Mes: agosto 2019

(AP) HONG KONG – The Hong Kong government calls it national education. But parents, teachers and pupils in the former British colony call it “brainwashing” and fear it’s a ploy by Beijing authorities to indoctrinate the city’s young into unquestioning support of China’s Communist Party. Plans by the government to introduce the classes have triggered mass protests and hunger strikes, the latest sign of the widening gulf between Beijing and the freewheeling semi-independent southern Chinese financial center, 15 years after Britain handed it back to China. The dispute deepened as classes started this week, with activists including a handful of hunger-strikers camping out in front of Hong Kong government headquarters in a bid to force officials to drop plans to introduce the subject in primary and secondary schools. They’ve been joined each evening by thousands of protesters wearing black. A local TV station fanned the flames when it called the activists a “destructive faction” controlled by London and Washington. The rising tensions forced the city’s Beijing-backed leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, to call off his trip to a high-profile Asia-Pacific summit this weekend in Vladivostok, Russia. The protesters are afraid of what they see as underhanded attempts to indoctrinate the city’s next generation with Beijing-style nationalist education classes used in schools all over China to inculcate support for the Communist government. Many believe Leung, who became the city’s leader...

(CBS News) KABUL – By the end of 2014, the international military forces who have tried to secure Afghanistan for more than a decade will leave the country, and as they go, so too will many of the business opportunities granted by their presence. “The current economy is artificial,” Muqim Jamshady tells CBS News in his suburban Kabul home. Jamshady started his own company, Afghan Logistics, shortly after the Taliban regime was ousted almost 11 years ago. The current economy “has no foundation,” he says. “Much depends on the coalition forces. If they leave, the economy will collapse dramatically.” Hundreds of Afghan forces sacked, detained over insider attack fearsCan Afghan forces vet their recruits?U.S. halts training of some Afghan forces Much of Jamshady’s business depends on an international presence in Kabul. He runs a hugely successful logistics, rental car and taxi firm – services which are mostly aimed at the massive population of foreigners in the Afghan capital. He built his business from almost nothing, starting as an owner-driver and then spending his savings on a second vehicle, which his brother drove. Soon, there was a third brother driving a third car. Today he has more than 100 vehicles, a large complex of offices and his own maintenance facility. His wealth is apparent, but Jamshady is reluctant to disclose his real net-worth. Success here comes with great risk. As...

(CBS News) KABUL – Coalition forces and their Afghan partners are continuing to put further measures in place to deter the so-called “insider attacks” by Afghan security forces on international troops, which have increased sharply in recent months and have left 45 Western troops dead this year, including 28 Americans. Efforts include new joint counter-intelligence teams, 메이저사이트 repeated and more thorough vetting of Afghan troops, and attempts to reduce cultural misunderstandings between the NATO troops and their Afghan hosts. More in Afghanistan: The way forward “Afghan and coalition forces are working in a high-stress and dangerous environment,” Lt Gen Adrian Bradshaw, Deputy Commander of the International Security Force – Afghanistan (ISAF) said Thursday in Kabul. “They’re working in close proximity in a culture where matters of honor and shame are extremely important to people. This requires the junior leadership to pay particular attention to the welfare of their people to ensure that when problems do occur they’re addressed very quickly,” explained Bradshaw. Bradshaw said there was a “renewed emphasis” on working with Afghan commanders to better address and understand the feelings of their subordinates, to “know their family backgrounds, know when they are under stress, to observe for these things. In particular to talk to them when they come back from leave at home, to ensure they haven’t come under pressure.” Hundreds of Afghan troops sacked, detained over “insider”...