Thar has many elements jostling for our attention: a tiny outpost in a border town, a mysterious stranger, a couple of cops, and a series of bodies, draining of life-blood, decaying, dying. But this is one of those films where the setting is the real hero– the ‘marusthal’ (desert) stretching as far as the eye can see, crumbling forts, bare trees providing meagre shade, implacable, hard beauty. This stunning landscape and the haunting soundscape becomes the site of a ‘bawandar’ (storm), as a principal character describes it, which blows everything away in its wake. These sights and sounds of Thar will stay with me, even as I quibble about some of it.
This film would have been called a spaghetti western in the days when Sholay (1975) was released. The filmmakers are aware of how much Thar, set in 1985, reminds us of the OG desi western– a balcony with a woman looking over it, the blazing lights of the desert, the armed men clattering on horses, and the keening violins. And just in case we’ve lost sight of it, Inspector Surekha Singh (Anil Kapoor), who likes being explicatory, muses aloud whether it is not about bad guy Gabbar anymore, but maybe Jai and Veeru, or even Basanti, or, you know, Ramlal?
Having believed that he has sufficiently muddied the waters (the dialogues are credited to Anurag Kashyap, who was probably grinning when he penned this and other salty, invective-laden lines in the film) the cop who has stuck to his job without getting a promotion, returns to the job at hand: who is behind the killings?
Like in all good westerns, the needle of suspicion swings towards the near-silent outsider, who frequents a small eatery run by a cheerful fellow in suspenders. Siddharth (Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor) wears ‘khakee’ and ochre, which matches the colours of the film, and criss-crosses the area in a muddy jeep. Who is this guy? Is he really an antique dealer as he claims to be? Or is there something more sinister going on? There are drug growers and smugglers about. Were they the ones responsible for the terrible deeds?
Meanwhile, we are presented with the most grisly, gruesome scenes of violence, bordering on torture porn. And here’s where the film begins to feel excessive: the victims, hanging from the ceiling, blood running out of multiple orifices (I will never be able to see a rat again in the same way), beg for mercy over and over again. By which time we are numb, and past caring. A well-judged mystery reveals its cards at the right time. In Thar, it comes just a little too late. In between, a strand featuring ‘afeem’ (opium) smugglers from Pakistan and their accomplices on the Indian side, is thrown in. But these threads do not really mesh well enough, and the film, despite all its brilliant tech specs, feels underwhelming.
In a place which feels so real, many of the actors appear grafted. The bunch meant to be locals (Jitendra Joshi and Sanjay Bishnoi among them) looks as if they could belong, but even they stand out when placed against the villagers who dot several scenes. Fatima Sana Shaikh makes us aware that she has hidden feelings, but she calls attention, and her garb feels like a costume. And Harsh Varrdhan comes off too impassive even when he is sharing his turmoil. In contrast, Anil Kapoor, though appearing not rustic enough, slides smoothly through the movie, zig-zagging, shooting, cursing fluently: he is the worn, tired moral centre of the movie, and he doesn’t duck a single bullet.
The best performance comes from Satish Kaushik: as the lower caste cop whose uniform is a shield in more ways than one, Bhure is one with the ‘thar’. This is where he came from, and this is where he goes.
Thar movie director: Raj Singh Chaudhary Thar movie cast: Anil Kapoor, Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor, Satish Kaushik, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Jitendra Joshi, Sanjay Bishnoi, Sanjay Dadhich, Mukti Mohan Thar movie star rating: 2.5 stars
PARIS — Faced with a surge in coronavirus cases driven by the Omicron variant, President Emmanuel Macron of France said Wednesday that he wanted to “piss off” millions of his citizens who refuse to get vaccinated by squeezing them out of the country’s public spaces.
By shocking the nation with a vulgarity three months before presidential elections, Mr. Macron was relaying not only a public health message, but also a political one. He appeared to be calculating that tapping into the growing public anger against the unvaccinated held more potential electoral rewards than the risk of angering an anti-vaccination minority whose support he has little hope of ever getting.
Using his harshest language yet to urge the recalcitrant to get their shots, Mr. Macron said he would not “throw them in prison” or “vaccinate them by force.” But he made it clear he meant to make their lives harder.
In doing so, Mr. Macron, an inveterate political gambler who became the nation’s youngest leader ever five years ago, effectively kicked off his campaign for re-election Wednesday, drawing clear lines between his supporters and opponents. He also moved the focus of debate away from themes like immigration and Islam that have dominated the political race so far and that are advantageous to his strongest rivals, on the right and far right.
Mr. Macron was clearly seeking to tap into a rich political vein that his counterparts have been more cautious to exploit: anger among the majority of vaccinated people at a minority who refuse to get vaccinated and disproportionately occupy hospital beds. More than 77 percent of French people, and 92 percent of those 12 and older, have received at least two doses, according to the government.
“The unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off,” Mr. Macron said, using a French word that is more vulgar, explaining that a new, reinforced vaccine pass would make it impossible for the unvaccinated to go to restaurants and cafes, or the theater and cinemas. Their recalcitrance, as well as the surge in cases in France, is threatening to undermine his success so far in tackling the pandemic.
Elsewhere in Europe — faced with the same dilemma that the pandemic might not be reined in until the unvaccinated change their minds — leaders have been more hesitant to confront groups opposed to vaccinations that are often well-organized and vocal.
In Germany and Austria, the prospect of being coerced to get Covid shots has fueled angry and sometimes violent protests. Mandatory vaccination has long been dismissed as an option, not least by Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, but has increasingly gained support among politicians and virologists who say that other measures have failed to increase vaccination rates fast enough.
In Germany, Mr. Scholz stressed that he was “chancellor of the unvaccinated, too.” But Germany has excluded unvaccinated people from much of public life and is now debating whether to make vaccination mandatory. Mandatory vaccination is also scheduled to come into effect next month in Austria.
In Italy, the government is planning to introduce new measures to reduce the number of unvaccinated, possibly making shots mandatory for those over 60. But Italy’s large coalition government is struggling to find consensus on the measures, split between center-left groups that are in favor of mandatory vaccination and right-wing parties that are against it.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain has not applied significant pressure on the unvaccinated, instead preferring to try to persuade Britons to get shots. That is partly because a powerful faction within Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party opposes coronavirus restrictions on libertarian grounds, or worries about their economic impact.
“Clearly, there are a number of leaders who don’t know anymore what to do,” said Adrien Abécassis, who has written about the politics of vaccination and is the head of research at Paris Peace Forum, an organization focusing on international governance.
By contrast, in France, Mr. Macron has steadfastly stuck to a policy of vaccinating as many people as possible, Mr. Abécassis said, “So there is strong legitimacy in having the highest possible vaccination rate. The strategy from the start has been to impose social sanctions of exclusion to those who don’t respect the social norm, which is to get vaccinated.”
Mr. Macron’s comments were published before France again registered a record number of infections on Wednesday evening — 332,000 cases — in the previous 24 hours, as the highly contagious Omicron variant sweeps across the country and the rest of Europe. The president was also reacting to moves this week by opposition lawmakers to delay the passage in Parliament of a bill that would make it possible to obtain France’s health pass only through vaccination and no longer with a negative test.
The rapid spread of Omicron has strained Mr. Macron’s successful pandemic strategy and an underlying unwritten social contract between the government and the people. In return for agreeing to get vaccinated, the government has offered the French a near-normal life since last summer, with few of the more serious restrictions that France’s neighbors have reimposed.
Nearly 92 percent of French people 12 years old and over have now received at least two doses, an unexpected feat in a country that had been one of the most suspicious of vaccines just a year ago, according to polls. Mr. Macron’s bet last summer on the twin powers of vaccines and health passports proved popular and contributed to his positive approval rating — about 40 percent, a high level compared to those of his predecessors in the same period before their own bids for re-election.
But about five million French, including four million adults, have yet to get a single shot.
Mr. Macron’s use of a vulgar expression was clearly meant to tap into the growing anger by the overwhelming majority of vaccinated people against the unvaccinated minority, said Stewart Chau, an analyst for the polling firm Viavoice and a sociologist.
“Creating divisions around the issue of the pandemic is what the president of the republic tried to do by saying out loud what others are thinking quietly,” Mr. Chau said, adding that the word would speak to a “public opinion that, after two years of a health crisis, is worn-out and exhausted” as well as more “irritable and emotional.”
The president’s rivals attacked his use of the vulgarity as “unworthy of a president,” “shocking” and “divisive.”
Gabriel Attal, the government spokesman, pushed back, saying that the president’s choice of language represented only a fraction of “the anger of the great majority of French people confronted with the choice to oppose vaccination.”
“Let’s speak frankly — who pisses off whom?” Mr. Attal said, adding that it was those “who refuse to be vaccinated” who are “ruining the lives” of health care workers, the elderly, and those working in theaters, restaurants and other businesses.
Mr. Macron studiously used the word “emmerder,” which is translated literally as “to mire in excrement” and means to “annoy” or “to give a hard time to.”
The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know
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The global surge. The coronavirus is spreading faster than ever at the start of 2022, but the last days of 2021 brought the encouraging news that the Omicron variant produces less severe illness than earlier waves. As such, governments are focusing more on expanding vaccination than limiting the spread.
Technically, Mr. Macron has yet to officially declare his candidacy for the election in April. For months, Mr. Macron has been coyly deflecting questions about his candidacy.
Last month, during a long television interview, Mr. Macron said he regretted harsh words he had used in the past on other issues — and which had helped create an image of him as an elitist politician disconnected from the people. In a speech, he had once divided people into two categories: “Those who succeed and those who are nothing.”
Mr. Chau, the pollster, said that Mr. Macron’s use of crude slang would probably not weaken his core support. But it could alienate the undecided by reviving Mr. Macron’s image of arrogance.
“It’s the overriding character trait of Emmanuel Macron that he’s never been able to shake off,” Mr. Chau said.
Mr. Macron used the crude slang — not once, but three times — in a reply to a reader of the daily newspaper “Le Parisien.” In interviews organized at the Élysée Palace, Mr. Macron replied to various questions, including to a woman who pointed out that the unvaccinated occupied most of the beds in intensive care units and prevented others, including cancer patients, from getting the care they needed.
Mr. Macron said the unvaccinated were a rebellious minority whose numbers he planned to shrink by “pissing them off.”
“In democracy, the worst enemies are lies and stupidity,” he said.
Mr. Macron appeared to be hewing to a strategy — expressed by his allies in recent months — of portraying himself as the candidate of “reason” and solidifying his hold on the center.
His words also targeted a segment of the electorate that is unlikely to vote for him, as evidenced by the strongest reaction to his choice of language, especially from the extreme left and the extreme right.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left leader, accused Mr. Macron of promoting “collective punishment against individual freedom.”
Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader and one of Mr. Macron’s main rivals, accused him of “waging war” on the unvaccinated. Eric Zemmour, the far-right TV pundit and another leading competitor, said Mr. Macron’s words revealed his cruelty toward a class of “despised French.”
Reporting was contributed by Aurelien Breeden in Paris, Katrin Bennhold in Berlin, Gaia Pianigiani in Rome and Stephen Castle in London.
Now that it has been revealed—24 hours after the event—that Queen Elizabeth II has spent a night in hospital and was not, as the palace press corps were informed, “resting” at Windsor Castle, there are complaints that, once again, the messaging is bad and making the situation worse.
For sure, trying to conceal the hospital visit just raises the question: what else is not being revealed? And, inevitably, it renews speculation about whether the Queen will finally have to give up her day job.
So it’s important to realize how much the future of the whole shaky edifice of the House of Windsor still rests on the shoulders of the queen alone.
A moment that makes this very clear came in May. Just a month after Prince Philip died, the queen was driven from Windsor Castle to Parliament to deliver the speech that opens a new session. There were no gloomy widow’s weeds. She wore a lilac dress and hat and looked full of life. As she spoke she did not wear a mask. Prince Charles and Camilla, socially distanced to her left, did. The optics were crystal clear: the widow monarch remained as spirited as her wardrobe, and was reasserting her command. Her long-abiding heir was not about to be enthroned.
A year earlier, before there was any hint that Philip was frail, many royal pundits were confidently predicting that when the queen reached her ninety-fifth birthday on April 21 this year she would finally step down. Charles would become prince regent—in effect, he would be king in all but name, retaining the title until the queen’s death.
She would have none of it. The queen has spent most of the year proving that 95 is the new 65. At times she has seemed as kinetic as the Duracell Bunny. When many lesser mortals are happy to use the pandemic as an excuse to stay out of the office she couldn’t wait to get back to hers. In October alone she carried out 15 formal engagements.
This is in great contrast to what happened in the last year of Philip’s life. The royal couple were in their own version of lockdown, spending part of the summer of 2020 quarantined at Wood Farm, a decidedly non-palatial retreat on their Sandringham estate in Norfolk. With only five bedrooms, this was the smallest of the homes available to them.
There was clearly comfort to be had in leaving the regular world behind–it was evident that the simpler regime allowed them to relive the early years of their marriage before the full weight of the crown fell upon her.
After Philip’s funeral—the one occasion when the queen was seen in black—it was reasonable to assume that she would need some time in privacy to grieve and take stock of how to manage the rest of her reign as she approached the epic milestone of 70 years as monarch in February, 2022.
But, as her appearance at parliament announced, she was in no mood to slow down. It was as though the oasis of serenity had, in fact, re-charged the bunny’s batteries. To be sure, some of her duties were outsourced to Charles and, notably, Prince Edward and his popular wife Sophie. And Prince William and Kate are increasingly performing two essential tasks—taking on more public duties and, with their vitality and approachability, proving to be refreshingly relevant to this century rather than the last.
But the really important point is that queen has always kept a tight grip on her ultimate and unique symbolic responsibility—to fulfill the duties of a head of state, to demonstrate the stability and continuity of a monarchy whose roots date back to the ninth century.
“She invited Joe and Jill Biden to tea at Windsor Castle where, the President wryly noted, the White House would fit into a courtyard.”
Moreover, it’s evident that she gets a real kick out of appearing as an equal with other world leaders. That was on display in June, at the G7 summit in Cornwall. As she took her seat at the center of a group photograph she audibly asked, “Are you supposed to look as if you are enjoying yourself?” She clearly was.
At a time when the Meghan and Harry saga seemed to be giving the family a bad image in America, the queen used her unique standing to rectify that situation as only she could, as one of head of state to another. She invited Joe and Jill Biden to tea at Windsor Castle where, the president wryly noted, the White House would fit into a courtyard.
This week the palace has been saying that the queen is hoping to be well enough to attend another gathering of world leaders, at the United Nations climate change summit in Glasgow that opens at the end of the month. That is particularly notable because, until now, she has always been content to allow Charles the space to be the monarchy’s voice on all things green. This was in keeping with the edict that the queen should never in public display an opinion on anything, a discipline that she has always firmly adhered to.
In fact, Charles was so keen to assert his own leadership role on this issue that he granted an exclusive interview to the BBC’s environmental correspondent to visit him at the Balmoral estate in Scotland where he boasted that his vintage Aston Martin, given to him by the queen on his 21st birthday (presumably to allow him to feel he was sharing wheels with James Bond), had been converted to run on an organic fuel derived from white wine and cheese whey.
The BBC reporter did attempt to raise the issue of Charles’ carbon footprint, which is more like a carbon bootprint—for example, on one European tour to promote awareness of climate change Charles’ private jet left a print of 52.95 tons.
Charles ducked the question and, instead, mentioned that he had installed solar panels on his London residence and on some farm buildings at his Highgrove country estate. He’s never gone beyond that kind of tokenism—for example, he owns thousands of acres of land in southwest England that could be given over to wind farming but isn’t.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, are seated for the state opening of parliament, Dec. 19, 2019, in London, England.
Aaron Chown – WPA Pool/Getty Images
Perhaps mother, like many others, knows the truth, that although Charles was commendably early in warning of the consequences of climate change his deeds don’t match his words. Indeed, the queen’s determination to keep Charles in the wings for as long as possible while she remains center stage suggests that she fears that he falls well short of representing the kind of invigorating generational change the monarchy will need to prove equal to the stresses of the 21st century.
Also, she cannot be amused by the fact that some palace insiders have made clear that Charles intends, on becoming king, to make Camilla his queen, rather than princess consort, as his mother prefers.
There is a sense, though, that the queen’s determination to never let up on being a highly visible head of state is not just about the shortcomings of the Prince of Wales. It must have been galling to her, reading the empty platitudes of the speech handed to her as she opened parliament, that the body she was obliged to acknowledge as “my government” was that led by Boris Johnson, which is setting records for its mendacity and serial incompetence.
The queen has every reason to have developed an après moi, le deluge complex. At the end of this historic reign she can look back on the many pressures that have changed her nation in lasting ways—political, cultural, social and economic. She has not always found it easy to adapt, and has made mistakes of tone in responding to them. But now she appears to be the one stable and steady hand that helps the country to cohere.
A few days ago, the queen gracefully turned down an offer by Oldie magazine, which is dedicated to the spirit of longevity, to give her the annual honor of being “Oldie of the Year.” Her private secretary informed the magazine: “Her Majesty believes you are as old as you feel, as such the queen does not believe she meets the relevant criteria to be able to accept, and hopes you will find a more worthy recipient.” Let’s hope that she swiftly recovers that spirit.
Aspen Ladd’s coach Jim West unwittingly found himself under the microscope on Saturday night, and he’s owning up to his mistakes.
During the UFC Vegas 40 main event, Ladd’s corner audio was caught by the ESPN+ broadcast and West, who is also Ladd’s boyfriend, could be heard berating a struggling Ladd between rounds in the latter stages of her fight with Norma Dumont.
“You’re down 3-0,” Ladd said between Rounds 3 and 4. “Please tell me what you’re doing. You have to throw more than one punch… fight to win, you have to finish.”
West offered similar advice ahead of the final round, and social media was quick to comment on the situation with former UFC bantamweight champion Miesha Tate calling the coaching method “abuse” and other fighters chiming in to share their thoughts on West’s approach. Ladd would go on to lose a unanimous decision.
Now West has issued a statement via Instagram, apologizing to Ladd and taking the blame for the loss.
“I blame myself,” West wrote. “Though it may not be my fault. It’s not up for debate. I take all the blame.
“Yes after the first couple rounds I may have been a little harsh but I know Aspen and at that time technical conversation was not in the cards being down three rounds. Nonetheless I own it and I am sorry [Ladd] from the bottom of my heart I will continue to be better each time.”
The loss came in Ladd’s first fight since December 2019. Ladd had been sidelined as she recovered from a major knee injury and also saw a pair of recent bouts with Macy Chiasson fall through. In July, Chiasson withdrew due to an injury, then the re-booking on Oct. 2 was cancelled when Ladd failed to make weight for the bantamweight fight. She was then rebooked opposite Dumont in a featherweight contest.
Also taking to social media after the fight, Ladd sounded grateful to be back in the octagon.
Not my night. Congrats to my opponent. We will be back better. In the mean time I finally got to get back in there after nearly two years. Now it’s time to take a step back, take a breath, and get back to fighting and feeling like myself again. On to the next.
Iranian militias warned of a “harsh response” after a number of Syrian and Iranian-backed forces were killed and wounded in an alleged Israeli airstrike near Palmyra in central Syria on Wednesday night, the second such airstrike in the past week.
The Syrian state news agency SANA reported that an Israeli airstrike targeted a communications tower and a number of nearby sites, killing one Syrian soldier and wounding three others. The strike was carried out from the direction of the al-Tanf area near the Jordanian and Iraqi borders with Syria, a Syrian military source told SANA.
Around the time of the airstrike, the airspace above the Golan Heights was closed to flights until Friday at 12:15 a.m.
On Thursday morning, a joint operations room affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Hezbollah and the Assad regime warned that it has decided to respond harshly to the airstrikes after a number of operatives were killed and wounded in them, according to Hezbollah-affiliated media. It is unclear if the statement was referring to casualties other than those reported by SANA.
The joint operations room stressed that its mission in Syria is only to help the Syrian state to confront “terrorists” and ISIS.
“For years, we have been subjected to attacks from the Israeli and American enemy in an attempt to drag us into side battles that were not a priority for our presence in Syria, and the Zionists’ excuse was that they were targeting accurate weapons and sensitive equipment that posed a threat to their usurping entity,” added the joint statement.
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem condemned the alleged Israeli airstrikes on Thursday morning as well, calling them a “blatant aggression and outrageous thuggery.”
Qassem stressed that Israel could only be deterred by confronting it, responding to its attacks, making it “pay the price” for its actions and not allowing it to impose the rules of engagement.
The airstrike comes just a week after an alleged Israeli airstrike on the T-4 airport, also near Palmyra, wounded six Syrian soldiers, according to SANA.
— Aurora Intel (@AuroraIntel) October 11, 2021
Satellite imagery from Sentinel Hub shared on social media showed damage on the runway at T-4 after the airstrike.
Before last week’s airstrike, the last one blamed on Israel in Syria took place in August, targeting the Qalamoun Mountains near the capital Damascus. Four Syrian civilians were reportedly killed when Syrian air defense missiles fell in a residential area in the town of Qara.
VAN, Turkey — In the days before the Taliban took Kabul, an Afghan woman was doubled over sobbing on a bench in a bus station in eastern Turkey, her children wailing at her feet.
Fourteen Turkish security and migration officials swooped down on her and other Afghan asylum seekers as our reporting team was interviewing them, part of an intensive crackdown by Turkey to apprehend Afghans crossing from Iran by the thousands and to prevent journalists from reporting on their plight. As her husband tried to gather their belongings, the woman clutched her stomach and retched. After prolonged questioning, they were escorted to a police vehicle.
“We came out of despair,” another Afghan, Gul Ahmad, 17, said. “We knew if the Taliban had taken over they would kill us — either in fighting or they would recruit us. So this was the better option for the family.”
Even before the past week’s harrowing scenes of Afghans thronging the Kabul airport to escape the Taliban, many thousands had been steadily fleeing their country over land, making their way some 1,400 miles across the length of Iran to the Turkish border. Their own desperate efforts to escape the Taliban have played out in quieter, though no less painful, tableaus at remote border crossings like the one in the eastern city of Van.
In recent months, as the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan was collapsing, 30,000 Afghans were leaving Afghanistan every week, not all but many across the Iranian border, according to the International Organization for Migration. They have moved to the top of the list of asylum seekers trying to make their way to Turkey, and then to Europe, supplanting Syrians as the largest group of new migrants arriving, even as overall migration numbers have dropped since the high of 2015.
Now that the Taliban are in power, there is every indication that those numbers will swell still further, as people have started selling property and talking about permanent exile.
Many Afghans interviewed in recent weeks said that they had crossed in large groups — sometimes hundreds strong — but that only a small number had succeeded in evading Turkish border guards. Thousands of Afghans were massed in the border region in Iran, they said.
As the globe’s recent violent upheavals have displaced millions, whether from Iraq, Syria or parts of Africa, the timing of the final chapter of the war in Afghanistan has left Afghans at the end of the line, and very likely with no recourse.
As in Europe, the public mood in Turkey has turned against immigrants and refugees, sometimes resulting in violence, such as knife fights and a recent attack on Syrians’ homes in the capital, Ankara. The scale of the pushback by Turkey has increased dramatically since last month, said Afghans, human rights monitors and even government officials.
For President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, the burden of hosting so many refugees — 3.6 million Syrians and more than 300,000 Afghans, among others — has become a burning political issue, especially as the Turkish economy has worsened. He has made clear he has no intention of opening the door to more Afghans.
When photographs emerged on social media of columns of Afghan migrants walking through Iran toward Turkey in recent weeks, opposition politicians accused Mr. Erdogan of negotiating a deal with the European Union, as he had done for Syrian refugees, to host the growing number of Afghans who are arriving.
Mr. Erdogan has often used the migrant threat as leverage in negotiations with the European Union, while his police have long conducted ruthless operations to control the numbers of migrants and perceptions at home. But he has also railed against Western nations for expecting less developed countries to bear the migrant crisis.
“Europe, which has become a center of attraction for millions of people, cannot stay out of this problem by firmly closing its borders in order to protect the safety and prosperity of its citizens,” he said in a televised speech last week. “Turkey has no duty, responsibility or obligation to be Europe’s refugee depot.”
Mr. Erdogan warned Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany by telephone Sunday that his country “will not be able to shoulder the additional burden” in the event of a fresh wave of migration from Afghanistan. Turkey, he reminded Ms. Merkel, “has already taken in five million refugees.”
Afghans interviewed in Van said Turkey had tightened security along its border with a widespread and often violent police operation in recent weeks, turning away Afghans regardless of their requests for asylum.
In a single operation in July, more than 1,400 Afghans who had crossed into Turkey were rounded up and pushed back by Turkish border guards and military police, according to a statement from the office of the governor of Van.
Hundreds more, including women and children, have been detained in towns across eastern Turkey as they have tried to make their way deeper into the country.
Such expulsions are against the international convention on refugees, said Mahmut Kacan, a lawyer in Van who specializes in refugee and asylum cases.
Few Afghans know their rights under international law, he said, but Turkey does not abide even by its own laws, since migrants should be entitled to an appeal process before being deported.
Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan
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Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here’s more on their origin story and their record as rulers.
Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they claim to be.
What happens to the women of Afghanistan? The last time the Taliban were in power, they barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school. Afghan women have made many gains since the Taliban were toppled, but now they fear that ground may be lost. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are signs that, at least in some areas, they have begun to reimpose the old order.
The Afghan family detained recently in the Van bus station was sent to a migrant facility and then was expelled back to Iran within days without due process, according to another Afghan, Abdul Wahid, who was detained at the same time.
In an interview before they were apprehended, the husband, Najibullah, 30, said they had made the arduous three-day trek with their 1-year-old twins into Turkey three times in recent weeks, only to be pushed back each time. The children had dramatically lost weight, he said.
His wife, Zeineb, 20, seemed badly shaken by the experience. “It would have been better to stay and die in Afghanistan than make this journey,” she said. They only gave their first names out of fear because of their undocumented status in Turkey.
The family, ethnic Uzbeks, had left home two months ago partly because the Taliban had seized control of their district in northern Afghanistan. “We had nothing,” Najibullah said. “They would order us to prepare them food. We could barely feed ourselves.”
Mr. Wahid was deported after spending four days in a migrant center, and sent a telephone message from Iran about what had happened.
Mr. Wahid had been living in Turkey and had come to Van to help his wife and two children try to enter the country from Iran. They had crossed the border 10 times in recent weeks to try to join him in Istanbul, where he was working in a textile factory, he said, but each time they entered Turkey, police caught them and sent them back. Once they were detained in Tatvan, a town more than a hundred miles from the border, he said.
“My wife asked them for asylum,” he said. “She said she wanted to send her children to school. Initially they said OK, then they deported her.”
Many of the Afghans interviewed said that they were looking for economic opportunity but that the Taliban advances and killings had pushed them to leave. Two out of a dozen interviewed over two days recently said they had family members who had been killed by the Taliban.
A teenager, Ilias, 15, wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and black jacket, said he had fled with three friends from his home village in Daikundi in central Afghanistan after his father was killed by advancing Taliban forces three or four months ago.
“The Taliban started to attack our area and people started to defend my village, and that’s when my father was killed,” he said. “We three are from the same area and we managed to get out,” he said, gesturing to his companions.
They were stopped by the Taliban on the way and questioned, robbed by human traffickers in Iran, and arrived in Turkey without food or money to continue their journey.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Experts evaluated the anxiety levels in children who had been exposed to harsh parenting techniques.
Children who are regularly shouted at, hit or shaken could develop smaller brains in adolescence.
Harsh parenting techniques have been put under the microscope in a new study to determine if there is a link between this type of behavior and a child’s development. In many places around the world, harsh parenting is acceptable, but experts believe it may have a serious impact on young people.
“The implications go beyond changes in the brain,” said lead study author Sabrina Suffren, Ph.D., at Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre. “I think what’s important is for parents and society to understand that the frequent use of harsh parenting practices can harm a child’s development.
“We’re talking about their social and emotional development, as well as their brain development.”
Previous studies have shown that sexual and emotional abuse, as well as neglect, have been linked to depression and anxiety in later life. Child victims of these types of abuse were shown to have a smaller prefrontal cortex and amygdala, both of which play an important role in the regulation of emotions and anxiety and depression.
This new research has also concluded that these areas of the brain were smaller in adolescents who had been subjected to harsh parenting practices in their childhood.
We’re talking about their social and emotional development, as well as their brain development.
–Sabrina Suffren, Ph.D., at Université de Montréal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre
“These findings are both significant and new. It’s the first time that harsh parenting practices that fall short of serious abuse have been linked to decreased brain structure size, similar to what we see in victims of serious acts of abuse,” Suffren added.
The study annually evaluated the anxiety levels of children between the ages of 2 and 9, and the children were then divided into groups based on how exposed they had been to harsh parenting. Anxiety levels were analyzed again when the children were between the ages of 12 and 16, and anatomical MRIs were also performed.
The research was conducted in partnership with researchers from Stanford University and was published in the Development and Psychology journal.
