ALMATY (Reuters) - Facebook owner Meta Platforms has granted the Kazakh government access to its content reporting system, after the Central Asian nation threatened to block the social network for millions of local users. The Nur-Sultan cabinet and Facebook said in a joint statement on Monday that the agreement, the first of its kind in the post-Soviet region of Central Asia, would streamline the process of removing content deemed illegal by Kazakhstan. The oil-rich nation s parliament in September started working on a bill that would let the government block social network and messaging apps unless their developers open offices in the country and appoint executives personally responsible for reviewing the authorities complaints. Deputy Aidos Sarym, one of the bill s developers, said on his Facebook page that the bill had paved way for talks with tech giants and the authorities were now ready to soften its provisions. Under the agreement between Nur-Sultan and the network, Facebook ha
By Annie Banerji, Emma Batha and Shadi Khan Saif NEW DELHI/LONDON/ISLAMABAD (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Cooped up at home in Herat, Afghanistan, Zainab Muhammadi reminisces about hanging out with her friends in the cafeteria after coding class. Now she logs on every day to secret online lessons. Her school shut down after the Taliban took control of the country in August. But that did not stop Muhammadi from learning. There are threats and dangers to girls like me. If the Taliban get to know . they might punish me severely. They might even stone me to death, said Muhammadi, who requested to use a pseudonym to protect her identity. But I have not lost hope or my aspirations. I m determined to continue studying, the 25-year-old told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on a video call. She is one of an estimated hundreds of Afghan girls and women who are continuing to learn - some online and others in hidden makeshift classrooms - despite the Taliban s closure of their schools. Fereshteh Fo