Worried that if war does not kill them, climate change will, about 100 young Afghans on Friday marched to protest climate change. They were guarded by troops atop an armored personnel carrier and on foot, rifles at the ready.
Protesters risked a march through the center of the capital, Kabul, despite nearly daily attacks by insurgents, to participate in a global strike against climate change.
Although it resembles a city under siege in most parts, Kabul is also among the worst polluted cities in the world.
Photo: AP
Fardeen Barakzai, one of the organizers and the head of a local climate action group called Oxygen, said that Afghanistan’s youth want to do their part in the fight against global warming and want to be counted among those who heeded teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future Movement.
“The goal is that we should have the same voice, like the other countries that are working for climate,” said Barakzai as he slapped posters on a motorcycle rickshaw outfitted with a loudspeaker to make sure Kabul residents understood their message.
“We know war can kill a group of people, but climate can kill everyone,” he said.
Kabul has been shattered by four decades of war and decaying infrastructure, despite billions of dollars in international aid that came into Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban government in 2001.
However, the Afghan Ministry of Public Health says that more than 3,000 people die each year of pollution-induced illnesses in Kabul and more than 70 percent of patients in hospitals are suffering from respiratory-related illnesses. Most of these can be traced to the air pollution that is particularly bad during the dry winters.
“Away from the glare of publicity, Afghans — and in particular Kabul’s 6 million residents — are wrestling with another silent but deadly killer: air pollution,” said the UN Environment Program in a report released earlier this year.
The report quoted the Afghan National Environment Protection Agency as saying: “With an increase in air pollution, we are seeing a new generation whose growth is stunted.”
Barakzai, who says he is 23 years old “according to stories my mother tells me,” said climate change poses the greatest challenge.
“We aren’t afraid from the war, we are more afraid from the climate change, that is why we want to give our whole energy to go against climate change,” he said.
Watching from the street as the protesters marched passed waving their “stopping pollution is the best solution” posters, an elderly Hajji Abdul Razak Wahabzada said the marchers made him proud. He said he admires their bravery while marching down the street in Kabul, but also that as young people they have the education and knowledge to consider the effect of climate change.
“They are our young generation and they are not thinking about the gun. They are not thinking about war, they are thinking about making our country better,” he said.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
RSS