Cada mes despegan desde el aeropuerto alemán de Leipzig aviones con destino a Afganistán. Son vuelos chárter de la aerolínea turca Freebird (“Pájaro libre”, en español), un nombre que puede sonar a broma de mal gusto para sus pasajeros: ciudadanos afganos deportados a Kabul en contra de su voluntad. Cerca de 300 afganos han sido expulsados por las autoridades alemanas a su país de origen desde 2025, desde que tomó posesión el actual Gobierno federal. La gran mayoría eran condenados por crímenes, pero en los últimos traslados están siendo incluidas cada vez más personas sin antecedentes penales.

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A tragic vehicle crash exposed a covert counter-narcotics operation riddled with irregularities. In mid-April, a pickup truck plunged off a mountain road in the Sierra of Chihuahua in Mexico, killing its four occupants. Two of them were officials from the Chihuahua Attorney General’s office, and the others, as was later confirmed, were undercover CIA agents. The case continues to unfold in new chapters, and over the weekend former Chihuahua prosecutor César Jáuregui was arrested, accused of treason for allowing — without authorization from the federal government — armed foreign officials to take part in sensitive security operations on Mexican soil.

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The Pentagon plans to broadcast a firing-squad execution live, a practice that might seem more characteristic of terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State than of governments that are signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to a senior Defense Department official, the institution plans to stream online the execution of former military psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan on December 3; Hasan killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas.

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Three of the four Afghans who left their country to compete last week in the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, were detained at the border on Monday when they returned to Afghanistan, where chess is banned by the Taliban government. The players are under house arrest in Kabul and face penalties that could include corporal punishment. The fourth player has been able to return home without reprisals.

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