Sensemaker
Afghan women working for the UN in Kabul say they have been betrayed by the organisation’s failure to protect them from the Taliban’s gender apartheid. Also in today’s Sensemaker: why an opposition win in Thailand isn’t quite a win.
A de facto ban on women in the UN’s Afghanistan offices is now in force
Sensemaker Audio
Mikheil Saakashvili claims he has been tortured and poisoned in prison for standing up to Russian president Vladimir Putin. What happens to him could decide Georgia’s future
Sensemaker Audio
The UK government is evacuating Brits from one of the world’s poorest countries as it teeters on the edge of civil war. How did Sudan get here?
Net Zero Sensemaker
What will it take for a green and prosperous recovery in Ukraine?
Sensemaker Audio
There has been speculation about whether Kim Jong-un’s young daughter is being lined up to succeed him. But it is more likely that Kim Ju Ae’s public appearances are designed to be a distraction from North Korea’s problems.
Sensemaker
What just happened
Pig Iron
In the last episode, the team finally hears from a man they’ve been chasing for months. And they return to Maine, to tell Christopher’s parents what they have discovered
Pig Iron
In episode 6, the team tries to understand the connection between Chris’s trip to South Sudan, and one taken by a group of American fighters just weeks before. Could this explain why Chris was called a white rebel? And after months investigating, Basia finally speaks to the fighter who fascinated Chris, and she asks – how close really were you?
Sensemaker Audio
Mikheil Saakashvili claims he has been tortured and poisoned in prison for standing up to Russian president Vladimir Putin. What happens to him could decide Georgia’s future
Sensemaker Audio
The UK government is evacuating Brits from one of the world’s poorest countries as it teeters on the edge of civil war. How did Sudan get here?
Sensemaker Audio
There has been speculation about whether Kim Jong-un’s young daughter is being lined up to succeed him. But it is more likely that Kim Ju Ae’s public appearances are designed to be a distraction from North Korea’s problems.
Pig Iron
In the last episode, the team finally hears from a man they’ve been chasing for months. And they return to Maine, to tell Christopher’s parents what they have discovered
Pig Iron
In episode 6, the team tries to understand the connection between Chris’s trip to South Sudan, and one taken by a group of American fighters just weeks before. Could this explain why Chris was called a white rebel? And after months investigating, Basia finally speaks to the fighter who fascinated Chris, and she asks – how close really were you?
Pig Iron
Months after Jeremy first approached Basia, the team fly to Nairobi to sit down with the mysterious essay writer. And it turns out that he is not the only person ready to share what he knows about who killed Christopher Allen
Pig Iron
There is a new layer of horror to Chris’s story – and in trying to understand it, Basia investigates the evidence that Chris was killed on purpose. The team figures out how to get to South Sudan – and how to finally meet the essay-writer
Pig Iron
Basia traces Chris’s career as a young freelancer. By now, it’s clear his death is tied to his life as a reporter. But who was he trying to be? Just how close was he to a group of fighters? And after years in Ukraine, how did he end up in a remote corner of South Sudan?
Pig Iron
At just 22 years old, Chris travels to Ukraine for his spring break, keen to see war up close. For the first time, he experiences the thrill and horror of the frontline. He’s hooked. Five years later, Basia, along with Chris’s cousin, Jeremy, visit Chris’s parents in America to piece together who he really was. There they learn a troubling new detail about Chris’s time in Ukraine
thinkin
Long stories short Ukraine said it shot down all 18 missiles Russia launched at its cities overnight.Elon Musk was subpoenaed in the US Virgin Islands’ lawsuit against JP Morgan for its ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Hiroshima survivors gathered to urge the G7 to forswear the use of nuclear weapons. UN betrays women in Afghanistan The UN in Afghanistan has been infiltrated by Taliban informants and is failing to protect local female staff from harassment and intimidation, staff members tell Tortoise. At the same time, top UN agencies – including Unicef, the World Food Programme and the WHO – have bowed to Taliban pressure for male-only offices, which Afghan women say makes them complicit in the country’s extreme gender-based restrictions. So what? Surrendering to the Taliban undermines women’s rights everywhere. The UN sets standards for working conditions across the humanitarian world.When the Taliban banned women from working at the UN last month the UN refused to comply. It has now effectively abandoned that position.There were alternatives (see below). Not taking them “risks sending a terrible message to the Taliban that anything goes,” says Professor Karima Bennoune, a former UN Special Rapporteur – “a message to women everywhere that their rights are somehow negotiable”. A local female UN employee said: “I feel that the UN not only betrayed its own women staff but also the whole Afghan women with this decision. The UN was the only hope for Afghan women to stand up for our rights. But it didn’t even support its own staff.” The fall. Afghanistan has had two de facto governments since the fall of Kabul in August 2021. One is the UN and its agencies, led by Deputy Special Representative Ramiz Alakbarov. The other is the Taliban. The country is enduring “the largest humanitarian crisis” on earth. Two-thirds of its 40 million population need urgent humanitarian assistance to survive. But the Taliban’s supreme leader has made aid workers’ work more difficult at every turn: Last December the Taliban banned all NGOs from employing local female staff.It was one of more than 40 edicts removing women from public life. Last month it was extended to the UN, which refused to enforce it on the basis that to do so would have violated international law and its own charter. Undercutting local women. Initially, the UN presented a united front – all its organisations sent their male and female Afghan staff home while weighing up the options. Now Afghan men employed by the WFP and the WHO, among others, have been told to return to work, while women have not. No protection. Some organisations, like Unicef, have said women can return with the men. But Afghan women who have spoken to Tortoise say there are no protection measures in place for them even in supposedly secure UN compounds. One said security measures supposedly put in place for women since the ban were “paperwork, not practically applied”. An internal UN document leaked to Tortoise recommends telling journalists that the “safety and security of staff is of our utmost priority” so “the UN does not comment publicly on detailed staff composition and presence or operational working modalities” – UN-speak for “say nothing”. A spokesperson for WFP Afghanistan said: “Afghan women UN personnel continue to be employed and no women will be replaced by men”. They said the “necessary staff support systems are functional” and “full priority” was given to female staff members. Afghan women say: The UN has hired Taliban personnel, knowingly and unknowingly, inside all UN compounds.- These personnel have acquired sensitive information, including staff profiles.- They have taken pictures of Afghan women who are not “properly dressed” and harassed them for this. The UN itself has acknowledged this. Last week, its mission in Afghanistan said local female staff had experienced “restrictions on their movements, including harassment, intimidation, and detention”. Tough call. Experts admit deciding between defying the Taliban and potentially withholding aid is “an incredibly difficult position” and an “appalling choice”. The alternatives. Aid workers and campaigners say the UN and NGOs could present a more united front instead of their current confused and contradictory messaging; the UN could threaten to suspend humanitarian assistance; or it could pull out completely. Instead, one of the UN’s biggest operations continues to operate in violation of its own core principles. “It’s all incredibly shortsighted,” one international UN staff member said. “Ultimately we’ll only be able to give aid to men, as you need women to access children. It’s a desperate act of self-preservation. It’s not about long-term vision. [For senior UN management], it’s about keeping their jobs.” International staff in Kabul fear that once the dust settles, the Afghan women will be “phased out”, leaving them with no income. “It’s a tough situation but not a reason to throw women under the bus,” one said. Unicef and WHO had not replied by the time of publication. Also, in the nibs Borrow to invest, or doom your country to a doom loop EU regulators are chill on Microsoft UK PM lectures Council of Europe There’s a new Pretoria-Moscow axis Democracy in an Asian monarchy Thanks for reading. Please tell your friends to sign up, send us ideas and tell us what you think. Email sensemaker@tortoisemedia.com. Photograph Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images Choose which Tortoise newsletters you receive IN OUR MEMBERS’ APP
thinkin
Long stories short Ukraine said it shot down all 18 missiles Russia launched at its cities overnight.Elon Musk was subpoenaed in the US Virgin Islands’ lawsuit against JP Morgan for its ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Hiroshima survivors gathered to urge the G7 to forswear the use of nuclear weapons. UN betrays women in Afghanistan The UN in Afghanistan has been infiltrated by Taliban informants and is failing to protect local female staff from harassment and intimidation, staff members tell Tortoise. At the same time, top UN agencies – including Unicef, the World Food Programme and the WHO – have bowed to Taliban pressure for male-only offices, which Afghan women say makes them complicit in the country’s extreme gender-based restrictions. So what? Surrendering to the Taliban undermines women’s rights everywhere. The UN sets standards for working conditions across the humanitarian world.When the Taliban banned women from working at the UN last month the UN refused to comply. It has now effectively abandoned that position.There were alternatives (see below). Not taking them “risks sending a terrible message to the Taliban that anything goes,” says Professor Karima Bennoune, a former UN Special Rapporteur – “a message to women everywhere that their rights are somehow negotiable”. A local female UN employee said: “I feel that the UN not only betrayed its own women staff but also the whole Afghan women with this decision. The UN was the only hope for Afghan women to stand up for our rights. But it didn’t even support its own staff.” The fall. Afghanistan has had two de facto governments since the fall of Kabul in August 2021. One is the UN and its agencies, led by Deputy Special Representative Ramiz Alakbarov. The other is the Taliban. The country is enduring “the largest humanitarian crisis” on earth. Two-thirds of its 40 million population need urgent humanitarian assistance to survive. But the Taliban’s supreme leader has made aid workers’ work more difficult at every turn: Last December the Taliban banned all NGOs from employing local female staff.It was one of more than 40 edicts removing women from public life. Last month it was extended to the UN, which refused to enforce it on the basis that to do so would have violated international law and its own charter. Undercutting local women. Initially, the UN presented a united front – all its organisations sent their male and female Afghan staff home while weighing up the options. Now Afghan men employed by the WFP and the WHO, among others, have been told to return to work, while women have not. No protection. Some organisations, like Unicef, have said women can return with the men. But Afghan women who have spoken to Tortoise say there are no protection measures in place for them even in supposedly secure UN compounds. One said security measures supposedly put in place for women since the ban were “paperwork, not practically applied”. An internal UN document leaked to Tortoise recommends telling journalists that the “safety and security of staff is of our utmost priority” so “the UN does not comment publicly on detailed staff composition and presence or operational working modalities” – UN-speak for “say nothing”. A spokesperson for WFP Afghanistan said: “Afghan women UN personnel continue to be employed and no women will be replaced by men”. They said the “necessary staff support systems are functional” and “full priority” was given to female staff members. Afghan women say: The UN has hired Taliban personnel, knowingly and unknowingly, inside all UN compounds.- These personnel have acquired sensitive information, including staff profiles.- They have taken pictures of Afghan women who are not “properly dressed” and harassed them for this. The UN itself has acknowledged this. Last week, its mission in Afghanistan said local female staff had experienced “restrictions on their movements, including harassment, intimidation, and detention”. Tough call. Experts admit deciding between defying the Taliban and potentially withholding aid is “an incredibly difficult position” and an “appalling choice”. The alternatives. Aid workers and campaigners say the UN and NGOs could present a more united front instead of their current confused and contradictory messaging; the UN could threaten to suspend humanitarian assistance; or it could pull out completely. Instead, one of the UN’s biggest operations continues to operate in violation of its own core principles. “It’s all incredibly shortsighted,” one international UN staff member said. “Ultimately we’ll only be able to give aid to men, as you need women to access children. It’s a desperate act of self-preservation. It’s not about long-term vision. [For senior UN management], it’s about keeping their jobs.” International staff in Kabul fear that once the dust settles, the Afghan women will be “phased out”, leaving them with no income. “It’s a tough situation but not a reason to throw women under the bus,” one said. Unicef and WHO had not replied by the time of publication. Also, in the nibs Borrow to invest, or doom your country to a doom loop EU regulators are chill on Microsoft UK PM lectures Council of Europe There’s a new Pretoria-Moscow axis Democracy in an Asian monarchy Thanks for reading. Please tell your friends to sign up, send us ideas and tell us what you think. Email sensemaker@tortoisemedia.com. Photograph Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images Choose which Tortoise newsletters you receive IN OUR MEMBERS’ APP
thinkin
Long stories short Ukraine said it shot down all 18 missiles Russia launched at its cities overnight.Elon Musk was subpoenaed in the US Virgin Islands’ lawsuit against JP Morgan for its ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Hiroshima survivors gathered to urge the G7 to forswear the use of nuclear weapons. UN betrays women in Afghanistan The UN in Afghanistan has been infiltrated by Taliban informants and is failing to protect local female staff from harassment and intimidation, staff members tell Tortoise. At the same time, top UN agencies – including Unicef, the World Food Programme and the WHO – have bowed to Taliban pressure for male-only offices, which Afghan women say makes them complicit in the country’s extreme gender-based restrictions. So what? Surrendering to the Taliban undermines women’s rights everywhere. The UN sets standards for working conditions across the humanitarian world.When the Taliban banned women from working at the UN last month the UN refused to comply. It has now effectively abandoned that position.There were alternatives (see below). Not taking them “risks sending a terrible message to the Taliban that anything goes,” says Professor Karima Bennoune, a former UN Special Rapporteur – “a message to women everywhere that their rights are somehow negotiable”. A local female UN employee said: “I feel that the UN not only betrayed its own women staff but also the whole Afghan women with this decision. The UN was the only hope for Afghan women to stand up for our rights. But it didn’t even support its own staff.” The fall. Afghanistan has had two de facto governments since the fall of Kabul in August 2021. One is the UN and its agencies, led by Deputy Special Representative Ramiz Alakbarov. The other is the Taliban. The country is enduring “the largest humanitarian crisis” on earth. Two-thirds of its 40 million population need urgent humanitarian assistance to survive. But the Taliban’s supreme leader has made aid workers’ work more difficult at every turn: Last December the Taliban banned all NGOs from employing local female staff.It was one of more than 40 edicts removing women from public life. Last month it was extended to the UN, which refused to enforce it on the basis that to do so would have violated international law and its own charter. Undercutting local women. Initially, the UN presented a united front – all its organisations sent their male and female Afghan staff home while weighing up the options. Now Afghan men employed by the WFP and the WHO, among others, have been told to return to work, while women have not. No protection. Some organisations, like Unicef, have said women can return with the men. But Afghan women who have spoken to Tortoise say there are no protection measures in place for them even in supposedly secure UN compounds. One said security measures supposedly put in place for women since the ban were “paperwork, not practically applied”. An internal UN document leaked to Tortoise recommends telling journalists that the “safety and security of staff is of our utmost priority” so “the UN does not comment publicly on detailed staff composition and presence or operational working modalities” – UN-speak for “say nothing”. A spokesperson for WFP Afghanistan said: “Afghan women UN personnel continue to be employed and no women will be replaced by men”. They said the “necessary staff support systems are functional” and “full priority” was given to female staff members. Afghan women say: The UN has hired Taliban personnel, knowingly and unknowingly, inside all UN compounds.- These personnel have acquired sensitive information, including staff profiles.- They have taken pictures of Afghan women who are not “properly dressed” and harassed them for this. The UN itself has acknowledged this. Last week, its mission in Afghanistan said local female staff had experienced “restrictions on their movements, including harassment, intimidation, and detention”. Tough call. Experts admit deciding between defying the Taliban and potentially withholding aid is “an incredibly difficult position” and an “appalling choice”. The alternatives. Aid workers and campaigners say the UN and NGOs could present a more united front instead of their current confused and contradictory messaging; the UN could threaten to suspend humanitarian assistance; or it could pull out completely. Instead, one of the UN’s biggest operations continues to operate in violation of its own core principles. “It’s all incredibly shortsighted,” one international UN staff member said. “Ultimately we’ll only be able to give aid to men, as you need women to access children. It’s a desperate act of self-preservation. It’s not about long-term vision. [For senior UN management], it’s about keeping their jobs.” International staff in Kabul fear that once the dust settles, the Afghan women will be “phased out”, leaving them with no income. “It’s a tough situation but not a reason to throw women under the bus,” one said. Unicef and WHO had not replied by the time of publication. Also, in the nibs Borrow to invest, or doom your country to a doom loop EU regulators are chill on Microsoft UK PM lectures Council of Europe There’s a new Pretoria-Moscow axis Democracy in an Asian monarchy Thanks for reading. Please tell your friends to sign up, send us ideas and tell us what you think. Email sensemaker@tortoisemedia.com. Photograph Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images Choose which Tortoise newsletters you receive IN OUR MEMBERS’ APP
thinkin
The pandemic has revealed the weakness of the West. Has the balance of global power shifted to the East for good? Our daily digital ThinkIns are exclusively for Tortoise members and their guests.Try Tortoise free for four weeks to unlock your complimentary tickets to all our digital ThinkIns.If you’re already a member and looking for your ThinkIn access code you can find it in the My Tortoise > My Membership section of the app next to ‘ThinkIn access code’.We’d love you to join us.At Tortoise, we have argued from the start that the pandemic has revealed more than it has changed. One such frightening revelation has been the failure of key Western institutions to perform their most critical function – namely, to keep their citizens safe. Join us, with John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News and his long-time collaborator Adrian Wooldridge, political editor at The Economist and author of its ‘Bagehot’ column, to talk about their latest book, The Wake Up Call: Why the Pandemic has Exposed the Weakness of the West and How to Fix It. Together we’ll explore the shifting balance in global power from West to East, and ask what leaders in Europe and the U.S. must do now to become more vigilant and responsive both to the thrilling opportunities and major threats of the future.This ThinkIn will be a compelling scene-setter to our G7 Billion Summit: world leadership in a crisis, on September 10.Our special guests are:John Micklethwait is editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, a position he has held since February 2015. A British journalist, he was previously the editor-in-chief of The Economist from 2006 to 2015.Adrian Wooldridge is political editor of The Economist and author of its “Bagehot” column.How does a digital ThinkIn work?A digital ThinkIn is like a video conference, hosted by a Tortoise editor, that takes place at the advertised time of the event. Digital ThinkIns are new to Tortoise. Now that our newsroom has closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, we feel it’s more important than ever that we ‘get together’ to talk about the world and what’s going on.The link to join the conversation will be emailed to you after you have registered for your ticket to attend. When you click the link, you enter the digital ThinkIn and can join a live conversation from wherever you are in the world. Members can enter their unique members’ access code to book tickets. Find yours in My Tortoise > My Membership in the Tortoise app.If you have any questions or get stuck, please read our FAQs, or get in touch with us at memberhelp@tortoisemedia.comRead our ThinkIn code of conduct here.What is a Tortoise ThinkIn?A ThinkIn is not another panel discussion. It is a forum for civilised disagreement. It is a place where everyone has a seat at the (virtual) table. It’s where we get to hear what you think, drawn from your experience, energy and expertise. It is the heart of what we do at Tortoise.
thinkin
Saudi Arabia under its current Crown Prince has blockaded Qatar, blundered into a murderous war in Yemen, used kidnapping as a weapon of intimidation and dismembered a mild critic in one of its embassies. It has also failed to end the male guardianship system that oppresses half its population. Isn’t it time for Britain to stop arming a tyranny and try to build bridges with Iran? What is a Tortoise ThinkIn? A ThinkIn is not another panel discussion. It is a forum for civilised disagreement. Modelled on what we call a ‘leader conference’ in the UK (or an editorial board in the US), it is a place where everyone has a seat at the table. It’s where we get to hear what you think, drawn from your experience, energy and expertise. It’s where, together, we sift through what we know to come to a clear, concise point of view. It is the heart of what we do at Tortoise. Drinks from 6.00pm, starts promptly at 6.30pm. If you are late to a ThinkIn you can ‘SlinkIn’! If you would like to contribute to this ThinkIn, let us know by emailing thinkin@tortoisemedia.com We film our Thinkins so we can watch them back, edit the best bits and share them with members who weren’t there in person. Members can find their ThinkIn booking code in My Tortoise, under My Membership.
Sensemaker
Afghan women working for the UN in Kabul say they have been betrayed by the organisation’s failure to protect them from the Taliban’s gender apartheid. Also in today’s Sensemaker: why an opposition win in Thailand isn’t quite a win.
A de facto ban on women in the UN’s Afghanistan offices is now in force
Net Zero Sensemaker
What will it take for a green and prosperous recovery in Ukraine?
Sensemaker
What just happened
Sensemaker
What just happened
Sensemaker
What just happened
Sensemaker
What just happened
Sensemaker
What just happened
Sensemaker
What just happened