from writing their final exams, which provide them with the professional qualification to practice as medical doctors.

KABUL, May 19 (IPS) - Nooria is a young girl who, because of poverty and the absence of a man in her family, had to dress in boys’ clothes so she could work and feed her family. It was not a choice, it was survival. But she was eventually caught by the Taliban.

HERAT, Afghanistan, May 5 (IPS) - Qadoos Khatibi, an Afghan university lecturer, and Fayaz Ghori, a civil society activist, also from Afghanistan, were detained by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Their crime? Advocating for girls’ right to education.

On May 3rd, the world marks World Press Freedom Day – a United Nations observance dedicated to the fundamental principles of press freedom.

KABUL, April 21 (IPS) - The Taliban have announced new laws that effectively legalise domestic violence against women and children. Afghanistan’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, signed a decree introducing a new criminal code in January. It contains three parts, ten chapters, and 119 articles that legalise violence, codify social inequality, and introduce punitive measures widely condemned as a return to slavery.

KABUL, April 16 (IPS) - Ever since childhood, Khatera’s (not her real name) dream was to study medicine at university and become a doctor.

KABUL, March 30 (IPS) - It is almost unheard of for a student to deliberately fail final school exams for no apparent reason. Therefore, when 13-year old Sara (not her real name) from Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan took her school report home to her parents, they were shocked to learn that the top-performing student had failed her final exams and would not advance to the next level. But there was no longer a next level for Sara, even if she had passed.

HERAT, Afghanistan, March 18 (IPS) - When Khadija Ahmadzada was arrested in Herat province of Afghanistan in January this year, it sparked widespread domestic and international protests. Women’s rights activists and social media users raised their voices with slogans such as “Sport is not a crime,” “Education is a right for women,” and “Don’t erase women,” often using the hashtag #BeHerVoice.

KABUL, March 12 (IPS) - In the bone-chilling Afghanistan winter, a woman was dragged into a public square early this year and publicly lashed for a crime she may or not have committed. According to the ruling handed by the Taliban Supreme Court, the woman and the male culprit who was jointly accused of extra-marital affair received 30 lashes each and a one-year suspended prison sentence. The sentence was carried out in the presence of several local officials and residents in a province whose name is left out to protect the victim.