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by James EDGAR Agence France Presse KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — The Taliban on Monday claimed total control over Afghanistan, saying they had won the key battle for the Panjshir Valley, the last remaining holdout of resistance against their rule. Following their lightning-fast victory in mid-August over the former Afghan government’s security forces and the withdrawal of US troops after 20 years of war, the Taliban turned to fighting the forces defending the mountainous Panjshir […]
HELSINKI, Finland (AFP) — Finland’s last coronavirus restrictions will be lifted once 80 percent of over-12s have been fully vaccinated, the government said Monday, a target it expects to reach by October. “Our aim is to open up society and keep it open,” Prime Minister Sanna Marin told reporters in Helsinki after a cabinet meeting on the country’s coronavirus strategy. “The advancing vaccination coverage is our key to achieving that,” Marin said, adding that restrictions […]
HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — Cuba on Monday became the first country in the world to vaccinate children from the age of two against Covid-19, using home-grown jabs not recognized by the World Health Organization. The communist island of 11.2 million people aims to inoculate all its children before reopening schools that have been closed for the most part since March 2020. The new school year started on Monday, but from home via television programs, as […]
KAMPALA, Uganda (AFP) — Rescuers in Kampala called off the search for survivors on Monday after six people were killed in a building collapse during a heavy rainstorm, police said, following an emergency effort that saw eight people including two children pulled to safety. Images posted on social media on Sunday showed construction workers and passers-by digging through debris with their bare hands and firefighters using cutting equipment to saw through buckled metal in a […]
by Michel COMTE OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Hundreds of supporters of two Canadian men being held in China on what Ottawa says are specious charges marched 7,000 steps through the Canadian capital on Sunday to mark the pair’s 1,000th day of “unjust” detention. Similar events in support of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were held elsewhere in Canada and across the world in cities including Brussels, New York, Washington, Seoul and Singapore. “These are unjust […]
BUNIA, DR Congo (AFP) — At least 30 people were killed in a weekend attack in the restive northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, local and UN sources said on Monday. The jihadists of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) are suspected to have carried out the attack in the Ituri area on Saturday, they said. Dieudonne Malangayi, acting chairman of the chiefdom of Walese Vonkutu, initially said 14 people died in the attack but […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran on Monday “strongly” condemned the Taliban’s military offensive against holdout fighters in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley, as the Islamist group claimed it had taken control of the area. “The news coming from Panjshir is truly worrying. The assault is strongly condemned,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters. © Agence France-Presse
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — New Zealand will mostly lift its Covid-19 lockdown this week, with only the country’s infection epicentre Auckland to remain under strict stay-at-home orders, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday. About three million New Zealanders will no longer be under stay-at-home orders as of Tuesday overnight, and schools will reopen on Thursday for the first time in three weeks, Ardern said. But she added that Auckland, where the country’s Delta-variant outbreak […]
by Taha Saleh with Shatha Yaish in Dubai TAEZ, Yemen (AFP) — Dozens of children kneel in an outdoor, makeshift classroom at the start of the school year in Yemen, where coronavirus and a brutal war have left them facing a bleak future. The youngsters in the impoverished Arab country’s third city of Taez make do and learn as best they can, seven years into a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and forced […]
by François PICARD HOUSTON, United States (AFP) — Daniel Wilkinson survived two tours of duty in Afghanistan but died of gallstones, deteriorating slowly as his under-equipped doctors looked on helplessly. Wilkinson, 46, lived only 90 minutes by car or 30 minutes by helicopter from Houston, renowned for its top-flight hospitals. The problem is the Texas health care system has been utterly overwhelmed by people suffering from the Delta variant of the coronavirus. In this wealthy […]
UNITED NATION, United States (AFP) — The Taliban on Sunday pledged to guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers and aid access in Afghanistan in a meeting with the UN humanitarian chief in Kabul, a UN spokesman said. Martin Griffiths was in the Afghan capital on Sunday for several days of meetings with Taliban leadership amid a looming humanitarian disaster in the country newly under the control of the hardline Islamists. “The authorities pledged that the […]
by Catherine TRIOMPHE NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — It is the skyscraper that replaced the Twin Towers in New York’s skyline. Inaugurated in 2014, the One World Trade Center has become a symbol of resilience after the horror of 9/11. Commonly referred to as the “Freedom Tower,” it is America’s tallest building at 1,776 feet (541 meters) and an emblem of the US economic capital. From its conception, the tower had to testify to […]
