Etilaat-e-Rooz: A number of female students in Balkh University, who are from other provinces, say that the officials of the Taliban do not allow them to travel to their provinces without muharram –male escort. According to them, the Taliban have forced back some students from the road.A representative of the students of one of the provinces, who does not want her identity to be revealed, told Etilaat-e-Roz that the Taliban did not allow the girls who live in the government hostels to go to their homes without a muharram. Full story ...

Washington Examiner: Desperation among Afghans from all walks of life is again on the rise. Prices continue to spike, donor fatigue has hit nongovernmental organizations hard, and Taliban rulings affect economic participation. Leslie Merriman has been distributing food packages to Afghan special immigrant visa applicants since September. At her latest food drop, delivery personnel were swarmed by hordes of hungry Afghans. Full story ...

Etilaat-e-Rooz: As Taliban continue to restrict female students at Balkh University, female Taliban-appointed agents inspect students’ handcuffs and break their cosmetics. Some female students, who did not want to be named in the news, told the daily Ettelaat-e-Rooz that female Taliban-appointed agents had broken their cosmetics after inspecting their handcuffs. Full story ...

Khaama Press: According to The Wall Street Journal, some key Afghan officials and their families spent millions of dollars in the final years of the war on luxurious mansions in the United States and other countries, and when they fled the rising violence in Afghanistan. Some officials who held senior roles during former President Ashraf Ghani’s administration, which began in 2014, are now residing in “mansions along California’s coast”, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of public records, interviews, and other evidence. Full story ...

8am: The Taliban gunmen have shot dead a brother and sister in Baghlan province, sources in the province reported. On Monday night, the Taliban fighters raided the house of Mehrabuddin, a resident of Khost district, arresting and torturing his son named Sohrab for affiliation with the National Resistance Front, according to sources. Sources have stated that during the torture of Sohrab, his 17-year-old sister threw herself on her brother in order to protect him, as a result of which the Taliban shot dead both of them. Full story ...

Gandhara: Chanting “Bread, work, freedom,” some two dozen women took to the streets of the Afghan capital of Kabul on May 29 to protest against the Taliban’s harsh restrictions on their rights. The Taliban has rolled back women’s rights since returning to power in August 2021. Girls have been banned from school beyond the sixth grade in most of Afghanistan. In March, the Taliban ordered girls’ high schools closed on the morning they were scheduled to open. Full story ...

Rukhshana: At least nine civilians were killed and 15 wounded in Wednesday’s back-to-back explosions which targeted passenger vehicles in Mazar-e-Sharif city in northern Afghanistan, confirmed reports said. All victims were members of ethnic Hazara and religious Shia community, including Maryam Madadi, a former female journalist. Madadi worked at Rabia Balkhi radio station in Balkh, according to Mobina Saiee, the radio station’s former manager. Full story ...

Al Jazeera: Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have told television broadcasters to ensure that female presenters working in local stations cover their faces when on air, a government official said.The order follows a recent directive from Taliban authorities that Afghan women must cover their faces in public and is seen as the latest sign of a possible return to the Taliban’s ultraconservative rule of the past and an escalation of restrictions on women that are causing anger at home and abroad. Full story ...

Save the Children: KABUL, 9 May 2022 – 9.6 million children in Afghanistan are going hungry every day due to a dire combination of economic collapse, the impacts of the war in Ukraine and the ongoing drought, new figures released today show. Immediate food assistance is needed to save lives in the short-term, but aid alone is not enough to tackle the country’s worst hunger crisis on record, Save the Children said. Full story ...

8am: Following the reactions to the Taliban’s compulsory hijab, the Women’s Movement for Justice and Freedom has said that the Taliban have insulted all Muslim women and girls in Afghanistan with their baseless vague religious decrees. In a protest rally on Monday, they said that the Taliban are interfering in the most personal affairs of women by forcing them to wear the hijab. Full story ...

Reuters: Afghanistan’s Taliban government ordered women on Saturday to cover their faces in public, a return to a signature policy of their past hardline rule and an escalation of restrictions that are causing anger at home and abroad. A decree from the group’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, said that if a woman did not cover her face outside home, her father or closest male relative would be visited and face potential prison or firing from state jobs. Full story ...

CNN: Millions of Afghans are now experiencing intense food shortages following the Taliban’s takeover in August. As Muslims around the world celebrated Eid, experts say that for most Afghans, it was simply another day of struggle to put food on the table. According to the United Nations, 97 per cent of Afghans are experiencing food shortages. Following the Taliban’s takeover in August, most Western aid was stopped. Hospitals and schools are unable to pay their employees, and many people are unable to purchase food, exacerbating an already dire crisis. Full story ...

Deutsche Welle: It’s eight months since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and the country has slipped down the news agenda. ’The world forgets about us,’ says Friba Rezayee, the first Afghan woman to compete at the Olympics. “I wish I didn’t exist," Afghan athlete Amira (name changed) writes. "I didn't do anything wrong. The only crime I have committed is to play sports.” Before the Taliban took power in Kabul in August 2021, Amira was one of the best judo fighters in the country. A few weeks ago, the Taliban raided her home for documents that would prove the young woman had been a member of the Afghan national team. Full story ...

Etlaat-e-Rooz: A family in Jalalabad, the capital of nangarhar province, claims that Taliban forces killed a teenage boy and wounded two others. Salahuddin, a member of the family, said that the incident took place last night (Saturday, April 24) in the seventh district of Jalalabad. According to him, a 15-year-old boy, his name was Adel, was killed in a Taliban shooting. Full story ...

The New York Times: The blast in Mazar-i-Sharif, one of Afghanistan’s economic hubs, was the latest in a series of attacks on one of its religious minorities and was claimed by an ISIS affiliate. KABUL, Afghanistan — An explosion at a Shiite mosque in northern Afghanistan on Thursday killed at least 10 people and wounded more than two dozen others, local officials said, adding to the toll of a bloody week for one of the country’s religious minorities. Full story ...