October, 14 2020, 12:00am EDT
Trapped Civilians in Afghanistan Must Be Allowed Out of Laskhkar Gah Amid Heavy Fighting
WASHINGTON
Civilians must be allowed safe passage out of Lashkar Gah following three days of intense fighting between Afghan government and Taliban forces that has blocked all exit routes from the city and forced at least 35,000 people to flee their homes, said Amnesty International.
The heavy fighting, in which Afghan forces supported by United States airstrikes are defending the Helmand Province capital from a Taliban assault, has taken out power across the entire city as well as telephone lines and internet access.
With nowhere to go, some of the tens of thousands displaced are reported by local media to have sought refuge in homes in neighboring areas, while hospitals have admitted hundreds of civilian casualties according to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Afghanistan.
"The situation for civilians in Lashkar Gah is grave and could deteriorate rapidly in the coming days. Tens of thousands of people are trapped in the middle of a bloody battle that shows no sign of abating," said Omar Waraich, Head of South Asia at Amnesty International.
"To avoid this turning into a humanitarian disaster, all parties to the conflict must ensure that civilians are protected and allowed to safely leave the war zones and get out of the city."
According to UNOCHA, the highway linking Lashkar Gah to Kandahar - the only direct route out of the city - is inaccessible due to the presence of improvised explosive devices.
Amnesty International is calling on the Afghan government and the international community to ensure that those displaced are provided with immediate shelter, food and other humanitarian support.
"So far, there has been no word from the Afghan government on any support or protection that will be provided to civilians, especially those displaced. With the help of the international community, the authorities must expedite the provision of mobile clinics, food deliveries and other essentials as a lifeline to the residents of Lashkar Gah," said Omar Waraich.
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
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GOP Spending Law Gives Corporations $16 Billion in Retroactive Tax Breaks: Analysis
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Dec 02, 2025
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The analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT)—a panel composed of five members each from the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee—came in response to a September query from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) regarding the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's (OBBBA) extension of full bonus depreciation, a tax-savings tool allowing businesses to automatically deduct costs of qualifying assets.
As Warren explained in her letter, full bonus depreciation enables corporations "to immediately deduct some or all of the cost of new business investments, such as the purchase of manufacturing equipment, software, and furniture, rather than deducting those costs over the estimated lifetime of those assets."
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Numerous corporations taking advantage of the full bonus depreciation have paid effective federal corporate tax rates far below the statutory 21%, according to a 2023 analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).
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ITEP federal policy director Steve Wamhoff told the Washington Post Tuesday that “it is quite obvious that if an incentive is retroactive, it is not actually an effective incentive."
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The National Association of Immigration Judges, the union that represents judges who handle immigration cases, confirmed to the New York Times that the eight officials had been dismissed in what one recently fired judge described as a "Monday afternoon massacre."
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The judges who were dismissed Monday had worked at the immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, where the city's US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices are also located.
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The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse found that from 2019-24, Khan ruled on 620 asylum cases and granted asylum to 544 applicants. Cassin decided on 669 asylum cases from 2020-25 and granted asylum to 582 people. Immigration judges across the country denied asylum to refugees more frequently than Khan and Cassin over those same periods, according to TRAC.
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Last week, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted on social media a call for legal professionals to join the Justice Department as "a deportation judge to defend your community."
"End the invasion," urged DHS.
David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the Trump administration appears to want "to poison the applicant pool."
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Immigration attorney Allen Orr said Tuesday that if an administration's goal is to "improve vetting, you don't fire eight immigration judges in NYC—the epicenter of the national backlog."
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On Monday, former Chicago immigration Judge Carla Espinoza described to Al Jazeera how she was abruptly fired from her courtroom position in July.
The judges who have been fired this year include "attorneys who previously represented immigrants or provided pro bono help to immigrants before they became a judge," she said.
In this episode of #UNMUTE, former US immigration judge Carla Espinoza discusses the wave of firings of judges under the Trump administration. pic.twitter.com/HhT1jhxhzt
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) December 1, 2025
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He has described President Donald Trump's push for regime change as a "colonial threat" to "seize" Venezuela's oil.
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