first half of december. ♪ this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. russian president vladimir putin has accused the white house up fighting a proxy war, saying the u.s. is using ukrainian soldiers instead of its own. it follows a visit to washington by ukrainian president zelenskyy. putin also dismissed the patriot missile defense system. >> regarding patriot missile's, it is a relatively old system. it does not work as well as our s300. nonetheless, those confronting

us say this is a defensive weapon. well, ok, but there will always be an antidote, so the people who are doing this are doing it in vain. it is just prolonging the conflict, that's all. >> fighting continues to rage in eastern ukraine. ukrainian forces have held their ground in territory pressure could use to advance on other cities. president zelenskyy has accused moscow of turning the city into bert ruins. a severe winter storm has hit the united states. the national weather service is calling at the coldest in four decades. snow and freezing temperatures are disrupting holiday season travel for millions. the founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange ftx is appeared in a u.s. court after being extradited from the bahamas on fraud charges. prosecutors accuse sam bankman-fried of stealing millions in customer funds cover losses at his hedge fund. he will be under house arrest while he awaits trial. a hospital in the chinese city of shanghai says half the population of 25 million could

be infected with covid-19 by the end of next week. china is seeing a surge in cases after the government began easing restrictions following a wave of protests. floods have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes in northern malaysia. they were triggered by monsoon rains. forecasters are expecting more rain in the coming days. the taliban have reportedly arrested five women for protesting against the closure of afghan universities to female students. the education ministry says the ban was imposed because women have not followed its interpretation of the islamic dress code. those are the headlines. the news continues after "inside story." x for watching. -- thanks for watching. ♪

♪ >> anger and tears in afghanistan where men say a decision -- women say the decision to bar them from university is a blow. what does this mean for those who are affected and their future, and how will it impact the taliba government, the world order? this is "inside story." hello. welcome to the program. shock, hopelessness, and anger. women are coming to terms with the latest taliban decision that

crushes their rights, banning them from universities has provoked condemnation from around the world. we find out what is behind this action. >> this defiant group of students is taking a stand against the taliban withdrawing their education. they say their ambitions and dreams cannot be taken from them. >> in the 21st century, if there is no education, we will vanish from the face of the earth. no one is going to take us seriously and we won't be able to demand our rights. only with education can we understand our rights and responsibilities. >> this is the notification of the ban on women from university education. some say a lack of female doctors could put many in

danger. >> if there's no schools and universities and no kind ecologists and female doctors, the mortality rate is increasing day by day. >> despite strong condemnation from several countries and activist groups, the taliban is yet to respond officially, but sources have told al jazeera the taliban is divided between reformists, many of whom engage with the international community during talks in know-how, and in more conservative faction. one analyst says decisions are made by small minority. >> those taliban leaders who negotiated peace with the u.s. and doha, they are not against women being educated. >> more than a year before the taliban took power in afghanistan, its first deputy

leader wrote an article published in "the new york times." it said women's right to education would be protected, a promise that has been rolled back, but the u.s. also failed on its promise to use economic tools as leverage to moderate the taliban. in 2021, it froze nearly $10 billion in assets belonging to the afghan central bank. women say they are still suffering. >> afghan women are in fact in the worst situation. everything is very difficult for them. personally, for me as a girl, i have lived these two or one and a half years as the worst years of my life. they were indeed very difficult for me. >> we urge the international community to support us and negotiate with the taliban to allow us to continue our studies. studying is my only passion, and i love to study. >> many women say they were shocked by the announcement. >> i was really shocked.

i could not believe they were going to ban girls from attending universities. we did not know this was going to happen in the middle of finals and they won't let us graduate. >> women walking to university hoping to shape their career paths will stop for the foreseeable future. >> let's bring in our guests, social counselor of the norwegian afghan committee, and founder of the let afghan girls learn campaign. give us a sense of what this means for women and female students across afghanistan. >> of course. there was somehow some hopes in

the heart of each girl and woman in afghanistan, but unfortunately, yesterday when the issued that you could not go to courses at universities, they feel like it is the end of the world for them because when you cannot go outside, when you cannot educate yourself, if you do not have any kind of freedom, so obviously, they have the worst ever feeling in their lives. >> the taliban took over 16 months ago. they have been saying they will definitely be looking forward to guaranteeing certain rights, particularly when it comes to education. now they are backtracking on every single commitment they made. why do you think it happened. >> i sometimes think they have a

bucket list of all the promises they need to break and there is a high that they achieve every time they break a promise. people were desperately trying to believe that this was not the taliban of the 1990's. you have to understand some of the things they are doing are worse than what they did in the 1990's, and the fact that it has been a campaign of misleading the population, they got girls to give the your 12 exams just weeks ago, giving them the hope that maybe universities would open soon, maybe high schools were open soon, and we have a directive from the universities. today we have a director from the department of education stating that girls are not allowed in schools beyond grade six. this is for private institutes, for public institutes, or for institutions that are even teaching languages or courses, so it looks like the taliban really want to implement this ban and they are leaving us no room to go with alternatives.

there were alternatives of hidden schools. there were alternatives of online schooling, but with this crackdown, with how they have today actually rate -- rated schools -- raided schools, it is actually getting worse. >> a few months ago, our correspondent met some of those female students. absolutely smart, compassionate. one of them said she wants to become an astronaut and wants to go to the united states of america for her postgraduate studies. is there any backup plan to provide them with some sort of alternative education? otherwise, it will just be a massive disaster for them. >> after this decision that they have made, it's like now we do

not have any alternative at all, but i'm not sure that even those will be able to be open. of course, before that, we had the option to teach girls at our homes, online, or some other places, but at this moment, it is almost 48 hours that they have announced this decision, and in this 48 hours, i have received calls from my students repeatedly asking what should we do? we are not allowed to do anything all. are we going to stay home, get married and raise a child? is this our future? obviously, with this condition, and they are not going to change, they are having the same issues with their education, so i suppose it is going to be a

very tough time not just for women but for all afghans and obviously, consequences cannot be the same. >> we have a divide within the taliban leadership, some in favor, those who are not in favor, the so-called reformists. is it because we know that the taliban come from the predominantly pastoral areas basically in the south where people are reluctant to send their girls to school, where people are very concerned and want to implement that tradition across the country? >> you have to remember that posture and province was the first two stage demonstrations against the decision to close out schools, so i think this is a misplaced generalization to think that pashtuns in general

are not in favor of education. even if they are, what difference have that made? there were months before we reached this university ban, and the less conservative or pro-education taliban had all the time in the world and all the political power to do something about it. yet, they were passive. they let it happen. the decree for closing down universities is not an individual department or individual ministry. it was signed and cleared by the cabinet, the cabinet that includes these moderates as well. somehow, we have been failed by everyone, even those who promised us education, even those whose daughter still go to universities and schools around the world, yet they sent in the cabinet and signed a document that says roles do not deserve to go to university. if it's not hypocrisy, i don't

know what is. >> if you look at the last few months when the taliban made those decisions about female students' access to school in march and then in may, the supreme leader said it is about time for women to stay at home. that particular announcement by the taliban, do you think it's just going to be the policy, the doctrine of the taliban for as long as it takes in afghanistan? >> in march when they stopped girls from going to school, they did not tell us. they did not give any issue on them coming to school, but when girls went there, they were told to go back home. simply it means they want to traumatize all female afghans. this is the only reason they are doing it. else, why are they always giving

us hope that then they break it? they tell us that you can come to school, come to university, then suddenly they say no, it is closed. of course, as you said, a few months ago, when he said that women should be staying at home, of course, if woman is not educated, if women are not allowed to be educated, we will have a very dark afghanistan. maybe we will experience a day that there would not be any educated woman, not even one woman who was educated in afghanistan, and most of my friends and my students since yesterday, they are planning how to leave afghanistan. it is like even if we had someone, some female who wanted to stay, now their decision has changed. they want to leave because they do not have any other option, any other alternative. >> i see your point. the modern world is expressing

deep disappointment over the taliban's orders that played a major role between -- saudi arabia and qatar, which played a major role mediating between them in the u.s., are calling on couple to change its order. >> the taliban should expect that this decision, which is in contravention to the commitments they have made repeatedly and publicly to their own people, will carry concrete costs for them. they have seriously, possibly even fatally, undermined one of their deepest ambitions in other areas where they see progress, and that is an improvement, a betterment of relations with the united states and the rest of the world. >> this is what is baffling many people watching events unfold in afghanistan. on one hand, the taliban made it clear that they are desperate

for international recognition. two, they are looking forward to see financial aid into the country, and some of the assets which are frozen in the u.s. central bank to be sent back to afghanistan, but that will definitely depend on if the afghan government, the taliban, are willing to install some major reforms. they are giving the world an indication today that they are not willing to make any reforms. what kind of impact do you think this will have on the taliban and on the afghan people? >> the taliban have become a fluid insurgency. you would expect them to have transformed and gotten over that phase. however, it appears that the hand is not talking to the mouth. no part of the system is talking to the other, and every system takes the decisions it needs to

take with stamping from the emir himself. they are passive and do not take a stand on decisions that hurt afghanistan. we spent months arguing over the federal reserve, trying to find a mechanism for it to be released, and now that conversation is moving on. we spent months arguing with donors that development aid, emergency aid was not enough. that conversation is now going to be paused. we spent months asking the world to donate more and do more by afghanistan. that conversation will be stopped, and the engagement, i do understand the argument where people are saying sanction them, hurt them, but how do you hurt the taliban without hurting 35 million afghans? is there anything that specifically targets the taliban? everything you do will have large implications on the worst humanitarian crisis in

afghanistan. >> the brave women who took to the streets in august chanting "bread, work, and freedom" -- what do think is next for them? are they still able to hope that one day there will be change? >> today when i saw a woman who was selling vegetables, if she is told that you have to stay home, her husband is dead, she does not have a son, what will be her future? who will win bread for her? currently, it is above 20 million afghans who are having hunger crisis, so what will be next for us? it is like we are having more hunger issues. plus, the girls who are coming to homeschools, when we were having sessions with, individual social sessions, most of them

had suicidal thoughts. even i have a student who is only 30 years old, and once she wanted to come into society along with her mother, and the reason was they did not have enough bread to eat. she said it was easier to die from hunger. if it continues, then the situation is getting worse and worse, and finally, when you do not have anything to eat or do not have a future, when you cannot get education, everything is better, so basic human needs, freedom is one of them and survival is another. if it's taken from you, what will you do? >> to do the afghans feel at this particular moment that they have been somehow betrayed by the world? >> we need to give up this

thinking process of always expecting the international community to swoop in and save us. the odds are against us, but we have to do what we can. you have to understand that the protests that have been going on since yesterday, the whole campaign on all or nothing, which means either the girls are included or no one goes to school or university, that has potential, having conversations about how that translates into two months later when the winter break ends, what can we do in the form of national mobilization? if the international community can connect, but at the end of the day, afghanistan's solutions have to be organic, have to come from within the country to be listened to. >> you know that the debate about the high jump, the male guardian for a girl if she is

planning to travel -- many parts of the muslim world, people have moved beyond this debate. it is no longer something people are grappling with because of major, major reforms that were in place for decades, except for some places, and afghanistan is one of them. do you have hope that one day this is something that could convince the top leadership of afghanistan on the need to reform themselves or at least their own interpretation of islam for the woman to thrive in afghanistan? >> as you said, egypt and so many other islamic countries, they stood against this decision that taliban took, and about the hijab, of course, the definition of hijab is not the exact definition of islam. the other reason that most of

the times when it comes to education of school or universities, they say that we want you to have hijab, but i would want to say this to your program, to the world, that afghans do not have any issue with hijab. it is not only about his job. if it was only about it, even before, our girls were always wearing the clothes that were so sensible according to the custom we have in afghanistan, but of course, we are living in 21st century, and according to that, if we want to have a better future for afghanistan, for our own people, we have to accept some changes. we have to adapt, and we have to understand that in order to let girls grow, in order to have a better society for afghanistan, we have to let girls educate. do not put more pressure according to these things like hijab or you cannot travel

alone. if a girl's brother, he is always going with her to work, to school, to university, then when will he work? or if your husband is always going here or there with you, then when will he work? it does not make exact sense. some rules are, like, changeable, and you can adapt according to the situation. >> when you look at the situation in afghanistan, the taliban were asked to bring about an inclusive government. that did not happen. there is a huge political divide between the taliban and the society. there's also the issue of the treatment, there's an issue of reaching out to the opposition.

could this be a sign by the taliban or a message to the afghan people, to the international community that it will always be hard to accept this reality, which is taliban have the ultimate say over what this thing is, the best for the afghan people? >> first off, huge respect. we did expect to have to make compromises. it is just we did not expect everything to be taken away. there is this idea of how the taliban right now -- their politics seems to be addressed to their own constituencies, and you will expect them to have changed that mindset and realized that now they are responsible for a whole country, so the social contract seems to not have been established or

extended. there is also this idea that the constant attempts to coercively lament their vision on a large population has historically proven to fail in afghanistan in this region, so if they truly want their regime to stay and truly do not want the population's grievances to reach a level where they stand up to them, they will have to listen to the educated youth of afghanistan. they will have to create a synthesis of these two visions into something more sustainable, something that we are not seeing . it seems that they are indifferent towards the population and indifferent towards the world, and all that matters to them is appeasing their own hard-line ranks. >> unfortunately, we have to leave it there, but i promise we will continue to talk about this particular issue, hoping tomorrow will be a better day for the afghan woman. looking forward to talking to

you in the future. thank you, too, for watching. you can see the program at any time by visiting our website. for further discussion, visit our facebook page and also join the conversation on twitter. from the entire team, goodbye for now.

q úç [captions made possible by kt

television] ♪ ♪