(3 articles) ‘The Taliban Turned All My Ambitions Into Dust’ | She Just Had a Baby. Soon, She'll Start 7th Grade. | Pensioners' share of spending hits nearly 40% of total in Japan

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You Might Like � � � You Might Like � � � � � � � � � Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium 'The Taliban Turned All My Ambitions Into Dust'    Two years ago, on Aug. 15, 2021, the Taliban stormed into Kabul, capping 20 years of terrorist-led insurgency to reestablish an extreme theocratic regime. Almost overnight, the country was thrown into reverse as laws, institutions, freedoms, and rights—underwritten with the financial and military support of the United States and its allies since 2001—were eradicated. Two years on, Afghanistan's people are mostly bereft of rights, education, jobs, and hope. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Taliban brutality, and the poverty and hunger caused by the economic crisis they are incapable of fixing. The Taliban leadership, for their part, are raking in billions of dollars in taxes and contraband. Continued here She Just Had a Baby. Soon, She'll Start 7th Grade.    Ashley just had a baby. She’s sitting on the couch in a relative’s apartment in Clarksdale, Miss., wearing camo-print leggings and fiddling with the plastic hospital bracelets still on her wrists. It’s August and pushing 90 degrees, which means the brown patterned curtains are drawn, the air conditioner is on high, and the room feels like a hiding place. Peanut, the baby boy she delivered two days earlier, is asleep in a car seat at her feet, dressed in a little blue outfit. Ashley is surrounded by family, but nobody is smiling. One relative silently eats lunch in the kitchen, her two siblings stare glumly at their phones, and her mother, Regina, watches from across the room. Ashley was discharged from the hospital only hours ago, but there are no baby presents or toys in the room, no visible diapers or ointments or bottles. Almost nobody knows that Peanut exists, because almost nobody knew that Ashley was pregnant. She is 13 years old. Soon she’ll start seventh grade. In the fall of 2022, Ashley was raped by a stranger in the yard outside her home, her mother says. For weeks, she didn’t tell anybody what happened, not even her mom. But Regina knew something was wrong. Ashley used to love going outside to make dances for her TikTok, but suddenly she refused to leave her bedroom. When she turned 13 that November, she wasn't in the mood to celebrate. “She just said, ‘It hurts,’” Regina remembers. “She was crying in her room. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she didn’t want to tell me.” (To protect the privacy of a juvenile rape survivor, TIME is using pseudonyms to refer to Ashley and Regina; Peanut is the baby’s nickname.) The signs were obvious only in retrospect. Ashley started feeling sick to her stomach; Regina thought it was related to her diet. At one point, Regina even asked Ashley if she was pregnant, and Ashley said nothing. Regina hadn’t yet explained to her daughter how a baby is made, because she didn’t think Ashley was old enough to understand. “They need to be kids,” Regina says. She doesn’t think Ashley even realized that what happened to her could lead to a pregnancy. Continued here You Might Like � � � � � � � � � Pensioners' share of spending hits nearly 40% of total in Japan    TOKYO -- As Japan looks to stimulate consumer spending through pay hikes, a glaring problem has emerged: Pay increases do not benefit pensioners much. Given Japan's high proportion of retirees, encouraging older people to spend will be crucial if Japan is to escape its deflationary doldrums. "I hesitate to spend boldly when I think about my future," said a man his 70s in Yokohama, south of Tokyo. Although he is willing to spend on things like gifts for his grandchildren, he tends to avoid big purchases. Continued here

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