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by David FOX KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — The Taliban are going house-to-house searching for opponents and their families, according to an intelligence document for the UN that deepened fears Friday Afghanistan’s new rulers were reneging on pledges of tolerance. After routing government forces and taking over Kabul on Sunday to end two decades of war, the hardline Islamist movement’s leaders have repeatedly vowed a complete amnesty as part of a well-crafted PR blitz. Women […]
by David FOX KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — Defiant protesters waved Afghan flags at scattered rallies Thursday to mark the country’s independence day, as a UN document suggests the Taliban are rounding up people placed on a blacklist for working with the Afghan government, or US-led forces. As the small-scale demonstrations unfolded, the son of the nation’s most famous resistance fighter vowed to take up arms against the Islamist hardliners, who are back in power after […]
by Mohamad Ali Harissi DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — Dozens of evacuees from Afghanistan waited nervously to board a Britain-bound Royal Air Force plane during a stopover in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday after fleeing the Taliban takeover. At Dubai’s Al-Maktoum airport, a steady stream of aircraft ferrying passengers from Kabul and onwards to Britain shuttled back and forth as London stepped up its evacuation efforts. Dozens of exhausted passengers waited at one […]
KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — An Afghan woman journalist has said she was barred from working at her TV station after the Taliban took control of the country, and pleaded for help in a video posted online. Wearing a hijab and showing her office card, well-known news anchor Shabnam Dawran said “our lives are under threat” in the clip on social media. Under the Taliban’s regime from 1996 to 2001, women were excluded from public life, […]
JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — Israelis aged 40 and over will be able to receive coronavirus vaccine booster shots starting this weekend, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said Thursday, as the country battles a spike in infections. Israel was one of the first countries to launch a vaccination drive in mid-December via an agreement with Pfizer to obtain millions of paid vaccine doses in exchange for sharing data on their effectiveness. The inoculation campaign was hailed as […]
by David FOX KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — The Taliban have offered a pledge of reconciliation, vowing no revenge against opponents and to respect women’s rights in a “different” rule of Afghanistan from two decades ago. The announcements came on Tuesday night shortly after the return to Afghanistan of their co-founder, crowning the group’s astonishing comeback after being ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001. With huge concerns globally about the Taliban’s brutal human rights record […]
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP) — Afghanistan’s return to Taliban rule following the withdrawal of US forces shows Taiwan needs to be “stronger and more united” in ensuring its own defense, President Tsai Ing-wen said Wednesday. Democratic Taiwan’s 23 million people live under the constant threat of invasion from authoritarian Beijing which views the island as its own territory and has vowed to one day seize it. Washington remains Taiwan’s most important unofficial ally and is bound […]
JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — New restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of Covid took effect in Israel on Wednesday, after the largely vaccinated country saw the highest daily infection rate since January. The measures, announced Sunday, require vaccination certificates or negative coronavirus tests to enter a range of public spaces, including restaurants and bars, cultural and sports venues, hotels and gyms, the health ministry said. The same applies to worshippers wishing to enter synagogues, mosques […]
A US monitor issued a tsunami alert Wednesday after a large 6.8-magnitude quake struck off the coast of Vanuatu. The earthquake was recorded at a depth of 91 kilometres and was about 340 kilometres (210 miles) northwest of the capital Port Vila, the US Geological Survey said. Hazardous tsunami waves were possible for coasts within 300 kilometres of the epicentre, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said in a preliminary assessment. © Agence France-Presse
by David FOX Agence France Presse KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — The Taliban have pledged not to seek “revenge” against their opponents in Afghanistan in their first press conference since taking power, as the United States said they would hold the insurgents to their promises to respect human rights. The Taliban announcements came Tuesday after the return to Afghanistan of their co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, crowning the group’s astonishing comeback after being ousted in a […]
by Sebastian Smith Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Joe Biden is being called everything from reckless to incompetent over the panicky retreat from Afghanistan, but the White House has a different portrayal: a leader who simply dared to make the tough calls. The Democrat is taking a pounding, including from some in his own party, for the extraordinary meltdown in Kabul. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, facing journalists for the […]
by Jay DESHMUKH KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — Outside the main iron gate of the Indian embassy in Kabul, a group of Taliban fighters waited — armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Inside the compound were 150 Indian diplomats and nationals — growing increasingly nervous as they watched news of the Taliban tightening their grip on the capital, which they took a day earlier without a fight. Their position was a precarious one. Pakistan […]
