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NEW YORK, Aug 22, 2021 (AFP) – New York City shut down on Saturday its star-studded concert meant to mark its “homecoming” in the wake of the pandemic’s worst devastation, over the threat of severe weather as Hurricane Henri churned closer. Barry Manilow, who was on a line-up that included Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith and Paul Simon, was cut off mid-song by a booming voice urging concert goers to proceed swiftly but calmly to the […]
KOROR, Palau (AFP) — The tiny Pacific nation of Palau reported its first cases of coronavirus Saturday, losing its prized status as one of the world’s few Covid-free countries as authorities appealed for calm. Two travellers, who tested positive after arriving from Guam, have been placed in quarantine along with their known contacts. “We urge everyone to remain calm,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement after deciding against imposing lockdown measures. With more […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A heart-breaking video showing a US Marine lifting a baby over a razor wire-topped wall at Kabul’s airport caught global attention Friday, amid the chaos of thousands trying to flee Afghanistan newly controlled by the Taliban. The video, which shows the infant, its diaper slipping off, being pulled up by one arm high above a crowd of Afghans seeking to enter the airport, took over social media nearly one week […]
by Paul HANDLEY Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The Taliban’s lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan after President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw US troops by August 31 has critics asking: why didn’t he just leave 2,500 troops there to fortify the now-fallen government? That was how many US forces remained in the country when Biden took office in January, after his predecessor Donald Trump slashed their numbers from 15,000. In appearances, the […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US officials confirmed that evacuation operations from Afghanistan stalled for several hours Friday because the receiving base in Qatar was overflowing and could not receive evacuees. US airlift flights out of the Kabul airport stopped for around seven hours as thousands of Afghans already flown to a US base in Qatar overwhelmed its capacity, said Major General Hank Taylor. That left thousands more Afghans already cleared to leave their […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A Texas mother of four refused a Covid-19 vaccine, but after losing her husband to the virus and contracting it herself, her dying wish was clear: get her children immunized. Lydia Rodriguez, 42, a piano teacher in the small town of La Marque died on Monday, two weeks after her husband, Lawrence, 49, succumbed to the virus. Rodriguez’ cousin Dottie Jones told the local television station ABC13 that the couple […]
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 […]
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — New Zealand extended a national Covid-19 lockdown Friday as case numbers continued to rise and a Delta variant outbreak spread from Auckland to the capital Wellington. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the initial three-day lockdown, which would have expired overnight Friday, would be extended by another four days. She said New Zealand was still trying to assess the scale of the outbreak, which emerged in Auckland this week, ending the […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States on Thursday saluted Albania, Canada, Chile, Mexico and Uganda for agreeing to take in Afghans being evacuated in a major airlift after the Taliban victory. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by telephone with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who announced Sunday just as the Taliban were taking over Kabul that he had agreed to a request to accept hundreds of Afghans temporarily on their way to […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Sydney extended its two-month-old lockdown for another month and introduced a partial curfew Friday, as Australia’s largest city struggled to contain a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak. New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the “difficult” decision, telling the city’s population of five million it was time to “bunker down”. “Unfortunately the case numbers continue to grow,” she said. “This is what life will look like for most of us until the end […]
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 […]
