#what did afghanistan say to india

[pahalikhabar]

Pakistan Taliban Conflict TTP attack pak army matter over wakhan corridor durand line know current situation

Pakistan-Taliban Conflict: Tension between Taliban and Pakistani army is continuously increasing. This conflict has taken a more dangerous turn in recent times. After the death of about 50 Taliban fighters in an air strike by the Pakistani Army, the Taliban has claimed to have killed about 20 Pakistani Army soldiers in retaliation. After this attack, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists…

[ordinarypersoninthisworld]

What have women done ?

Nicholas Fuentes just reminded us all that women are nothing for men.

Your body my choice. I don’t get it. I simply don’t.

What have we done ? What have we done to get century’s of oppression, repression ? What have we done to get raped ? What have we done to get looked down ? What have we done ?

The thing I believe is, if men never needed women we would simply have been exterminated by now. Because how would you explain the oppression, and everything else we endured for centuries?

Nicholas Fuentes mother’s must be so disappointed. Every rapists, pedophile etc mothers must be so disappointed. It’s not your fault unless you taught him those stuff.

Abortion is my right. I’m not ready I get rid of the cell. I don’t have the money I get rid of it. It’s my rapists baby, I’ll have no remorse. You can kill a cell up to 3 months, otherwise the baby gain consciousness. So instead of forbidding it, make a deadline.

Oh and if you ban abortion then the father cannot leave under any circumstances. It’s his baby too and he put his semen into me I didn’t specifically ask for it. If it’s a rapist’s baby then I have the right to give it up for adoption. I didn’t ask for that baby nor do I want to remember for the rest of my life that I got raped. But if I got raped and have his baby you need to either leave it up to him with obligation or put him in jail. So don’t surprise when so much babies are gonna be found abandoned.

All the things that happens to innocent women all over the world just because they are women is the most vile thing in the existence.

Look, in Afghanistan a new law passed. Women cannot talk between themselves. Women lost their voices. Literally. They have to fully cover themselves EVEN the eyes! Yes normally you can show your eyes well they can’t. Why women ? We haven’t done nothing. We haven’t killed no one.

In Japan the sexual assault is so big than the worst tortured in the human existence happened to a girl getting tortured, raped, sexually assaulted and cruelly abused. She just said no. She said no to go out with a guy. You can say no. Every woman would say no if they don’t know you or just don’t want to. You can reject girls but we can’t ? We can’t because we might get tortured and killed ? A woman had sex with a man and when it comes to preliminary, the guy tortured her: he shoved his hand so far he reached her organs and pulled them out of her body. She was still alive. Do you imagine just the slightest bit of terror and absolute pain she must have been in ? Why did he do that? Well she was a woman. A girl got gang raped in India. Why ? She was a little girl. A man raped his daughter more than 200 times got almost no sentences and kept the guard. Why ? She was a girl.

Girls are forced to marry when they have their period, the youngest being 9 in 2024. 9. Let girls be girls. They don’t have to get married to an old sick man. They don’t want to get pregnant, they don’t want to carry babies, they don’t want to have sex, they don’t want to be tied for eternity.

They want to grow up at their pace, they want to experience childhood and believes in unicorns.

Men are not dogs. Because dogs would never do that to you. Men are men. Men are vile, men are repulsive men scared me.

I’m scared of everything. I’m scared when I go to my school, I’m scared when I take the bus I’m scared when I refuse someone on instagram or Snapchat I’m scared when I’m out I’m scared of having a boyfriend I’m scared of having my first time I’m scared of saying no to a man I’m scared of getting assaulted and I’m utterly scared of getting raped. Because I’ll rather die.

My women are scared to. My sisters are scared of you. But my sisters are ready to fight to.

Iranian women are doing it. Keep it up girls, you deserve respect, recognition and rights to.

In Afghanistan, nobody is doing anything. Why ? Because they are women. Let’s be honest, if roles were reversed and it was done to men, many presidents would have done something. I’m scared for them.

In Somalia,(And many other countries still) families practice what’s called Female genital Mutilation (for boys it’s circumscribed ) on little girls. More than 200 million women in the world are victims of those tortures. What’s so different ? Why is it not called mutilated for boys ? It’s simple do the maths. We have holes, Which apparently throughout the humans history was enough to make us lesser bumans.

You can’t retire anything on a man penis except for the skin at the end to prevent them from masturbating.

Well for a woman, you can. But it’s recognized internationally as inhuman and a violation of women rights and health as well as entraining so much complications that a lot of young girls die. It’s usually do with a razor blade that is not sanitary and the women aren’t put in sleep. They cut the clitoris. They retire it. Or they cut the interior lips as well and retire them. Oh and the exterior lips are cut. And then they sew. They sew the holes. If you wanna know what it is google is here.

This is the most intense pain a woman can experience. The genitals parts on both women and men are the most sensitive and endangering parts if someone is of bad intentions.

https://youtu.be/kFpOHYQlz24?si=7i5eKJdbRFdShEkL

Here is a strong woman sharing her story about her experience.

Let’s get back to something softer. Beauty standards.

I don’t know about you reading this but I don’t seem to know of any particular men beauty standards. They don’t have to comform to a certain nose (most of the time) or certain eye shapes and lips.

I guess they are but men are good to create insecurities and unrealistic beauty standards for women. Furthermore there is the whole hourglass body stuff and petite women.

First I think petite women especially used by men is a way of infantilizing a woman to make her look innocent etc and unless you have a fast metabolism or surgery most of the women don’t have a hourglass body. I have a slow metabolism and sports does not work for me. Yet I’m a mid size girl with a fat tummy. I can’t wear crop tops nor any clothes I like because y’all decided I had to look a certain way for that. I have broad shoulder and wide rib cage so im not considered feminine enough. Well fuck you. I’m a woman that’s enough. Some girls are bigger than me and are confident and I envy you and support you so bad. Some girls are thinner than the norm and yet are such pure souls. Some girls are curvy and hate their bodies so bad. And some girls have the perfect body yet would like some more skin. We can never be happy with our body that is the same for everyone. Yet we accept men as they are most of the time. We normalized having a dad body yet when it comes to a woman you can’t have tummy. If you have a dad body that’s okay girl don’t mind but if you have a mom body because guess what you just had a baby . or multiple and have an injury the size of a rounded pillow inside of you you are ugly. You need to get thin you need to have big boobs no stretch marks ! You can’t look like you had a kid because that’s not attractive. Bullshit. You can’t expect a woman to lose weight after having a baby.

Oh and for fucks sake women you don’t have to reserved yourself from a burger. You want to eat it ? Eat it. We don’t care about what men think they eat 3x times the burger!

Plus The mere idea of having a type is just stupid. and if women said they want a certain type that are not the men watching the vids you can expect them to say something like: well we don’t want fat women/ we don’t want full face etc. Like shut up she’s not gonna date you nor are you even gonna meet her in real lifeYou fall in love with personality. And no looks does not matter despite what everybody is trying to say because personality makes you 10x prettier than you are. If you have a shit personality people will avoid you like the plague but if you are nice kind smart etc they tend to find you attractive and prettier than what you already are.

That was a rant about everything I had in mind and probably have A lot of misspelling and mistakes. But I just watch Nicholas Fuentes that little bitch and I hope he gets so injured he’ll get alzeihmer so that someone can re-educate him because he doesn’t seem to respect his mother and every women in his life.

Remember it’s not all men but it’s always a man.

Edit lol

Just saw multiple posts about the new laws that were proposed in Iraq and guess what ? Yes women and little girls are targeted also. I have some posts include bed if y’all are interested

Translation Iraq's justice minister has proposed a controversial law: lowering the age of consent to 9, legalizing marital rape, automatic custody of children for the father, the possibility of divorce from the age of 9 and women will be deprived of inheritance. (The Guardian)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Gary Taxali

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 30, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 31, 2024

Trump and the MAGA movement garnered power through performances that projected  dominance and cowed media and opponents into silence. Rather than disqualifying him from the highest office in the United States, Trump’s mocking of a disabled reporter, bragging about assaulting women, and calling immigrants rapists and criminals seemed to demonstrate his dominance and strengthen him with his base. In July the Republican National Convention celebrated that performance with a deliberate appropriation of the themes of professional wrestling, including a display by an actual professional wrestler. 

Their plan for winning the 2024 election seems to have been to put forward more of the same. 

But the national mood appears to be changing. President Joe Biden’s decision to decline the Democratic nomination for president opened the way for the Democrats to launch a new, younger, more vibrant vision for the country. 

Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, have promised to continue, and even to expand slightly, the programs that under the Biden-Harris administration have started the process of rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, bringing back manufacturing, and investing in industries to combat climate change. As the country did before 1981, they are promising to continue to focus on supporting a strong middle class rather than those at the top of the economy. 

Harris and Walz are building on this economic base to recenter the United States government on the idea of community. They have deliberately rejected the identity politics that Trump used so effectively to assert his dominance and have instead emphasized that they see the country not as a community defined by winners and losers, but as one in which everyone has value and should have the same opportunities for success. 

Last night, CNN’s Dana Bash asked Harris, whose mother immigrated to the U.S. from India and whose father immigrated from Jamaica, to respond to Trump’s suggestion that she “happened to turn Black” for political advantage, “questioning a core part of your identity.” Harris responded: “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please,” and she laughed. “That’s it?” Bash asked. “That’s it,” Harris answered. 

Harris’s refusal to accept the MAGA terms of engagement, along with the exuberant support for Harris and Walz, has Trump, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, and MAGA Republicans reeling. That, in turn, has made them seem vulnerable, and that vulnerability is now opening up room for pundits from a range of outlets to challenge them. They seem to be losing the ability to control the public conversation by asserting dominance. 

This change has been evident this week in the response to Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery with the family of a soldier who died in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago for campaign videos and photos attacking Harris, despite the fact that federal law prohibits campaign activities in the cemetery, in what is widely considered hallowed ground. The moment almost passed unnoticed, as it likely would have in the past, but Esquire’s Charles Pierce asked in his blog: “How The Hell Was Trump Allowed To Use Arlington National Cemetery As A Campaign Prop?”

Led by NPR, different outlets begin to dig into the story, and Trump, Vance, Trump’s spokesperson, and Trump’s campaign manager Chris LaCivita all tried to brush off their lawlessness with their usual rhetoric. Trump tried to change the subject to say he was being unfairly attacked for supporting a military family. Vance tried to suggest that Harris should have attended the private ceremony and that for criticizing it she should “go to hell,” although she hadn’t commented on it. The spokesperson suggested that the female cemetery official who tried to stop them was experiencing a “mental health episode,” and LaCivita, a leading figure in the Swift Boat veterans’ attacks on John Kerry in 2004, reposted an offending video to “trigger” Army officials, he said. 

It hasn’t flown. Today, MSNBC’s Dasha Burns asked Trump directly: “Should your campaign have put out those videos and photos?” Trump answered: “Well, we have a lot of people. You know, we have people, TikTok people, you know we’re leading the Internet. That was the other thing. We’re so far above her on the Internet….” Burns interrupted and followed up: “But on that hallowed ground, should they have put out the images…?” Trump said: “Well I don’t know what the rules and regulations are, I don’t know who did it, and, I, it could have been them. It could have been the parents. It could have been somebody….”

Burns interrupted again: “It was your campaign’s TikTok that put out the video.” Trump answered: "I really don't know anything about it. All I do is I stood there and I said, 'If you'd like to have a picture, we can have a picture.' If somebody did it; this was a setup by the people in the administration that, 'Oh, Trump is coming to Arlington, that looks so bad for us.’"

In the days since Biden stepped out of contention, Trump has been flailing—often complaining that it is “unfair” that Biden isn’t his opponent any longer—but his behavior has rocketed downhill since the new grand jury delivered a new indictment revising the four charges against him for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and install himself in power. Karen Tumulty wrote in the Washington Post today that Trump is “spiraling,” noting that in the space of 24 hours he posted about Harris engaging in a sex act, promoted QAnon slogans, and called for prison for his political opponents. 

Tumulty notes that Trump’s team has been trying to get him to focus on the issues voters care about, but that after he “listlessly delivers some lines from the teleprompter,” he “gets bored and begins recycling the rants from his rallies.” Harris has stayed silent about his behavior, Tumulty says a campaign staffer told her, because “Why would we step in this man’s way?” The Harris campaign wants microphones left on throughout the planned September 10 debate, expecting that Trump will not be able to contain the rants that used to serve his interests but now turn voters off. 

To Vance is left the job of trying to clean up after Trump, but he’s not a skilled politician. Asked by John Berman about Trump’s social media attacks, Vance suggested that Trump was bringing “fun” and “jokes” to politics to “lift people up.” But observers on social media noted that claiming that attacks are “jokes” is a key part of asserting dominance. 

Vance himself went after Harris by saying that he had an early version of Harris’s CNN interview and then posting an old meme of a young Miss Teen USA who appeared to panic when answering a question and produced a nonsensical answer. When Berman told him that the young woman contemplated self-harm after becoming a national joke and asked if he would like to apologize for bringing up that old video, Vance declined to apologize, suggested we should “laugh at ourselves,” and repeated that we should “try to have some fun in politics.”

Vance got into deeper trouble, though, when asked to explain Trump’s statement when he told Dasha Burns that he opposes Florida’s six-week abortion ban. This November, Floridians will have to vote yes or no on a constitutional amendment that would put abortion rights similar to those of Roe v. Wade into the state constitution. 

Trump’s opposition to that amendment reflects the political reality that abortion bans are unpopular even in Republican-dominated states, but the MAGA base is fervently antiabortion. “That ‘thump thump’ you just heard is the entire pro-life movement going under the bus,” one wrote. 

A campaign spokesperson promptly tried to walk the statement back by saying that Trump “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida,” which Vance reiterated on CNN. When Berman pressed him on it, though, Vance appeared to lose the ability to hear the question, suggesting the feed was bad. 

This afternoon, Trump announced he will side with the antiabortion activists and vote against the amendment to the Florida constitution that would restore the rights that were in Roe v. Wade. Harris and Walz, meanwhile, have announced a national bus tour to highlight reproductive freedom. It will start in Palm Beach, Florida, where the Trump Organization’s Mar-a-Lago property is located. 

Today, lawyers for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the election workers Trump ally Rudy Giuliani defamed by accusing them of fraud in the 2020 election, asked a federal court to enforce the judgment that awarded them $146 million. They have asked for a court order requiring Giuliani to turn over his properties in New York and Florida, his luxury car, and his personal valuables including three New York Yankees World Series rings. Giuliani’s spokesperson accused the women of bullying Giuliani. 

The Lincoln Project, which believes that needling Trump is the best way to rattle him, today released a video that portrays Trump as a predatory animal who is old, past his prime, and abandoned by his pack. Rather than engaging in his final hunt, he has found himself the prey. The voice-over intones: “The circle of life eventually closes on all things.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mylasttwobraincellsandi]

“India always takes a neutral stance”

Fuck you.

It’s not neutrality if we are using either or both sides of any issue to gain advantage or power.

That’s called exploitation.

It’s called avoiding responsibility.

We did it in Afghanistan. We are doing it in Ukraine. And we are doing it in Palestine.

India should stand for human rights with no ifs and buts. Our MEA is simply finding ways to weave out of explicitly supporting anyone while maintaining our hold on all parties involved for our personal gain. I am not saying India shouldn’t be strategic in our foreign policy. But our inherently slimy approach to foreign policy makes us no better than those western powers actively making conflicts worse. We hold no moral high ground. We are just becoming another version of the same colonisers we spent so much time criticising.

If India wants to hold a strong, moral and humanitarian position of leadership on the world stage, what we are doing is not enough. We must take a stance.

Abstaining in the UN does not make us “neutral”. It makes us the monsters silently watching horrors unfold. It makes us just as bad as the oppressors.

[myauditionfordrphil]

Ok I'mma vent this out at once and will try to not utter a word about this cursed night again. India deserved this cup, they really did. Because if there's been a team who performed the best and embodied the spirit and passion of cricket it's been India. They did their best from the very first game against Australia... Jaddu's wickets (especially Smith's), the top order collapse and King and Rahul's partnership winning us the game (also Rahul's 97). Then came Afghanistan and Bangladesh - Rohit's century, Virat in delhi (vs Naveen, their hug), Hardik's injury resulting in our dear Cheeku's bowling, KL refusing runs to complete Virat's century, Ro - Vi - Rah hug 🤌and ofc umpire not giving the wide. The Pakistan rivalry came into the tournament but our streak was saved when we defeated them 8 - 0. Then came the most dreaded match against New Zealand - Vi's missed century was definitely a sore spot but the revenge was completed. Shami being shami showing why you should not bench him with his fifer and Jaddu hitting the final runs to avenge Mahi Bhai. England and Sri Lanka were no match - they were destroyed by our balling - the only good thing was Gill's knock, Shreyas' century and ofc RohiRat hugs ✨. We made a Sri Lanka out of South Africa with the King getting a century on his b'day and destroyed Netherlands but the main part was Virat and Rohit taking wickets. Then came the semis against NZ and honestly the whole desiblr was scared as fuck bcz of our history but Revenge was taken... Kohli shattering all records and hitting his 50th century making us prouder than ever (anushka's kisses and bowing to the God Sachin will forever be remembered) and Shami's 7 wickets, like is there a way to stop Lalaji bcz I can't think of one (amd what's this 7 factor? 397 runs, all out at 327, won by 70 runs, shami taking 7 wickets ? tribute to Thala ig). But it all came down to this, we lost the finals... After all this we lost, 1.5 billion hearts are broken, the 12 year wait continues. But this tournament will never be forgotten, we laughed and we cried with our team and supported them at every step. We saw moments we'll never forget, we made memories seeing records being broken and our boys having the time of their lives, hugging and dancing on the field and being more excited for the mighty fielding medal than the actual match itself. So this tournament will forever be remembered. You'd expect me to say congratulations to Australia but no, they played well ofc but no team played cricket better than India... Just bcz this team didn't performed in one single match didn't mean that they didn't deserve to win this. Kohli gave all of his soul, Rohit made this team what it is and Shami gutted all his haters but sadly luck was not on our side. After winning all 10 matches our unbeaten streak got broken in the finals only. Yes I'm heartbroken to core but at the same time I'm bloody proud of our boys who gave everything they had, your heads should be held high. In my own delusional world India won this cup and not just team India but the whole country. In my mind we are the winners and the team got the prize for their blood, sweat and tears. You'll all be remembered forever as champions.

Bleed blue 🩵

[racefortheironthrone]

As a Social Democrat, what would you say has been its historical tendencies towards colonialism and upliftment of developing nations? Why is that Communism, despite some acknowledged failures (Afghanistan, Tibet, Xinjiang), is seen as more anti-colonialist by comparison?

That's a really interesting question. Honestly, when it comes to social democracy's record on de-colonization, it's something of a mixed bag. One of Eduard Bernstein's major flaws, his feet of clay, is that he was pro-imperialism - although to be fair, the SPD as a whole was pretty consistently anti-colonialist between the 1890s and 1914. On the other hand, the British Labour Party did very little about empire and was arguably pro-empire up until 1945. Clement Attlee, however, had a personal interest in decolonization and was a committed supporter of Indian self-governance since the 1930s, and negotiated the independence of India, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. On the other hand, Attlee wasn't entirely consistent on this point - he rather mis-handled the British Mandate in Palestine, African colonies were bypassed for de-colonization, and the Attlee government began the counter-insurgency in Malaysia. So something of a mixed bag, as I said.

Attlee's policies did have a long-term effect on the Labour Party - it opposed British involvement in the Suez Crisis on a united basis despite its divisions on other issues, for example. Likewise, the Harold Wilson government was characterized by broad sympathies to the cause of decolonization but a relatively weak commitment to accepting much risk. For example, Wilson refused to send British ground troops to Vietnam but did provide intelligence and jungle warfare training and wouldn't publicly denounce the war.

He did remove British troops from Singapore, Malaysia, and the Persian Gulf and supported de-colonization in Africa, but he rather screwed up in Rhodesia where after insisting on black suffrage in return for Rhodesian independence, he refused to send the British military to "fight our kith and kin" when Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence for his apartheid state, delaying liberation for many years.

By contrast, the Soviet Union and China could more straightforwardly support anti-colonial insurgencies (that often blended nationalist and communist ideologies) in no small part because the Bolsheviks had been anti-WWI and anti-imperialism pretty consistently thanks to Lenin's influence.

And if you were an anti-colonial insurgency, would you prefer the folks who might give you a thumbs up or the folks who would give you weapons?

[stokesy55]

Jos is any day a better T20 batsman than VK. VK has got more records, but the impact Jos has is unparalleled

HAHAHAHAHAHA 🤣🤣🤣

I'm sorry but

HAHAHAHAHA 🤣🤣🤣

I'm curious, what exactly is considered "impact"? How about being the highest run-scorer of 2 T20 World Cups? How about being the player of the tournament in consecutive T20 World Cups? Virat did that. You know what else he did? India played 6 knockout matches between 2014 and 2024. Virat has made a half century or more than that in 5 out of those 6 matches. That's just shy of 400 runs in 6 matches. It makes his average in T20 WC knockout matches over 90. If that's not impactful, I don't know what is.

Is impact related to strike rate? Virat scored 70 off 29 against West Indies, 94 in some 50 odd balls against WI, and his century against Afghanistan came in 52 balls. The first knock has a strike rate of over 200. Virat chased down 48 off the last 3 overs against Pakistan at the MCG in 2022 and 39 off the last 3 overs against Australia at Mohali in 2016. The latter was a virtual quarter final, and Virat's knock guaranteed India's progress to the semi finals.

Is impact related to hitting sixes? Well, for all that Jos is a renowned six-hitter, it was Virat's six against Haris Rauf at the MCG was declared the shot of the century by ICC. An equation that read 28 off 8 became 16 off 6. It was Virat who hit the two sixes that were required to get it down till here.

Virat has time and again won matches out of nowhere for India. The Mohali 82 against Australia, the MCG 82 against Pakistan, the 72 in 2014 SFs vs South Africa, I can go on and on here-- Heck, Virat was most of the, if not the sole reason that India got as far as they did in the 2014, 2016 and 2022 editions of the T20 World Cup. He is a massively impactful player, who delivers whenever needed. Even yesterday's final, take Virat's 76 out of the equation and we had only a 100 on the board to defend. I doubt even Jasprit could have done much with that.

Virat ended his career in T20s as unquestionably the best T20 player of this generation. Nobody comes close to having the kind of impact he does on the game. He carried India in almost every single T20 World Cup he played, and nobody deserved to lift that trophy as much as he did.

I did not intend this as an insult to Jos. He is a great player, one of the very best to have played the game, but he's not better than Virat. Nope, sorry, he isn't. And it isn't limited to Jos either. There isn't any player in the world, not Rohit, not Warner, not Babar, not Maxwell, no nobody in this generation comes close to having the kind of class, poise and impact of Kohli in T20s.

People are allowed differing opinions - sure, the stats say Virat but in terms of coming in when the team needs and changing the game momentum Jos is one of the best at having an impact

Numbers aren’t always everything, I think is the point the original ask was making. And honestly, looking at the tournament that just concluded, VK really only made an impact in the final, whilst Jos was a lynchpin to a lot of England’s batting innings.

Not saying you’re wrong and - as I said - everyone has opinions and it’s great they’re different because it allows us to discuss thing :) But I think the original ask was talking more about match impact than stats. There is a reason he was RR’s impact batsman for the IPL this year.

[suvarnarekha]

i hope the makers of caliphate netflix will sued the kerala story producers and why you defend the kerala story, do you know Vipul Amrutlal Shah was supported bjp, i know you will furious but you need understand that shah is making money for bjp and you need find real truth on kerala because you are north indian, you will visit kerala to show real side

What do the creators of Caliphate have to do with The Kerala Story? Both are raising the same issues which should be brought to the limelight but the respective makers are not intersected in any ways whatsoever. What reason would they have to sue any people associated with any film ecosystem?

Now; our prime minister, along with the BJP, did uplift the movie in Karnataka. So? What's the issue with that? AK often tweets about movies, rates them and even makes some of them tax free in Delhi whenever he wishes. So, if the country's leader himself is appropriating the masses by mentioning such important ventures, then what exactly is so horrifying about that?

It might come as a shock to you, anon, but the background activities done by the creators of the film is of the least concern to me unless they harm our Nation and its integrity. Plus, do you have any substantial testimony of the allegations you are putting on Vipul Amrutlal Shah? From where exactly did you get this information? Why will I believe a supposed claim coming from a completely unreliable source? Hand over the authentic sources, I will happily believe them.

"because you are north indian" What precisely is that supposed to mean? I live in north India so I am completely ambiguous about the ongoings of the other regions? What you need to get a-fix in your mindset is that one does not need to visit a state to know the reality. Because unlike you, dearest anon, some of us do our due research. We do not believe cockamamie conspiracy theories spewed on the internet.

It's deranged how you think I would get furious when you clearly cannot stand anything that is said against your judgement, anon. You want evidence about the girls converted and sent to ISIS from Kerala?

Fathima (pre-conversion name : Nimisha), Mariyam (pre-conversion name : Merrin Jacob), Ayisha (pre-conversion name : Sonia Sebastian. Yasmin Zahid, who recruited many youths from Kerala and sent them to Afghanistan, is now sentenced to jail.

I'm sorry but the "real side of kerala" you kindly mentioned is right here. Aforementioned and open. A little advice, anon? Say whatever you want, but believe what you see. These myriad victims might just be statistics for us but they are suffering. This is an ongoing process. And it'll only begin to decline when we acknowledge this.

[beardedmrbean]

SRINAGAR, India — Weapons left behind by U.S. forces during the withdrawal from Afghanistan are surfacing in another conflict, further arming militants in the disputed South Asian region of Kashmir in what experts say could be just the start of the weapons’ global journey.

Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir tell NBC News that militants trying to annex the region for Pakistan are carrying M4s, M16s and other U.S.-made arms and ammunition that have rarely been seen in the 30-year conflict. A major reason, they say, is a regional flood of U.S.-funded weapons that fell into the hands of the Taliban when U.S.-led NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.

Most of the weapons recovered so far, officials say, are from Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), both Pakistan-based militant groups that the U.S. designates as terrorist organizations. In a Twitter post last year, for example, police said they had seized an M4 carbine assault rifle after a gunfight that killed two militants from JeM. 

Militants from both groups had been sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside or train the Taliban before the U.S. withdrawal, said Lt. Col. Emron Musavi, an Indian army spokesperson in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.  

“It can be safely assumed that they have access to the weapons left behind,” he said.

Government officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan did not respond to requests for comment.

Kashmir, a Himalayan region known for its beautiful landscapes, shares borders with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. A separatist insurgency in the part of Kashmir controlled by India has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1990s and been a constant source of tension between nuclear powers India and Pakistan. 

The year opened in violence as Kashmir police blamed militants for a Jan. 1 gunfire attack that killed four people in the southern village of Dhangri, followed by an explosion in the same area the next day that killed a 5-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. At least six people were injured on Jan. 21 in two explosions in the city of Jammu.

While the U.S.-made weapons are unlikely to shift the balance of power in the Kashmir conflict, they give the Taliban a sizable reservoir of combat power potentially available to those willing and able to purchase it, said Jonathan Schroden, director of the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the Center for Naval Analyses, a research group based outside Washington.

“When combined with the Taliban’s need for money and extant smuggling networks, that reservoir poses a substantial threat to regional actors for years to come,” he said. 

A trove of weapons

More than $7.1 billion in U.S.-funded military equipment was in the possession of the Afghan government when it fell to the Taliban in August 2021 amid the withdrawal, according to a Defense Department report published last August. Though more than half of it was ground vehicles, it also included more than 316,000 weapons worth almost $512 million, plus ammunition and other accessories.

While large numbers of small arms that had been transferred to Afghan forces most likely ended up in the hands of the Taliban, “it’s important to remember that nearly all weapons and equipment used by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan were either retrograded or destroyed prior to our withdrawal,” Army Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, said in a statement.

The Defense Department report also pointed out that the operational condition of the Afghan army’s equipment was unknown.

Questions around the weapons being used in Kashmir were raised in January 2022, when a video of militants brandishing what appeared to be American-made guns was shared widely on Indian social media. Though the origin of the weapons in such cases can be difficult to verify — some may be modified to look like U.S. weapons, while others may not have been manufactured in the U.S. — the Indian military says it has recovered at least seven that are authentic.

“From the weapons and equipment that we recovered, we realized that there was a spillover of high-tech weapons, night-vision devices and equipment, which were left by the Americans in Afghanistan [and] were now finding their way toward this side,” Maj. Gen. Ajay Chandpuria, an Indian army official, was quoted as saying by Indian media last year.

Jammu and Kashmir Lt. Gov. Manoj Sinha said the government was aware of the issue and that measures were in place to combat the infiltration of U.S. weapons into Kashmir.

“We are monitoring the situation closely and have taken steps accordingly. Our police and army are on the job,” Sinha, the region’s top official, said on the sidelines of a news conference last year at his official residence in Srinagar.

Kashmir police official Vijay Kumar also said authorities were fully capable of countering the militant threat.

“Our forces are tracking down militants on a daily basis,” he said. “We are constantly upgrading our equipment and have the latest weaponry at our disposal.”

The militant groups JeM and LeT could be buying U.S. weapons from the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the United Nations says both groups have bases, or through smugglers in Pakistan, said Ajai Sahni, an author on counterterrorism who serves as executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, a think tank in New Delhi. 

Militants will struggle to get the upper hand, however, without more advanced weapons that have greater firepower but are more difficult to smuggle into the region, Sahni said.

Schroden said that although he had not seen substantial reports of U.S.-made weapons left behind in Afghanistan appearing outside of Kashmir, it would not be surprising if they eventually began turning up farther away in places such as Yemen, Syria and parts of Africa.

“I suspect there hasn’t yet been enough time for these weapons to percolate out that far,” he said. “It’s also possible that the Taliban have held tightly to most of them thus far as part of their efforts to consolidate power and seek legitimization from the international community.”

Beyond weapons, the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan gave an ideological boost to radical militants in Kashmir and elsewhere, said Ahmad Shuja Jamal, a former Afghan civil servant living in exile in Australia. 

Such militants, he said, “now see in clear terms the political dividends of long-term violence.”

[mariacallous]

As if Coca-Cola gave up making soft drinks, the Taliban announced to great fanfare last year that they were getting out of the drug business. The group that rode big opium profits to a takeover of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 suddenly, seemingly, swore off the stuff. Poppy planting was banned and drugs were off the menu. Or that, at least, is what they want the world to believe.

And they actually are—sort of. Satellite images seem to show a sharp decline in poppy acreage and methamphetamine manufacture since Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada announced his ban on producing and trading drugs in April 2022. Some Western officials, diplomats, and analysts see it as a welcome counternarcotics move, achieving with a simple decree what billions of dollars in U.S.-funded programs couldn’t do in two decades.

In reality, though, the Taliban haven’t changed their stripes—just their product. The drugs trade was estimated to account for up to 14 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP last year, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). If new figures from the UNODC are to be believed, that’s about to get a lot higher.

The Taliban didn’t curtail the drug trade. They cornered it. And then they branched out. What the Taliban did with heroin was stand on the hose, driving up prices. Since Akhundzada’s decree—which did not apply until this year—opium prices have skyrocketed, rising a hundredfold in local markets in eastern and southern Afghanistan, the main growing regions. Seizures of heroin and meth are up, from Australia to India, the Gulf, Central Asia, and at European ports like Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and Antwerp, in Belgium. Experts say the one-year lag between the decree’s announcement and enforcement gave producers and traffickers time to boost output and stockpiles, while stoking fears of a looming shortage that’s driven an inflationary panic-buying frenzy.

The Taliban are to heroin and meth what the Sinaloa cartel is to cocaine. Southeast Asia still makes a bit, but otherwise, Afghanistan has a stranglehold on the $55 billion-a-year heroin trade. Drug lord Bashir Noorzai, who was a major war financier and a close associate of the supreme leader, was greeted as a hero when he returned to Afghanistan last year upon early release from a life sentence in U.S. prison for heroin smuggling, swapped for an American hostage. Afghan sources say he is back in business.

But the Taliban are upscaling. While they had dabbled—and quite extensively—with meth in the past, they used plant-based precursors. But that takes labor. What’s easier, cheaper, quicker, and more profitable is chemical-based meth.

The UNODC annually assesses Afghanistan’s poppy acreage, opium yield and prices, and heroin production, though since the Taliban regained power, access and visibility, like the reports, are hamstrung. What does seem apparent is that the Taliban have cut down on poppy production. Recent satellite images provided by Alcis show a dramatic reduction in poppy planting. Anecdotal evidence from on-the-ground reporting backs up statements by Alcis researchers that poppy planting could have fallen by as much as 99 percent in some areas.

Afghan journalist Mirwais Khan said his sources in the southern Helmand province, where much of the country’s supply of heroin is sourced, tell him that poppy planting is close to zero for the current season. In the markets, he said, prices have surged from 30,000 Pakistani rupees, or about $100 a kilo a year ago, to 520,000 rupees. (Opium is priced in Pakistani rupees.) Last month, RFE/RL reported opium markets in Helmand and Kandahar operating as usual and said traffickers had amassed “strategic stockpiles” to take advantage of high prices.

Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Berlin- and New York-based Counter Extremism Project, doesn’t believe the ban is genuine, let alone long-term. He regards it as an attempt to maximize profits while lulling the international community into recognizing the Taliban. Or it’s a diversification play.

“If I was a Talib, I’d be getting into meth,” Schindler told Foreign Policy. The raw material for plant-based methamphetamine, ephedra, grows wild in Afghanistan. The Taliban have cracked down on that, too. But the drug can be synthesized simply and cheaply with easily acquired precursor chemicals and cooked in labs that are almost undetectable on satellite imagery. The costs and returns are many times that of heroin.

“They can ramp up meth production. You can tell [on satellite photos], but you have to know what you’re looking for, and at. It will be much harder to prove,” as the labs often look like any other building, Schindler said.

The UNODC agrees, with an assessment released on Sunday describing the illegal manufacture of meth in Afghanistan as a “growing threat” that is “changing illicit drug markets traditionally focused on the trafficking of opiates from Afghanistan.” Chemical precursors have become the main ingredient, the report said, derived from legally available sources like cold medicine or bulk industrial ephedrines that are smuggled into Afghanistan year-round. One kilogram of pure meth can be produced from less than 2 kilos of industrial ephedrine, compared to 200 kilos of ephedra plant that have to be harvested and prepared by human beings who like to get paid.

The Taliban have been moving into meth for some years, building markets by including it in shipments of heroin. Australian media has reported huge seizures of Afghan meth, sent through the mail from Pakistan to motorcycle gangs that dominate the trade. Compared to heroin, a little goes longer, and the UNODC report shows the Taliban are trading it to every corner of the world.

As industrial-scale manufacture of chemical drugs ramps up, the biggest losers are Afghanistan’s farmers, who languish at the bottom of the economic pyramid, among the poorest people in one of the world’s most indigent countries. For decades, they’ve been Taliban serfs, forced to grow poppies to help fund the war against the Western-backed Afghan state. The Taliban provided inputs, including seeds and fertilizer. Farmers found themselves in a debt trap they could and did pay off at times by fighting for the Taliban against Afghan and international coalition forces.

News footage of lathi-armed goon squads destroying poppy fields is a déjà vu of failed counternarcotics programs during the past two decades, which at least offered farmers alternatives, like growing wheat or saffron. Insurgent suicide bombers would destroy seed distribution centers, and Taliban operatives would sometimes even kill farmers who tried to make the switch. The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported that the U.S. government spent, between 2002 and 2017, about $8.6 billion on counternarcotics efforts. Opium remained Afghanistan’s largest cash crop.

But wheat and other crops are just not a viable option. “If they grow grain, they will starve,” Schindler said, as Afghan farmers need cash crops to cover their costs. A long-term drought has cut their ability to grow food. If the ban continues, many men will be forced off the land to look for work elsewhere, adding to the huge numbers of internally displaced and, potentially, to the numbers flooding out of the country—to Pakistan, Iran, and beyond—in search of work.

Little farmers and big landowners both stand to lose from the continued ban, even if that was the endgame of all those years of U.S. and international efforts. Akhundzada seems to have put his prestige on the line with the ban, regardless of the collateral damage.

“The economic shock and human suffering will continue and worsen as long as the ban is implemented,” warned William Byrd, an expert on Afghanistan at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

[world-of-wales]

“…you lot just write whatever you feel like without any idea, context or effing knowledge.”

To be fair, you and your friends do the same. You often write things that aren’t factual, but rather your opinion which lacks context. I get your opposition to the use of the “police state” term, but anon isn’t wrong is saying that the protestors weren’t allowed to express themselves without restriction in England.

See as someone who studied all these things for the past 3 years and did my graduation dissertation on virtually the pretty same thing, about Military and Police Action and its affect on human rights around the world with a special focus on South Asia. Reading all these things do make me angry because people go and use such heavy terms to describe stuff which isn't at that level. This is my field of study and you better bet that I'm gonna go and criticize people for making statements which aren't true.

If you think that England is actually a police state then please go and spend some time in places like Afghanistan, go to mayanmar, heck go to parts of India even like Manipur which has been embroiled in a civil war between ethnic groups since the past two months. Those people live in police states, not someone living in Engalnd or the UK in general.

I never did say that I was happy with what happened to the protesters or the way new protest laws have been enacted in England. Still does not make it a 'Police State'. Maybe I should have added this part in my reblog yesterday and I was thinking about adding it in too.

Stuff happening in the UK affects me too since that's where my dad is from, where half of my family lives, where we spend our holidays, where I plan to setting down after everything.

I never have an issue with people expressing their opinions but I do have an issue with the way social media has made people start using these words like a way for people to make their opinion sound better. If you want to chat you can come off anon but I do stand by my official statement.

ALSO If you wanna chat, talk about me, with me. Don't drag my friends into this. Also would love to see where we were just spouting 'unfactual' things. Those are amazing amazing people and dont deserve to be dragged into a situation that they have no relation or concern with. So keep their name out of ur effing mouth.

THANK YOU NEXT!

[buzz-london]

*This is Modi💪🫵* 🪷When Malaysia supported Pakistan on Kashmir, Modiji started buying palm oil from Indonesia *Result- Malaysia became silent.* 🪷When Turkey said the same thing on Kashmir, it remembered that India is a veto member of BRICS. *Result- Turkey sat silent.* 🪷When Maldives outed India, Modiji did not say anything, just went to Lakshadweep and did a photoshoot *Result- Mizzu came running to India.* 🪷When there was an attempt of coup in Sri Lanka, Modiji gave them aid of 4 billion dollars *Result- Today the leftist president of that country also comes to India and says that we will take care of India's interests.* 🪷When Taliban came to Afghanistan, Modiji supplied them rice/wheat *Result- Taliban is now hitting Pakistan from there.* 🪷When Modi government removed 370, Pakistan stopped trade with us. We did not say anything *Result- Today Pakistan is pleading to open trade.* 🪷When there was a coup in Myanmar, we gave them food grains as aid *Result- Today Myanmar is hitting Bangladesh.* 🪷When Russia needed it, we supplied them with arms. Bought oil from Russia *Result- Today Russia is giving us nuclear warships/submarines.* *Today we are dealing with everyone on our terms, be it America, Africa, West-East Asia, Russia, Europe*👏👏💪💪🫵🫵 India's diplomacy is such that we are working with everyone with a different kind of diplomacy. And the result is always in India's favour *This is what diplomacy is called, which has never happened before in India!!🫵🫵💪💪👏👏🙏🙏.*

[acepandemi]

Dad is one of those people who don't talk about themselves much. but sometimes I manage to tease out some hidden gems.

Example: two conversations I had with the Old Man recently.

Exhibit A:

(While driving, the news plays on the radio. Dutch television and radio newscasts have recently started to refer to the LGBTQIA+ community as "LHBTI" instead of "LHBT" [the Dutch word for gay starts with an H]. Progress, if slowly.)

Dad: "So what does the "I" stand for? I know the other letters, but not that one."

Me: "Intersex"

Dad (remember, he's from '47): "And what is that?"

(I think for a moment how to explain this. With Dad I sometimes have to use outdated terminology to at least get him to understand. I always explain why we do not use those terms anymore afterwards.)

Me: "Well, do you know what the term "Hermafrodite" means?"

(Yes yes yes, I know, I am going to explain further, I'm just trying to explain this in terms Dad might know.)

Dad: "Ooooh, yeah, I get it. I had a friend like that growing up!"

(Que record scratch in my brain.)

Me: "You did?"

Dad: "Yeah, he lived two streets over. When he was born they thought he was a girl, but then he hit puberty and everything started to... you know... develop. And they found out he was a boy after all. Not that he was trans, just that what they thought were oddly shaped lady bits were actually man parts that didn't really develop untill puberty."

Me: "Yes! Exactly! That's what intersex is! Or, well, what it can be..." (explains more about different variants of intersex, the long history of medical abuse intersex people have suffered, why they are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and why we do not use outdated terminology anymore. Dad is nodding throughout it all.)

Dad (after the lecture is concluded): "So when they mention intersex, or just the "I" again, I'll think of [Friend]."

Me: "You do that."

Exhibit B:

(Mum, Dad, and I are talking about all sorts of stuff, and for some reason Afghanistan comes up in conversation. I mention how I saw an article the other day with photos taken in Kabul in the 70's, and how it seems time has gone backwards. Dad nods.)

Dad: "Yeah, I mean, I was in Kabul in the late 60's, and it was completely modern." (I know, maybe not the best choice of words, but you get what he was trying to say.)

(Mum and I look at Dad in surprise. Remember that Dad and I are Dutch, and not religious.)

Me: "How'd you end up in Kabul in the sixties?"

Dad: "Oh, that was when I was still on the seas (Dad was a cook in the Merchant Navy for five years before he met my mom). I often got hired to work ships that were being sent to be demolished. We'd sail the ship from Europe to these demolition sites, usually in India or thereabouts, and then we would take the train home. One time I decided to take a detour to Kabul. It was more or less on the route anyway."

Me (incredulous): "You took the train from India to The Netherlands?!"

Dad: "Yeah, you could do that back then. Of course, that area of the world has become much more dangerous since, but back in the day it was perfectly doable."

Me (tabling that for now): "Okay, but why Kabul though?"

Mum (teasing): "A girl?"

Dad: "No, just curious."

Mum (pulling a face): "Of course." ("Curiosity" is a dirty word to Mum. To Dad and me it's our defining quality.)

I spent the rest of the night picturing Dad as he was back then (I've seen pictures): a six-foot-plus Dutch teenager (he was 15 when he left home) with the stereotypical big nose, blue eyes and blond hair (very pale blond, his nickname was "Witte" (White one, or Whitey), hopping trains across India, the Middle East, and the breadth of Europe, detouring to Kabul and who-knows-where-else out of curiosity, having the time of his life. He certainly inherited his father's adventurous spirit! (Grandpa, for some reason, decided to go to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight against Franco, among other adventures.)

[news365timesindia]

[ad_1] Sandesh Jhingan gearing up for the for the ISL game against Punjab FC. Source: FC Goa X If you are a follower of Indian football, the one name that you would have been elated to see in the list of 26 players announced by Manolo Marquez for the friendly against Malaysia is that of Sandesh Jhingan. Needless to say, India missed Jhingan in the World Cup qualifiers against Afghanistan and Kuwait, and his presence could have made a decisive difference. Out with an injury suffered at the AFC Asian Cup in January, Jhingan is now back at his best for his club, FC Goa, and is also all set to don the Blue Tigers jersey once more. A rather grateful Jhingan spoke to Boria Majumdar about the national team comeback and how difficult the journey has been in the past few months. Excerpts: Boria: Many congratulations on making it back to where you belong. How does it feel to get back, and how difficult has it been? Jhingan: It has indeed been difficult. And it feels extremely good to be back. I am very grateful to everyone who stood by me and, honestly, it is largely due to their efforts that I am back to where I need to be. First, it is my wife and my little daughter. She will never know that it was because of her that I pushed myself to walk. When she started taking her first toddler steps, I felt I needed to walk with her and enjoy the moment. At the time, I was in searing pain but seeing my daughter walk, I could do what I did. There is no greater joy than seeing your little one grow and my wife, who has been a constant source of inspiration, and my daughter have helped me tide over this period of uncertainty. I have to say all my colleagues, formerly Igor [Stimac] and the team, and now FC Goa and Manolo [Marquez] have been hugely supportive. There was never any pressure from FC Goa and they allowed me my space. I will be ever grateful to the club and my coach. For More Sports Related Content Click Here Sandesh Jhingan in action during FC Goa’s ISL clash against Bengaluru FC. Source: FC Goa X Boria: You mentioned Manolo. He is now the coach of the national team as well. You have seen and been with him at FC Goa. That should help. Jhingan: He is brilliant. Just brilliant. And I am not trying to please anyone, I have to qualify that. He doesn’t need that. When I came back after AFC, he was supremely supportive of me. I was wiling to defer my surgery and play with pain for a few more weeks if needed. But he was clear and always had my good in mind. Even when I was of no use to him, he stood by me and had my back. And as coach, he is excellent. I am confident we will have a very good stint with him. His understanding of the game, grooming of players, tactical acumen is second to none, and the number of players he has been able to develop in the last few years is testimony. Boria: At a time when you are making it back to the national team, things are not looking the best for Indian football. There is a lot of gloom around. We all felt we’d be able to qualify for the third round of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers. It did not happen. How hopeful are you of the national team? Jhingan: Very hopeful. Yes, there is gloom around but it also an opportunity to change things for the better. We have a job to do, and under Manolo, we will do that job. We have to come together and collectively give our best. The second half against Vietnam is evidence we can play good football, and now it is imperative we do so consistently and get Indian football back on track. These are difficult times, but it is only when you put in the hard yards that you get success. Ten years down the line, we will all look back at these years and to the work we put in and think this is how we were able to turn things around. I want to play a little part in the process, and that’s why we are all here. It is national duty and there’s nothing bigger than that. Also Read: Goosebumps, Glory, and Family: Inside the Kolkata Derby with Subhasish Bose The post A RevSportz Exclusive : It

was because of my daughter that I pushed myself to walk – Sandesh Jhingan on the road back to the Blue Tigers appeared first on Sports News Portal | Latest Sports Articles | Revsports. [ad_2] Source link

[news365times]

[ad_1] Sandesh Jhingan gearing up for the for the ISL game against Punjab FC. Source: FC Goa X If you are a follower of Indian football, the one name that you would have been elated to see in the list of 26 players announced by Manolo Marquez for the friendly against Malaysia is that of Sandesh Jhingan. Needless to say, India missed Jhingan in the World Cup qualifiers against Afghanistan and Kuwait, and his presence could have made a decisive difference. Out with an injury suffered at the AFC Asian Cup in January, Jhingan is now back at his best for his club, FC Goa, and is also all set to don the Blue Tigers jersey once more. A rather grateful Jhingan spoke to Boria Majumdar about the national team comeback and how difficult the journey has been in the past few months. Excerpts: Boria: Many congratulations on making it back to where you belong. How does it feel to get back, and how difficult has it been? Jhingan: It has indeed been difficult. And it feels extremely good to be back. I am very grateful to everyone who stood by me and, honestly, it is largely due to their efforts that I am back to where I need to be. First, it is my wife and my little daughter. She will never know that it was because of her that I pushed myself to walk. When she started taking her first toddler steps, I felt I needed to walk with her and enjoy the moment. At the time, I was in searing pain but seeing my daughter walk, I could do what I did. There is no greater joy than seeing your little one grow and my wife, who has been a constant source of inspiration, and my daughter have helped me tide over this period of uncertainty. I have to say all my colleagues, formerly Igor [Stimac] and the team, and now FC Goa and Manolo [Marquez] have been hugely supportive. There was never any pressure from FC Goa and they allowed me my space. I will be ever grateful to the club and my coach. For More Sports Related Content Click Here Sandesh Jhingan in action during FC Goa’s ISL clash against Bengaluru FC. Source: FC Goa X Boria: You mentioned Manolo. He is now the coach of the national team as well. You have seen and been with him at FC Goa. That should help. Jhingan: He is brilliant. Just brilliant. And I am not trying to please anyone, I have to qualify that. He doesn’t need that. When I came back after AFC, he was supremely supportive of me. I was wiling to defer my surgery and play with pain for a few more weeks if needed. But he was clear and always had my good in mind. Even when I was of no use to him, he stood by me and had my back. And as coach, he is excellent. I am confident we will have a very good stint with him. His understanding of the game, grooming of players, tactical acumen is second to none, and the number of players he has been able to develop in the last few years is testimony. Boria: At a time when you are making it back to the national team, things are not looking the best for Indian football. There is a lot of gloom around. We all felt we’d be able to qualify for the third round of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers. It did not happen. How hopeful are you of the national team? Jhingan: Very hopeful. Yes, there is gloom around but it also an opportunity to change things for the better. We have a job to do, and under Manolo, we will do that job. We have to come together and collectively give our best. The second half against Vietnam is evidence we can play good football, and now it is imperative we do so consistently and get Indian football back on track. These are difficult times, but it is only when you put in the hard yards that you get success. Ten years down the line, we will all look back at these years and to the work we put in and think this is how we were able to turn things around. I want to play a little part in the process, and that’s why we are all here. It is national duty and there’s nothing bigger than that. Also Read: Goosebumps, Glory, and Family: Inside the Kolkata Derby with Subhasish Bose The post A RevSportz Exclusive : It

was because of my daughter that I pushed myself to walk – Sandesh Jhingan on the road back to the Blue Tigers appeared first on Sports News Portal | Latest Sports Articles | Revsports. [ad_2] Source link

[yourreddancer]

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

August 30, 2024 (Friday)

Trump and the MAGA movement garnered power through performances that projected dominance and cowed media and opponents into silence. Rather than disqualifying him from the highest office in the United States, Trump’s mocking of a disabled reporter, bragging about assaulting women, and calling immigrants rapists and criminals seemed to demonstrate his dominance and strengthen him with his base. In July the Republican National Convention celebrated that performance with a deliberate appropriation of the themes of professional wrestling, including a display by an actual professional wrestler.

Their plan for winning the 2024 election seems to have been to put forward more of the same.

But the national mood appears to be changing. President Joe Biden’s decision to decline the Democratic nomination for president opened the way for the Democrats to launch a new, younger, more vibrant vision for the country.

Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, have promised to continue, and even to expand slightly, the programs that under the Biden-Harris administration have started the process of rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, bringing back manufacturing, and investing in industries to combat climate change. As the country did before 1981, they are promising to continue to focus on supporting a strong middle class rather than those at the top of the economy.

Harris and Walz are building on this economic base to recenter the United States government on the idea of community. They have deliberately rejected the identity politics that Trump used so effectively to assert his dominance and have instead emphasized that they see the country not as a community defined by winners and losers, but as one in which everyone has value and should have the same opportunities for success.

Last night, CNN’s Dana Bash asked Harris, whose mother immigrated to the U.S. from India and whose father immigrated from Jamaica, to respond to Trump’s suggestion that she “happened to turn Black” for political advantage, “questioning a core part of your identity.” Harris responded: “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please,” and she laughed. “That’s it?” Bash asked. “That’s it,” Harris answered.

Harris’s refusal to accept the MAGA terms of engagement, along with the exuberant support for Harris and Walz, has Trump, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, and MAGA Republicans reeling. That, in turn, has made them seem vulnerable, and that vulnerability is now opening up room for pundits from a range of outlets to challenge them. They seem to be losing the ability to control the public conversation by asserting dominance.

This change has been evident this week in the response to Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery with the family of a soldier who died in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago for campaign videos and photos attacking Harris, despite the fact that federal law prohibits campaign activities in the cemetery, in what is widely considered hallowed ground. The moment almost passed unnoticed, as it likely would have in the past, but Esquire’s Charles Pierce asked in his blog: “How The Hell Was Trump Allowed To Use Arlington National Cemetery As A Campaign Prop?”

Led by NPR, different outlets begin to dig into the story, and Trump, Vance, Trump’s spokesperson, and Trump’s campaign manager Chris LaCivita all tried to brush off their lawlessness with their usual rhetoric. Trump tried to change the subject to say he was being unfairly attacked for supporting a military family. Vance tried to suggest that Harris should have attended the private ceremony and that for criticizing it she should “go to hell,” although she hadn’t commented on it. The spokesperson suggested that the female cemetery official who tried to stop them was experiencing a “mental health episode,” and LaCivita, a leading figure in the Swift Boat veterans’ attacks on John Kerry in 2004, reposted an offending video to “trigger” Army officials, he said.

It hasn’t flown.

Today, MSNBC’s Dasha Burns asked Trump directly: “Should your campaign have put out those videos and photos?” Trump answered: “Well, we have a lot of people. You know, we have people, TikTok people, you know we’re leading the Internet. That was the other thing. We’re so far above her on the Internet….” Burns interrupted and followed up: “But on that hallowed ground, should they have put out the images…?” Trump said: “Well I don’t know what the rules and regulations are, I don’t know who did it, and, I, it could have been them. It could have been the parents. It could have been somebody….”

Burns interrupted again: “It was your campaign’s TikTok that put out the video.” Trump answered: "I really don't know anything about it. All I do is I stood there and I said, 'If you'd like to have a picture, we can have a picture.' If somebody did it; this was a setup by the people in the administration that, 'Oh, Trump is coming to Arlington, that looks so bad for us.’"

In the days since Biden stepped out of contention, Trump has been flailing—often complaining that it is “unfair” that Biden isn’t his opponent any longer—but his behavior has rocketed downhill since the new grand jury delivered a new indictment revising the four charges against him for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and install himself in power. Karen Tumulty wrote in the Washington Post today that Trump is “spiraling,” noting that in the space of 24 hours he posted about Harris engaging in a sex act, promoted QAnon slogans, and called for prison for his political opponents.

Tumulty notes that Trump’s team has been trying to get him to focus on the issues voters care about, but that after he “listlessly delivers some lines from the teleprompter,” he “gets bored and begins recycling the rants from his rallies.”

Harris has stayed silent about his behavior, Tumulty says a campaign staffer told her, because “Why would we step in this man’s way?” The Harris campaign wants microphones left on throughout the planned September 10 debate, expecting that Trump will not be able to contain the rants that used to serve his interests but now turn voters off.

To Vance is left the job of trying to clean up after Trump, but he’s not a skilled politician. Asked by John Berman about Trump’s social media attacks, Vance suggested that Trump was bringing “fun” and “jokes” to politics to “lift people up.” But observers on social media noted that claiming that attacks are “jokes” is a key part of asserting dominance.

Vance himself went after Harris by saying that he had an early version of Harris’s CNN interview and then posting an old meme of a young Miss Teen USA who appeared to panic when answering a question and produced a nonsensical answer. When Berman told him that the young woman contemplated self-harm after becoming a national joke and asked if he would like to apologize for bringing up that old video, Vance declined to apologize, suggested we should “laugh at ourselves,” and repeated that we should “try to have some fun in politics.”

Vance got into deeper trouble, though, when asked to explain Trump’s statement when he told Dasha Burns that he opposes Florida’s six-week abortion ban. This November, Floridians will have to vote yes or no on a constitutional amendment that would put abortion rights similar to those of Roe v. Wade into the state constitution.

Trump’s opposition to that amendment reflects the political reality that abortion bans are unpopular even in Republican-dominated states, but the MAGA base is fervently antiabortion. “That ‘thump thump’ you just heard is the entire pro-life movement going under the bus,” one wrote.

A campaign spokesperson promptly tried to walk the statement back by saying that Trump “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida,” which Vance reiterated on CNN. When Berman pressed him on it, though, Vance appeared to lose the ability to hear the question, suggesting the feed was bad.

This afternoon, Trump announced he will side with the antiabortion activists and vote against the amendment to the Florida constitution that would restore the rights that were in Roe v. Wade. Harris and Walz, meanwhile, have announced a national bus tour to highlight reproductive freedom. It will start in Palm Beach, Florida, where the Trump Organization’s Mar-a-Lago property is located.

(AGAIN, HE'S A CONVICTED FELON!!!! HOW CAN HE VOTE????)

Today, lawyers for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the election workers Trump ally Rudy Giuliani defamed by accusing them of fraud in the 2020 election, asked a federal court to enforce the judgment that awarded them $146 million. They have asked for a court order requiring Giuliani to turn over his properties in New York and Florida, his luxury car, and his personal valuables including three New York Yankees World Series rings. Giuliani’s spokesperson accused the women of bullying Giuliani.

The Lincoln Project, which believes that needling Trump is the best way to rattle him, today released a video that portrays Trump as a predatory animal who is old, past his prime, and abandoned by his pack. Rather than engaging in his final hunt, he has found himself the prey. The voice-over intones: “The circle of life eventually closes on all things.