UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations' top official in Afghanistan defended the failure to include Afghan women in the upcoming first meeting between the Taliban and envoys from 22 countries, insisting that demands for women’s rights are certain to be raised.
U.N. special envoy Roza Otunbayeva was pummeled with questions Friday from journalists about criticism from human rights organizations at the omission of Afghan women from the meeting in Qatar’s capital, Doha, on June 30 and July 1.
The Taliban seized power in 2021 as United States and NATO forces withdrew following two decades of war. No country officially recognizes them as Afghanistan’s government, and the U.N. has said that recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place.
Human Rights Watch Executive Director Tirana Hassan said that, in the face of the Taliban’s tightening repression of women and girls, the U.N. plans to hold a meeting “without women’s rights on the agenda or Afghan women in the room are shocking.”
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said, “The credibility of this meeting will be in tatters if it doesn’t adequately address the human rights crisis in Afghanistan and fails to involve women human rights defenders and other relevant stakeholders from Afghan civil society.”
Otunbayeva, a former president and foreign minister of Kyrgyzstan, insisted after briefing the U.N. Security Council that “nobody dictated” conditions to the United Nations about the Doha meeting, but she confirmed that no Afghan women will be present.
U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo will chair the meeting, Otunbayeva said. She will attend, and a few of the 22 special envoys on Afghanistan who are women will also be there.
The meeting is the third U.N.-sponsored gathering on the Afghan crisis in Doha. The Taliban weren’t invited to the first, and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said they set unacceptable conditions for attending the second in February, including demands that Afghan civil society members be excluded from the talks and that they be treated as the country’s legitimate rulers.
Undersecretary-General DiCarlo visited Afghanistan in May and invited the Taliban Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to attend the upcoming meeting. The Taliban accepted and said they are sending a delegation.
“We do hope that delegation will be led by de facto Foreign Minister Muttaqi,” Otunbayeva said, but the Taliban may send another minister.
Just before the Doha gathering, there will be a hybrid meeting with Afghan civil society representatives from inside and outside the country, Otunbayeva said. And on July 2, immediately after Doha, “we’ll be meeting all the civil society people.”
The Taliban have used their interpretation of Islamic law to bar girls from education beyond age 11, ban women from public spaces, exclude them from many jobs, and enforce dress codes and male guardianship requirements.
Otunbayeva said the upcoming gathering will be the first face-to-face meeting between the Taliban and the envoys and will focus on what she said were “the most important acute issues of today” — private business and banking, and counter-narcotics policy.
Both are about women, she said, and the envoys will tell the Taliban, “Look, it doesn’t work like this. We should have women around the table. We should provide them also access to businesses.” She added that “if there are, let’s say, 5 million addicted people in Afghanistan, more than 30% are women.”
Otunbayeva told the Security Council the U.N. hopes the envoys and the Taliban delegation will speak to each other, recognize the need to engage, and “agree on next steps to alleviate the uncertainties that face the Afghan people.”
The U.N. expects a continuation of the dialogue at a fourth Doha meeting later in the year focused on another key issue: the impact of climate change on the country.
Lisa Doughten, the U.N. humanitarian office’s finance director, told the council that “the particularly acute effects of climate change” are deepening Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis, saying over 50% of the population — some 23.7 million people — need humanitarian aid this year, the third-highest number in the world.
“Extreme weather events are more frequent and more intense,” she said. “Some areas in Afghanistan have warmed at twice the global average since 1950” with the country experiencing increasing droughts and deadly flash flooding.
Otunbayeva said another outcome from the Doha meeting that the U.N. would like to see is the creation of working groups to continue talks on how to help farmers replace poppies producing opium with other crops, how to provide pharmacies with medication to help addicted people, and how to address crime and improve banking and private businesses.
As for what the U.N. would like to see, she said, “we need badly that they will change their minds and let girls go to school.”
Otunbayeva said Afghanistan is the only country in the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation that doesn’t let girls go to school, which she called “a big puzzle.” Afghanistan has been very male-dominated and “we want to change the minds” of young people from such a traditional society towards women, Otunbayeva said.
The humanitarian office’s Doughten told the council “the ban on girls’ education is fueling an increase in child marriage and early childbearing, with dire physical, emotional and economic consequences.” She also cited reports that attempted suicides by women and girls are increasing.
FILE - Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva speaks to the media at a polling station during the presidential election in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan,on Oct. 30, 2011. U.N. special envoy Roza Otunbayeva was pummeled with questions Friday, June 21, 2024 from journalists about criticism from human rights organizations at the omission of Afghan women from the meeting in Qatar’s capital Doha on June 30 and July 1. (Sultan Dosaliev/Pool Photo via AP, File)
PHOENIX (AP) — They passed on a handshake at the start, and from there President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump went right to mixing it up on policy — and each other — in their first 2024 presidential debate on Thursday night.
Personal animosity between the two men was palpable as they argued, sometimes in deeply personal tones, over abortion, the economy, age, the criminal convictions of Trump and Biden’s son Hunter, and even their mettle on the golf course.
Biden arrived with a raspy voice and spoke softly, the result, his campaign said, of a cold. Biden sometimes mumbled, got tongue-tied or lost his train of thought, a performance unlikely to calm anxiety among Democrats and many Americans about the 81-year-old president.
The 78-year-old Trump, as he often does, spoke with force but with plenty of falsehoods.
Some key moments from their 90-minute debate.
Trump and Biden went after each other throughout the debate.
Trump twice cited Hunter Biden, who was convicted this month on three felony charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018 while he allegedly was addicted to drugs. Trump, who last month became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes, labeled the president’s son a “convicted felon.”
Biden referenced Trump’s own criminal convictions, saying he had had “sex with a porn star” while his wife was pregnant, which Trump denied. Biden also said Trump had been found civilly liable for “molesting a woman in public.”
Biden was referring to actor Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had sex with Trump in 2006, a claim that precipitated a $130,000 hush money payment weeks before the 2016 election, and to writer E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump sexually abused her in a New York department store.
Biden's claim that Melania Trump was pregnant during Trump's alleged affair with Daniels was wrong. Barron Trump was born in March 2006. Daniels said she had sex with Trump in July 2006. The president may have mixed up Daniels with Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claims she carried on a yearlong affair with Trump that coincided with his wife's presidency. Trump denies McDougal's claims.
“You have the morals of an alley cat,” Biden charged.
More than 80 minutes into the debate, Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, were asked about their age and ability to serve well into their 80s.
Biden spotlighted a litany of policy achievements and said Trump is "three years younger and a lot less competent.” Biden also used the answer to slap at Trump for bad-mouthing the United States.
“The idea that we are some kind of failing country? I’ve never heard a president talk like that before,” Biden said.
In his retort, Trump said he was in as good a shape as he was 25 years ago and perhaps “even a little bit lighter.” He said he's “aced” cognitive tests.
Though the men are not far apart in age, more voters worry that Biden is too old.
About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say they are “very concerned” that Biden is too old to be president, according to Gallup data collected in June. Only 18% had the same level of concern about Trump.
With a hoarse voice, Biden was difficult to hear and understand from his first remarks, and his verbal miscues continued throughout.
Biden lost his train of thought while trying to make a point about tax rates and the number of billionaires in America. He trailed off and looked down before mumbling about COVID-19 and saying something to the effect that “we finally beat Medicare.”
When he tried to come back to finish his point, moderator Jake Tapper cut him off because his time was up.
Trump quickly interjected: “He’s right he did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”
During a response to a question about abortion, Biden mentioned, seemingly out of nowhere, a young woman who was recently murdered by an immigrant — an apparent reference to a 12-year-old Houston girl who was strangled to death, allegedly by two Venezuelan men who entered the country illegally. The connection to abortion was unclear.
He also stumbled while delivering his prepared closing statement.
Trump lied about his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol, and tried to deflect by pivoting to other issues.
Pressed on his role, he said he encouraged people to act “peacefully and patriotically,” then changed the subject to launch an attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
He said Biden ought to “be ashamed” for the way the Jan. 6 defendants have been handled.
Trump, who has floated the idea of pardons for the rioters, suggested his supporters who stormed the Capitol were actually peaceful and are now being politically persecuted.
In fact, the rioters engaged in hand-to-hand combat with police and used makeshift weapons to attack officers. More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal offenses stemming from the riot, and more than 1,000 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial.
“The only person who’s on this stage that’s a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now” Biden said of his rival.
Trump was asked three times, but he never directly affirmed that he would accept the election results, no matter who wins.
Several times Trump noted that he would accept the results “if it’s a fair and legal and good election” but he would not give a yes or no answer.
Biden was not buying it, saying, “I doubt whether you'll accept it; you're such a whiner.”
Trump did denounce political violence as “totally unacceptable” — even as he minimized the conduct of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Biden blamed Trump for eroding abortion rights after the Republican's three nominees to the Supreme Court voted to reverse Roe v. Wade, which had recognized a nationwide constitutional right to abortion. The reversal has energized many voters who support abortion rights and it helped power Democratic victories in the 2022 midterms and special elections.
“It’s been a terrible thing what you’ve done,” Biden said, turning to his rival. He pledged to restore the law under Roe if given a second term but didn’t say how he’d accomplish that. He said the idea of turning abortion laws back to states “is like saying we’re going to turn civil rights back to the states.”
Trump said his presidency returned the issue of abortion to the people through state laws. He said he supports abortion ban exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, and he repeated his false claim that Biden supports abortion up to and after birth.
“We think the Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans,” Trump said.
Between debating the nation’s biggest problems, Biden and Trump also argued about their golf game.
Trump bragged about winning two golf tournaments recently, “and not even senior, two regular club championships.” He said the feat requires a golfer to be “quite smart” and able to hit the ball a long way.
Biden said he’d happily take on Trump in a driving contest, bragging he got his handicap “down to a six” when he was vice president.
“I’m happy to play golf with you if you carry your own bag,” Biden said to Trump. “Think you can do it?”
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, gestures during a presidential debate with President Joe Biden, Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
President Joe Biden speaks during a presidential debate with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Seen through a beer glass, patrons look on during a watch party of the presidential debate between President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at Old Louisville Tavern on Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
