News Round-up

Watchdog says Israeli treatment of Arabs amounts to apartheid

Human Rights Watch has published a 213-page report condemning Israel for the international crimes of apartheid and persecution. Palestinian citizens, 20% of the population, face widespread discrimination in housing, land access, and basic services.

Tell us: are you an older person who has started playing video games?

We would like to speak to people over the age of 50 who have got into playing video games during the pandemic

Gaming has soared in popularity during the pandemic, with Ofcom finding 62% of UK adults played some form of computer game in 2020, with an uptick across all age groups. We’re looking to explore the rise of older gamers and would like to speak to older people who have got into playing video games in the last year or so, particularly during the pandemic.

A recent GWI report found people aged 55-64 are the fastest-growing market, rising by 32% since 2018, with gaming increasingly seen as “family time”. A poll from last December also found one in four grandparents played video games to stay in touch with their grandchildren during lockdown.

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Inside Afghanistan as troops prepare to leave after the US’s longest war

Fawzia Koofi is an Afghan politician who for the past few years has been one of the few women in peace talks with the Taliban. Last August she was wounded in an assassination attempt. She discusses the attack and the threat the Taliban pose to women’s rights, while the Guardian’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, discusses the legacy of the US ‘forever’ war

Last August, Fawzia Koofi, a member of Afghanistan’s peace negotiating team, was wounded in an assassination attempt. Koofi, also a women’s rights activist, has been a vocal Taliban critic, but the Taliban denied they were behind the attempt on her life. Just weeks later she was once again face to face with them at negotiations trying to reach an agreement to bring stability to Afghanistan.

She tells Rachel Humphreys about the progress of those negotiations and the impact the US troop withdrawal will have on her country, and in particular on women’s rights. After 20 years of US military involvement in Afghanistan, the US has announced it will have withdrawn all of its troops by 11 September this year.

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