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Editors note: Staff writer Samantha House contributed to this report.

Syracuse, NY Connie Tuori, 93, had no fear of her home in the treacherous Skyline Apartments. Just look at how she lived.

The daughter of Italian immigrants on Syracuses North Side, she paid her way through Syracuse University in the 1950s, a time when single, immigrant-family women rarely did such things. She worked summers alone as a waitress in the Adirondacks, getting free room and board in return.

After college, she taught school in Syracuse and in California, along the Mexican border. And then she taught in Italy for several years before she moved to Istanbul, Turkey, to teach English for a year and a half.

Fiercely independent, she traveled the world without being harmed, only to be killed in her home, a Syracuse apartment in a building overrun with crime and neglect.

In the early 1980s, she moved back to Syracuses Park Street -- down the street from where shed grown up. Thats when Patrick Leone, of Minoa, remembers going to her house as a preschooler, to be watched while his mother worked.

Leone is Tuoris great grand-nephew. As he grew up, Aunt Connie was the relative with all the stories.

Like the time she went on an African safari, sleeping on the ground with only a sheet. Or the postcard from Antarctica, where she bemoaned getting bored with penguins. Or the time, in her 80s, that she broke her hip getting chased by monkeys in Southeast Asia. (She flew home by herself anyway.)

Leone recalls Aunt Connies story about getting mugged as a young woman in Italy. She was unhurt and unfazed. I dont think it ever really scared her, Leone recalled. It didnt deter her.

So what did Connie Tuori think of Skyline Apartments, the place that everyone -- her own family included -- believed was too dangerous a place for her to live?

Skyline Apartments at 753 James Street owned by former NFL star Tim Green and his son, Troy. The apartments are the subject of intense scrutiny by tenants for crime and alleged neglect. Photo by N. Scott Trimble | strimble@syracuse.comN. Scott Trimble | strimble@syracuse.com

For much of her life, Skyline had been a luxury apartment complex. It wasnt bad when she moved in two decades ago. And Connie Tuori wasnt going to be forced out by her family.

The stubbornness that got her around the world kept her longer (at Skyline) than she should have been, said her niece, Patti Tuori, of Arizona. She was comfortable there. She knew her building, knew her stores.

Leone agreed, noting the familys efforts to convince her to leave.

It wasnt a secret that she wasnt in a great place, Leone recalled. But she didnt want to change. Hey, why dont you move? But she didnt want to. She had been in so many exotic places, that being in an apartment in Syracuse probably didnt faze her much.

Neighbors described her as a sweet, harmless old lady who, until her death, walked by herself up to shop on Butternut Street. She refused to consider that her daily life might be dangerous, said Sharon Sherman, of the Greater Syracuse Tenants Network.

Her legendary fearlessness was a hallmark of the lifelong bachelorette.

At age 13, the fearlessness landed her on the front page of the Syracuse Herald-Journal.

Connie, then a eighth-grade student at Grant Junior High School, talked to reporters in January 1941 after a scuffle with her brother over the then-ongoing World War II. The wrestling match happened when Connies little brother teased her about a German attack on London, according to the story in The Post-Standards archives.

The teen avidly followed updates on war and was inclined to agree with the English, she told reporters. So when her brother provoked her, she threw him out the back door of their familys Park Street home. Connie then accidentally pushed her hand through a glass window while trying to lock her brother outside.

This probably marks the first bloodshed in Syracuse, and maybe the United States, over the war, she gravely told reporters.

Family said that Connie Tuoris love of history and world events drew her to the farthest reaches of the globe: Revolutionary China, before it opened to the West; Afghanistan in the 1950s; Iran, long after the Islamic Revolution (getting a visa through the United Kingdom). Relatives still have the kimono dresses she sent back from Japan.

In the end, she visited all seven of the worlds continents.

Shed work during the school year while living frugally, then travel during the summers, Patti Tuori recalled.

Shed get family to drop her off at the Greyhound station and travel the country by bus in search of a cheap plane fare. To save money, shed stay in youth hostels, even into old age. Her trips would last several months and might, for example, begin in Italy and end in Spain.

I remember dropping her off at the bus station with two little suitcases and shed be gone for three months, Patti Tuori said. She met a lot of people when she was traveling. Shed say, If I ever have troubles when Im traveling, Ill just stop somebody and get them to help me. She was very insistent. She got her way.

Connie, who retired from teaching in 1992, shared her travels in richly detailed letters published in The Post-Standard throughout 1997.

The letters focused on the people Connie had met while living and travelling abroad. She remembered a lovestruck man in Afghanistan in the late 1950s who after eating pilaf and mutton with her told her about the woman he had fallen for but was prohibited from marrying.

Connie described getting lost in Myanmar, where she traversed spice markets and bumpy country roads, during her second trip to the country in 1997. She recalled her 1956 bus trip to a 1,000-year-old temple in southern India and the time in 1970 when she ditched an obstinate tour guide in Uzbekistan.

In 1998, Connie asked the public to donate money to help a child in Uganda get an education. She had just gotten back from a five-week tour of east Africa, where her heart had been broken by the plight of a young boy struggling to pay for secondary school. She spoke to a reporter with The Post-Standard and asked interested donors to call her.

At age 85, she wanted to go on another African safari, her family said. But she was incensed to find out that the age limit for the trip was 82.

They didnt know who they were talking to, Patti Tuori said, laughing. Still, Connie made it to Malaysia as an octogenarian, fracturing her hip in the monkey episode.

In later years, she also held speaking engagements at local bookstores, like Barnes & Noble, in which shed describe her adventures.

She was kind of singularly obsessed with traveling and the world, Patti Tuori recalled.

When home, Tuori would walk or take the bus wherever she wanted to go. She didnt drive. In planning trips, shed take a bus to the downtown library to get one travel guide for the trip.

Once, Leone recalls seeing her, by chance, walking by herself on Hiawatha Boulevard near Destiny USA Where are you going? he asked her. She hitched a ride with him back home.

But for someone who couldnt go a mile without walking it herself, Connie Tuori did more in her life than most dream of.

Ive been too many places. Its boring to go back to them, shed say, half-joking, in later life.

That spirit never left her.

She had no fear, Patti Tuori said. Shed been everywhere, shed seen so much. Shed been walking around the slums of whatever country on her own. Living in a bad neighborhood in Syracuse was just another trip for her.

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Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070.

Continued here:
Connie Tuori, 93, survived Afghanistan, Antarctica and African safari, only to be killed in her Syracuse apar - syracuse.com

Forty two years ago, my grandfather Mohammad Naim Khan and his brother Mohammad Daoud Khan, the first President of Afghanistan, were martyred along with 16 members of our family including women and children--one was only 18-months-old--in a bloody communist coup. That coup was singular in its brutality and signaled the start of a tragic war that has plagued Afghanistan since. Every moment since has been war. Generation after generation has come and gone knowing only war. Millions have been killed, maimed, orphaned, widowed, or have become refugees. Afghanistan bleeds.

This must end. And today there is a small but tangible window of opportunity to end the more than four decades of war, and reach an enduring peace. The ability to live in peace is a universal right, and after over four decades of death and destruction, my people deserve to live in peace too.

As a common citizen, a devout patriot, a responsible member of my community, and a carrier of a legacy of my grandfathers and their predecessors, I am raising my voice.

To my fellow Afghans, who have suffered in the last four decades, your sacrifices will not go in vain--be hopeful that an end is in sight. Our losses have been unthinkable. We have more reason than ever to bring an end to the barbarism of the last four decades. We must have hope that peace is possible and is our right.

To the government, the Taliban and to political leaders, I call on you to earnestly work in these final days and hours and to put the interest of the Afghan people above all else. We owe it to Afghanistan and our people. Our history has proved time and again that no external force can impose their will upon this freedom-loving nation and that ultimately we as a nation carry the responsibility of shaping our shared future. All Afghan leaders have made mistakes but the time has come for us to have the courage to forgive one another and to move on. We have paid and are still paying a high price for exchanging bullets and accusations, while we should know better now that the only path to lasting peace is to open our hearts and arms to one another.

To our international partners, who have paid in the past two decades in blood and treasure, this great nation is in your debt. We Afghans are known for our hospitality but we also remember who helped us in times of need. I urge you to not let the sacrifices of the past 20 years go in vain, dont diminish the hopes and dreams of a bright and talented new generation, who have the passion and the determination to build Afghanistan, by abandoning Afghanistan, so close to the finish line. Whatever you decide, the candle that has been lit in the heart of this nation will never dim or be blown out.

To our neighbors and regional powers who have had direct and indirect roles in the past four decades, I need you to have a solemn outlook. The cost of this war has been millions of lives and a trillion dollars and while Asia as a continent is emerging as an economic powerhouse, its heart, which geopolitically is Afghanistan, is bleeding. The great philosopher and writer Allama Iqbal wrote:that Asia is a body of water and earth,of which the Afghan nation is the heart.From its discord, the discord of Asia;and from its accord, the accord of Asia.

I consider myself lucky to have been born in what is now considered the golden era of peace and stability in Afghanistan during the reign of my maternal grandfather King Zahir Shah. Deep in my heart I truly believe that we can get there again. We have all paid high prices. Afghans have been forced to show a resilience that shouldnt be asked of anyone. But we have done it. And today we must use that resilience and heartbreak to bring peace to our land. This war must end. Peace must come. And I, for one, am ready, hopeful and embracing an end state of an Afghanistan at peace.

Read more:
The End of War and the Start of Peace in Afghanistan - TOLOnews

A ban on girls in Afghanistan singing has been reversed by officials following a social media campaign.

Last week a memo was sent to schools in the Afghan capital Kabul forbidding girls older than 12 to attend choir practice or sing at public events.

An exception was made for ceremonies with 100% female participants, the education department said, but that girls could not be trained by a male music teacher.

In protest, Afghan activists across the country, including prominent women, flooded social media with videos of themselves singing their favourite songs using the hashtag#IAmMySong.

The ban, announced two days after International Womens Day, sparked international outrage, with some accusing the government of sympathising with the Taliban.

The campaign, started by Ahmad Sarmast the founder of Afghanistans Institute of Music, soon gained traction on Twitter, with some Afghan girls singing their favorite tunes for the camera and calls popping up for petitions to oppose the directive.

Turkish author Elif Safak was among those who shared a video of two Afghan girls singing, saying she had "so much respect for the young women" joining the campaign.

In light of the campaign, Afghanistan's education ministry scrambled to defend the memo, insisting it had been "misunderstood" saying it was a precaution against the spread of coronavirus.

An investigation was launched into the Kabul branch of the ministry and its chief, Ahmad Zameer Gowara, who was responsible for the memo, a spokesperson said.

Following the announcement that the ban had been lifted, Helsinki's deputy mayor for culture and leisure, Nasima Razmyar wrote on Twitter: "Afghanistan tried to ban girls from singing. Social media showed support with #IAmMySong and made officials to reverse the ban. This is for you brave Afghan girls!"

The ban - and subsequent reversal - come as womens rights groups are fighting to ensure that fragile human rights gains made over the last 20 years in Afghanistan since the US-led forces overthrew the Taliban - take centre stage in ongoing peace talks.

It also shows how the rights of girls and women are under threat from conservatives on both sides of the protracted conflict.

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Ban on girls singing in Afghanistan reversed after social media campaign - ITV News

The International Cricket Council on Tuesday imposedeight-year bans on United Arab Emirates (UAE) cricketers Mohammad Naveed and Shaiman Anwar Butt. The two cricketers were found guilty of breachingICC Anti-Corruption Code as they tried to fix matches in the T20 World Cup qualifier in 2019.

While cricket as a sport has made great strides in the associate nations, it has come at a cost. The issues like match fixing in cricket, illegal activities and corruption have become a part of the sport with players being exposed toillegal betting, spot-fixing and ball-tampering etc. Recently, ICC Anti-Corruption Unit General ManagerAlex Marshall opened up on match fixing in cricket, corruption andhow T20 leagues are causing a threat to the game.

While speaking toESPNCricinfo, Marshall said that the thingwhich makes the top associate nationsso attractive to the corruptors and match-fixers is the relatively low cricket income of people from Nepal, UAE, Oman andsome of the African cricket nations. He further said that the players from these countries are being paid very little if anything at all Marshall cited the example of Zimbabwe to explain his point.

The ICC ACU General manager stated that Zimbabweare among the poorest of the full member nations which is whyplayers there are being offered $30,000 to commit corrupt conduct. On the other hand,the players in the Associates areoffered $10,000. whileplayersin European club matches getoffered 3,000 Euros. According to Marshall, that's the sort of scale of the offers. Elaborating on the same, he reckoned thatan offer of $10,000 to a playerin some of these countries is an awful lot of money. Marshall further said that an offer of $30,000 in Zimbabwe would probably help one buy a house.

Speaking about the strategies to curb these activities, Marshall said thatat the ICCtheir fundamental objective is to see the growth and development of cricket. He added that the idea that the Associates are going to get better and more extensive coverage is absolutely brilliant and theycelebrate it along with everyone else. Marshall acknowledged that theyalso recognise that the more popular any form of cricket becomes, the more likely it is that corruptors will target it which is why they aredoing a whole load of different things.

He revealed that one of the things is that they're working with all the Associates, but particularly the ones who are higher risk, to provide them with material around education and what they should do in the event of anyone receiving an approach or things for them to look out for in the way they run their matches. Marshall opinedthat theywill also risk assess which of those matches are most likely to be targeted and subsequently put-putanti-corruption resources into that particular match.

Marshall also spoke on how Afghanistan Premier League is a more favourableoption for bookies. Comparing APL to a Test match, Marshall said thatwith its evening short-form matches, the APL is a much more attractive option to the viewing audience which is why they're going to bet on it. He further said that corruptors go after leagues like APL and Global T20 Canada because they like weak governance chaos because it allows them in.

Marshall reiterated that the bookies love franchise events where all the teams have not been sold with three weeks to go and the people running the event are desperate to secure the next owner or the next two owners at the last minute. According to Marshall,corruptors look for these opportunities andAPL is a very good example of poor governance, an appalling run event, dreadful accreditation and a whole host of other issues that just meansit isvery attractive to corruptors.

Marshall stated that they absolutely want to see a higher profile for Associate cricket and he thinksit's comingbecauseof the pathway and qualifier events where according to him, some excellent cricket will be played. Citing the example of Afghanistan cricket, Marshall said that a number ofAfghan players (Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Mohammad Nabi) have risen to prominence andare playing around the world which makes him believe that more new playerswill come through.

Stay updated on the latest IND VS ENGnews. From live updates to breaking news, Republic World brings you all the live updates online so that you don't miss out on the IND VS ENG extravaganza.

Continued here:
ICC ACU head worried over corruption in T20 leagues, cites Afghanistan example for success - Republic TV

A US Predator drone flies over the moon above Kandahar Air Field in southern Afghanistan. (Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP Photo)

In recent months talk of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan has increased once again. Its not the first time during the course of the nearly two-decades-long war that weve heard this, and at several points since the war began in 2001, some troops have actually been withdrawn. But somehow, almost 20 years in, there still isnt very much talk about what it will actually take to end US actions that kill civilians. We hear talk about the forever wars, of which Afghanistan is of course the longest, but not much about what their first perpetrator, President George W. Bush, named the Global War on Terror (GWOT)and the effect that thats had.

The shift in name and definition of war in Afghanistan (and related post-9/11 wars in so many countries) away from GWOT to forever wars reflects how the wars have been and continue to be fought. Bushs war in Afghanistan, and many years of Obamas war there, and beyond, were characterized by large troop deployments and the occupation of cities and huge swaths of Afghanistan and its people. Arrests of thousands of Afghans accused, often wrongly, of sympathy with the Taliban, pitched battles with the Taliban, and deadly US air strikes, all devastated the country and the people.

Obama began reducing ground troops only after years of escalating deployments on his watch, during which time the emphasis of the war also changed. It had morphed into an air war, a war of drone strikes, bombers, and more, along with the deployment of US Special Forces for targeted operations. US casualties dropped to near zero; by 2011, Afghan civilian casualties had significantly escalated. That war in Afghanistan continues, under the guise of counterterrorism. The forever war in Afghanistan, the one that involves US troops on the ground, mainly training and assisting Afghan troops, continues today, though with dramatically reduced deployments.

While he was in office, Donald Trump, for reasons seemingly unrelated to actual US strategy in Afghanistan, and definitely unrelated to any concern about the still-climbing numbers of Afghan civilian casualties, withdrew some troops and talked about pulling out more. That withdrawal process escalated in early 2020 after the signing of the US-Taliban peace deal, which called for a complete US withdrawal by May 2021 in return for the Talibans cutting of ties with Al Qaeda, ending attacks on US troops, and opening negotiations with the Afghan government.Current Issue

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When Trump actually began withdrawing troops in November 2020, despite that commitments being key to the US-Taliban agreement, supporters of the war, Republicans and Democrats alike, erupted in opposition. They raged that Trumps decision would mean betraying the US service members who had died there, or ditching the corrupt and feckless Afghan government the United States had installed, or forsaking our Afghan allies in the military our troops continued to train, or abandoning Afghan women, ormaybe the most iconic warninglosing the war and allowing the Taliban to win. For some Democrats, the fact that it was Trump calling for withdrawal was all the evidence they needed that US troops should remain.

Among all of those Washington insiders outraged at the prospect of pulling troops out, few seemed willing to ask what the consequences would be if they stayed. Or, for that matter, what the consequences have been of the US troop presence in Afghanistan for almost two decades. For many people in the States, the war in Afghanistan had largely become invisible. US casualties had dropped to near zero, which meant that coverage of the war in the mainstream press had dramatically fallen off.

The impact of the December 2019 Afghanistan Papers, documents published by The Washington Post proving that senior US officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable, was short-lived. At that point, there were about 13,000 US troops remaining in Afghanistan20 were killed in combat that year, and that was actually the highest number of US casualties since Obamas 2015 reduction of combat operations and their replacement with the train-and-assist mission that remains in place today. But the Pentagons separate counterterror war continued throughout the 44th presidents tenure and beyond, with little discussion back home. With annual American deaths in combat barely over single digits, press coverage disappeared, and it was much easier to keep up the deadly air war with few people paying attention. And so the number of Afghan civilians killed, whether in funeral processions, wedding parties, or trying to simply live their lives, has not led to debate about the legitimacy and human costs of the war.

There are answers, of course, to the claims asserted of why the war needed to continue.

Threat or no threat, US forces have continued killing civilians. McChrystals strategy was supposed to move away from just killing bad guys to also protecting civilians, which required more troops. His successors during the next few years oversaw Obamas huge escalation of boots on the ground. That didnt win the war either. By 2014, ground troop numbers were massively reduced, but the counterterrorism focus on air strikes and Special Forces remained.

That counterterrorism emphasis continues today, rarely discussed publicly except to mention, almost in passing, that no decision to withdraw ground troops will impact on continuing counterterror activitiesin Afghanistan, Yemen or elsewhere. By 2019 the United Nations reported that the United States and its allies were responsible for more civilian deaths than the Talibanand that aerial operations were the third-highest cause of civilian casualties. The [UN] report attributed almost all of those casualties to American air strikes. The 2020 UN casualty report documents a slight decline in civilian deaths, with numbers dropping after the signing of the US-Taliban agreement but increasing again as the talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government began. US air strikes dropped precipitously, but those by the Afghan air force increasedwith the United States still training pilots, delivering parts for the planes, and providing the bombs. So Washington still bears responsibility for the deaths of thousands of civilians every year.

The 2020 UN report also called on the United States and its allies to increase transparency of investigations into civilian casualty incidents and communicate results to civilian victims and their relatives.

Ironically, while continuing its air war against Taliban fighters, the United States has simultaneously partnered with the Taliban in its conflict with ISIS, or the Islamic State, which has a small number of fighters in Afghanistan. In the fall of 2020, as if to prove that there is no military solution to terrorism, only a permanent game of lethal whack-a-mole, Taliban and ISIS fighters were fighting for control of the Korengal Valley. According to The Washington Post, US Special Operations forces were preparing to intervene in the fighting in Konar province in eastern Afghanistannot by attacking both sides, but by using strikes from drones and other aircraft to help the Taliban.

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The public text of the US-Taliban agreement does not mention CIA personnel remaining in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of troops. But public reports make clear that while reducing the number of such agents and perhaps moving them to the US embassy in Kabul was discussed during the negotiations, there is no reason to think CIA agents wont remain even when all foreign forces are withdrawn.Unending War

Pulling out the ground troops is important. Theyre not keeping Afghans safer. Theyre not building democracy. Theyve been there far too long, and we signed a peace deal promising to get them out.

But pulling out the ground troops is not enough. If were serious about ending the US role in the war, and we must be, we need to get serious about ending the war thats still killing Afghans almost two decades after the United States invaded the country. Calling the air war counterterrorism isnt a sufficient reason to continue military campaigns that kill civilians.

Ending the US military role will not in and of itself bring peace to Afghanistan, but its a necessary precondition to end the war. Malalai Joya, then the youngest member of the US-installed Afghan parliament and one of very few women, was driven out of parliament by threats and attacks, including from government supporters. In the Taliban time, she said, we had one enemy: the Taliban. Now we have three: the Taliban, warlords [inside the US-installed government and parliament] and the occupation forces. The US and NATO presence is making the struggle for justice and peace much harder because they empower these reactionary terrorists, who are great obstacles for true democratic-minded elements in my country.

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Withdrawing US Troops From Afghanistan Is Only a Start. We Have to End the Air War Too. - The Nation