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Sweden’s Social Democrat prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, accepted defeat on Wednesday after a close-fought election, handing the four-party right-wing opposition bloc victory and first go at forming a new government.

A handful of votes remain to be counted, but Andersson, who became Sweden’s first woman prime minister last year said the results showed the right bloc had won.

“I will therefore tomorrow ask the speaker to be relieved of my post,” Andersson told reporters during a news conference.

The Moderates, Sweden Democrats, Christian Democrats and Liberals had held a one-seat lead after Sunday’s election but looked to be getting 176 seats in the 349-seat parliament to the center-left’s 173 seats, according to the latest figures from the election authority.

The result still has to be officially confirmed, probably by the weekend.

The election marks a watershed in Swedish politics with the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, shunned by all the major parties when they first entered parliament in 2010, on the threshold of gaining influence over government policy.

They look set to win 20.6% of the vote, overtaking the Moderates, who got 19.1%, as the biggest party on the right.

Though Ulf Kristersson’s party is smaller, Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Akesson cannot get the broad backing from the right needed to oust the Social Democrats.
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The United States said Wednesday it is setting up fund in Switzerland to manage $3.5 billion of Afghan reserves to be used to help stabilize Afghanistan’s economy.

A board of trustees will manage the Afghan Fund.

The U.S. Treasury said the fund will “protect, preserve and make targeted disbursements” of the Afghan money.

The funds could go toward items such as electricity imports, debt payments to international financial institutions and ensuring Afghanistan remains eligible for development aid.

The Taliban-run Afghan government has sought the return of billions of dollars in assets held in U.S. banks.

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Ademeyo said in a letter that sending the money to Afghanistan’s central bank would put the funds at risk of not being used for the benefit of the Afghan people.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II is set to be taken Wednesday from Buckingham Palace to London’s Westminster Hall where she will lie in state at parliament.

King Charles III will walk behind the carriage carrying the queen’s coffin. Joining him will be his sons, William and Harry, and his siblings, Anne, Andrew and Edward.

Large crowds are expected along the route, with tens of thousands of people expected to travel to Westminster to pay their respects.

The procession will also be accompanied by guns firing at Hyde Park and the tolling of parliament’s Big Ben bell.

The queen will lie in state for four days in the 11th-century Westminster Hall. The hall will be open 23 hours a day for visitors and will be guarded by soldiers from the royal household.

Elizabeth died September 8 at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands, a place she cherished and where Charles became king.

The queen’s funeral is scheduled for September 19 at Westminster Abbey. The coffin will then be taken to Windsor for the committal service, where the queen’s husband, Prince Philip, was laid to rest in April 2021.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
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From the world’s second-smallest state, Monaco, to the most populous country, India, representatives from more than 20 governments and international organizations on Monday condemned the Taliban’s policies of shutting down secondary schools and denying other fundamental rights to Afghan girls and women.

Even Pakistan, the purported benefactor of the Taliban, voiced concern at a United Nations dialogue on human rights in Afghanistan about the denial of education for Afghan girls. The dialogue was part of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 51st session, which opened Monday in Geneva.

Russia and China notably did not join in the criticism. A Russian diplomat pointed to progress made for women’s rights under the Taliban.

“We note efforts by the new Afghan government to ensure the rights of women and girls in the areas of marriage and property inheritance,” a Russian representative told the U.N. event, adding that more than 130,000 women are employed in the health and education sectors.

No Taliban representative was present at the event because the U.N. does not recognize the Taliban’s so-called Islamic Emirate as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Instead, diplomats of the former Afghan government are still accredited as Afghan representatives at U.N. headquarters in New York and Geneva.

The Russian diplomat further said that some schools were closed because the Taliban could not afford to set up segregated classrooms for girls. He blamed the United States and other Western donors for freezing aid to Afghanistan and imposing sanctions on the Taliban which, according to the Russian diplomat, have adversely affected the Afghan education sector.

“We call on the U.S. and the U.K. and their satellites — instead of issuing new demands to the Taliban, to begin fulfilling their own obligations for the past conflict,” he said, adding that the current crisis in Afghanistan was a result of the past two decades of U.S. intervention there.

While calling for the return of girls to secondary schools in Afghanistan, a Chinese representative also avoided criticizing the Taliban’s policy.

“We call on the countries concerned to respect sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and to lift unilateral sanctions,” the Chinese representative said.

Monday’s statement was the strongest that any Russian official has made in support of the Taliban.

“The Russian representative’s statements in Geneva aren’t consistent with what Russia has said before in other settings about Afghanistan,” John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA.

“As recently as this June, Russia agreed to a strongly worded statement by the U.N. Security Council about Afghanistan in which the Security Council as a bloc, including Russia, called on the Taliban to let girls go to school.”

Even the Taliban have not said that Western sanctions and the resulting economic problems have forced them to shut secondary schools for girls. Taliban officials have offered religious and cultural justifications for their decision against secondary education for girls.

“We recognize that the economic crisis is impacting the humanitarian situation. We agree about that. But the idea that it’s responsible for the fact that [the] Taliban do not let girls go to secondary schools is absurd. It is preposterous. It is a lie,” said Sifton.

Women ‘erased’

The U.N. and human rights groups accuse the Taliban of implementing policies that are aimed at erasing women from the public spheres.

“There is no country in the world where women and girls have so rapidly been deprived of their fundamental human rights purely because of gender,” Richard Bennett, U.N. special rapporteur on Afghanistan, told the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 51st session.

“Do you know what that feeling is, to be erased?” Mahbouba Seraj, an Afghan women’s rights activist, asked the same session. “I’m erased, and I don’t know what else to do. … How many times am I supposed to yell and scream and say, ‘World, pay attention to us. We are dying’?”

The Taliban have defended their policies toward Afghan women while accusing the U.N. and rights activists of spreading “malicious propaganda” against their de facto government.

“Today, nothing threatens the lives of women in Afghanistan, and no woman or her loved ones die in the war or raids,” said a Taliban statement issued in response to Bennett’s report. “There are 181 public and private universities open for men and women in the country, and thousands of women work in education, higher education, public health, passport and national identification bureaus, airports, police, media, banks and other sectors.”

Such statements, however, are viewed with deep skepticism outside Taliban circles.

The Taliban have become increasingly authoritarian, clamping down on freedom of expression and denying people their civic and political rights, the U.N. has reported.

At the U.N. event, representatives from many countries called for stronger international pressure on the Taliban to respect women’s rights.

“Anyone seeking to participate in the international system must respect [women’s rights]. If we don’t all insist on that, then shame on us,” said Michèle Taylor, U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

In April, the U.N. General Assembly suspended Russia from the Human Rights Council because of the country’s reported atrocities in Ukraine.
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Armenia and Azerbaijan reported nearly 100 troop deaths Tuesday in their worst fighting since a 2020 war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. 

The last wave of fighting over Azerbaijan’s tense Armenian-populated enclave ended in a fragile truce brokered by Russia.  

But on Tuesday, the defense ministry in Baku said, “50 Azerbaijani servicemen died as a result of Armenia’s large-scale provocation,” while Armenia earlier reported the deaths of at least 49 of its soldiers. 

Azerbaijan accused Armenia of violating the cease-fire after a night of clashes that renewed fears of another all-out conflict between the historic foes. 

Russia said it had reached a cease-fire between the warring parties that brought several hours of relative calm, but Azerbaijan later accused Armenian forces of “intensely” violating the agreement. 

“Despite the declaration of a cease-fire since 9 (Moscow time, 0600 GMT), Armenia is intensively violating the cease-fire along the border by using artillery and other heavy weapons,” Baku’s military said. 

Armenia appealed to world leaders for help after the fighting broke out, accusing Azerbaijan of trying to advance on its territory. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the leaders of both countries Tuesday, with his spokesman saying Washington would “push for an immediate halt to fighting and a peace settlement” between the neighbors. 

French President Emmanuel Macron called his Azerbaijan counterpart Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday to express “great concern” and urge a “return to respecting the cease-fire.” 

He also called for intensified negotiations and offered to contribute along with the European Union, the Elysee said. 

The Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had earlier spoken with Macron, as well as calling Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Blinken to demand a response to “Azerbaijan’s aggressive acts.” 

Tuesday’s escalation came as Yerevan’s closest ally Moscow, which deployed thousands of peacekeepers in the region after the 2020 war, is distracted by its six-month-old invasion of Ukraine. 

Armenia’s defense ministry said clashes had subsided after the cease-fire but that the situation on the border was still “extremely tense.” 

The defense ministry in Yerevan said the clashes started early Tuesday, with Armenian territory coming under fire from artillery, mortars and drones in the direction of the cities of Goris, Sotk and Jermuk. 

“The enemy is trying to advance” into Armenian territory, it said in a statement. 

Azerbaijan, however, accused Armenia of “large-scale subversive acts” near the districts of Dashkesan, Kelbajar and Lachin, and said its armed forces were taking “limited and targeted steps, neutralizing Armenian firing positions.” 

Baku’s long-standing political and military sponsor Turkey blamed Armenia and urged it instead to “focus on peace negotiations.” 

Iran, which shares a border with both countries, urged “restraint” and a “peaceful resolution” to the fighting. 

The EU and the United Nations expressed concerns over the escalation and called for an end to the fighting. 

Before the cease-fire was announced, Armenia’s security council asked for military help from Moscow, which is obligated under a treaty to defend Armenia in the event of foreign invasion. 

Armenian political analyst Tatul Hakobyan said the escalation in fighting was a consequence of the “deadlock” in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks. 

“Azerbaijan wants to force Armenia to recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan,” he told AFP. “The war in Ukraine has changed the balance of forces in the region and Russia, which is a guarantor of peace in the region, is in a very bad shape.  

“In this situation, Azerbaijan wants to get concessions from Armenia as soon as possible,” he added. 

Last week, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing one of its soldiers in a border shootout. 

In August, Azerbaijan said it had lost a soldier and the Karabakh army said two of its troops had been killed and more than a dozen wounded. 

The neighbors fought two wars — in the 1990s and in 2020 — over the region. 

The six weeks of brutal fighting in autumn 2020 ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire. 

Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades, and Moscow deployed about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce. 

During EU-mediated talks in Brussels in May and April, Aliyev and Pashinyan agreed to “advance discussions” on a future peace treaty. 

Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives. 

 
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The coffin of Queen Elizabeth is flown to London from the Scottish capital of Edinburgh after lying in St. Giles’ Cathedral. In London, her coffin will be driven to Buckingham Palace, her official home.
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As Africa reflects on the legacy of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, Kenyans remember how a princess visiting the country in 1952 left a queen. Analysts note how Elizabeth helped steer the end of Britain’s empire and exploitative colonial rule. But while relations were repaired and improved under the monarch, colonialism left lasting wounds, as Juma Majanga reports from VOA’s Africa News Center in Nairobi, Kenya. VOA footage by Amos Wangwa.
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In addition to fighting on the front lines, Ukrainians are fighting on the economic battlefront. Businesses are trying to survive, and with a bit of help, succeed. A new online platform helps them do just that. Lesia Bakalets has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Andre Sergunin.
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