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Negotiations underway as Taliban deploys forces to only province out of its control

Negotiations are underway in Afghanistan on the situation in the eastern Panjshir province, the only province still out of Talibans control, as the Taliban said it has sent forces to the region but will try to resolve the issue peacefully.

— Negotiations are underway in Afghanistan on the situation in the eastern Panjshir province, the only province still out of Taliban’s control.

— Media reports said one Afghan was killed and three others wounded on Monday as a firefight broke out between Western security forces and unidentified gunmen at Kabul airport.

— The Taliban said it has appointed an acting head for Da Afghanistan Bank, the country’s central bank.
 

Since the start of the U.S.-led troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan on May 1, the Taliban has been advancing quickly on the battlefield. During the past two weeks, the group has captured most of Afghanistan’s territory, gaining control of 33 out of the country’s 34 provinces.

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A Taliban spokesman said on Monday that the group has deployed forces around Panjshir.

“Mujahedeen of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan have moved towards Panjshir from Badakhshan, Takhar and Baghlan provinces and stationed. Salang Highway is opened to traffic and enemy is besieged inside Panjshir,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter.

Mujahid said the Taliban is trying to resolve the Panjshir issue peacefully.

He said the Taliban has now cleared and taken control of Pul-e-Hisar, Deh Salah and Banu districts in northern Baghlan province bordering Panjshir.

Local media Tolo News reported on Saturday that anti-Taliban forces have seized the three districts on Friday, but the Taliban recaptured Banu on Saturday.

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After the Taliban captured the capital Kabul on Aug. 15, many government security forces moved to Panjshir and formed a group called National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, according to Ali Maisam Nazary, a purported spokesman for the group.

People work at a bakery in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, Aug. 21, 2021.

Earlier on Monday, Nazary said the group was ready to fight and defend Panjshir but at the same time negotiate with the Taliban.

“We have always favored peace over war and we will use everything we have to establish a peaceful Afghanistan. Yet, this stance should not be considered a sign of weakness. We are prepared to respond to any aggression and defeat it, and our 40 year track record is enough proof for this,” Nazary tweeted on Monday.

“The National Resistance Front’s conditions for lasting peace in Afghanistan: decentralization of power and resources, multiculturalism, democracy, moderate Islam, and equal rights and freedom for all citizens,” he twitted.

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On Saturday, Head of the High Council for the National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah and former President Afghan Hamid Karzai met with elders from Panjshir in Kabul to seek ways to peacefully solve the issue.

“We met with the elders, religious scholars, representatives and commanders of Panjshir Province in my residence in Kabul. We discussed the current developments in the country, and ways of supporting peace and stability,” Abdullah wrote on twitter.

On the same day, Abdullah and Karzai also met with some members of the Taliban political office who recently returned to Kabul from Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar.

Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh, several Afghan officials and Ahmad Massoud, the son of former anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud also traveled to Panjshir after President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani left the country on Aug. 15.

Photo taken on Aug. 22, 2021 shows foreign forces at the entering gate of Kabul airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

In a separate development, media reports said one Afghan was killed and three others wounded on Monday as a firefight broke out between Western security forces and unidentified gunmen at Kabul airport.

Media reports quoted the German military as saying that German and U.S. troops were involved in the gunfight that erupted at one of the gates of the airport.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Afghanistan said in a statement on Facebook later on Monday that all flights at Kabul’s airport will be suspended until further notice, urging the public not to come to the airport until flights resume.

Meanwhile, the Taliban said on Monday that it has appointed an acting head for Da Afghanistan Bank, the country’s central bank.

The Taliban appointed Hajji Mohammad Idress as acting head of the central bank to “align and arrange banking procedures and find solution for people’s trade problem,” Taliban’s spokesman Mujahid wrote on his social media account.

Also on Monday, Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed told media that the country has issued visas to 4,000 people including the Afghan cricket team, foreigners and Afghan nationals over the last few days in the wake of the unstable situation in Afghanistan.

Answering a query, the minister said Pakistan has not decided about hosting a new wave of refugees because it is already hosting about 3 million Afghan refugees in the country. “However, we are facilitating those who are reaching our borders.”

He said Pakistan is in contact with Afghan Taliban leaders following the release of members of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from Afghan jails, and the Afghan Taliban leaders have assured them that they will not let their soil be used against Pakistan.

Regarding the recent development in Afghanistan, many believed that the withdrawal of the U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan has not only made things tough for the people of Afghanistan but also created a refugee crisis by displacing over half a million Afghans.

“The United States should shoulder the responsibility of refugees and provide them financial support in order to somewhat clear the mess it has created. It should realize why the people are suffering,” former Foreign Minister of Pakistan Hina Rabbani Khar told Xinhua.

Afghan refugees ride on a donkey-cart on the outskirts of Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, Aug. 22, 2021.

Published : August 24, 2021

By : xinhua

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Asean sees a drop in new Covid-19 cases

The number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia crossed 9.39 million, with 76,446 new cases reported on Monday, lower than Sunday’s tally of 81,948. The region also saw 1,941 additional deaths, a decrease from Monday’s 2,549, taking total coronavirus deaths to 208,115.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered that the price of the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests should be cut to a range between 450,000 and 550,000 rupiah (THB1,037-1,268) from the previous maximum of 900,000 rupiah set by the Health Ministry.

The government decided to cut RT-PCR test prices following heated debates that the tests were considered too expensive.

Widodo also ordered that the results of the tests must be available within 24 hours as the country needs to speedily tackle the raging virus.

Meanwhile, the Philippines reported 18,332 new cases and 151 deaths on Monday, bringing cumulative cases in that country to 1,857,646 patients and a total 31,961 deaths so far.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the Public Health Ministry and the Fiscal Policy Office to immediately distribute allowances and “hazard” salaries to front-line medics after several doctors and nurses threatened to quit their jobs due to delayed payments.

Published : August 24, 2021

By : THE NATION

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Ardern defends elimination goal as New Zealand outbreak grows

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern defended her Covid-19 elimination strategy as she further extended a strict, nationwide lockdown to counter a worsening outbreak of the delta strain of the virus.

The entire country will remain at Level 4 restrictions, the highest level of lockdown, until midnight Aug. 27, Ardern told a news conference Monday in Wellington. That means the lockdown, initially put in place for three days, will now be in force for at least 10 days. Largest city Auckland, the epicenter of the outbreak, will remain at Level 4 for at least two weeks, until midnight Aug. 31.

“We do need more information, we need more certainty,” Ardern said. “We don’t want to take any risks with delta.”

The delta variant is testing New Zealand’s elimination strategy because it is so much more transmissible than the first iteration of the virus and has a shorter incubation period, giving contact tracers less time to find and isolate positive cases before they become infectious. In neighboring Australia, which is also struggling to contain a delta outbreak, Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to abandon his Covid-Zero strategy once 70% of the adult population is fully vaccinated.

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Ardern said her government still plans to “stamp out” the current outbreak, which on Monday grew by 35 cases to a total of 107.

“For now, the elimination strategy is the right thing for New Zealand,” she said. “We can only look at what’s best for us and we know an elimination strategy has worked for New Zealand before. Going into next year, let’s continue to get advice. We are constantly learning, constantly adapting.”

Sydney has now been in lockdown for two months and the city’s six million residents are wearying of it as authorities implement tougher stay-at-home restrictions in some areas, including nightly curfews. There were 818 new cases detected in New South Wales state on Monday.

Melbourne is in its sixth lockdown and today recorded 71 new cases.

New Zealand and Australia have both had slow vaccine rollouts, leaving them vulnerable to delta. According to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker, only 24% of all Australians and 20% of New Zealanders are fully vaccinated.

New Zealand has so far run a successful elimination strategy, defined as having zero tolerance for new cases. The South Pacific nation has recorded fewer than 2,700 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and just 26 deaths.

Ardern said early estimates suggest the transmission rate in the current outbreak — the number of people that each case infects on average — may be six or greater. It needs to be less than one to stamp the virus out, “so we have some way to go yet,” she said.

There were over 320 locations of interest and more than 13,000 contacts recorded. At this stage, cases have only been identified in Auckland and Wellington, but there are contacts all over the country, Ardern said.

Published : August 24, 2021

By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Matthew Brockett

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China starts probe into party boss of Alibaba home city

China is investigating Hangzhous top government official for serious disciplinary violations, casting a spotlight on the city that is home to Jack Mas Ant Group and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee Secretary Zhou Jiangyong, 53, has been placed under investigation for serious violations of party discipline and state law, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement Saturday. While the agency didn’t elaborate on Zhou’s suspected offenses, the party watchdog routinely uses such terminology to describe corruption probes.

Following the announcement of the probe into Zhou, Hangzhou’s Municipal Standing Committee on Saturday held a meeting affirming its commitment to anti-corruption and responsible governance. A separate CCDI statement said the city will undertake a campaign to root out inappropriate government-business ties.

Social media accounts wrote over the weekend that Zhou’s family bought up shares in a fintech company ahead of its initial public offering in November, before the listing plans were scrapped, according to an article from Chnfund that was published in the Paper, part of the state-backed Shanghai United Media Group. The postings, which didn’t name the company, have since been deleted, according to the article.

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Ant Group on Sunday denied that certain individuals purchased shares of the company ahead of its planned IPO last year, as “recent online rumors” had suggested. The firm didn’t elaborate on who it was referring to, adding that it had strictly adhered to all relevant laws and regulations through the listing process. Regulators called an abrupt halt to Ant’s record $35 billion IPO days before its debut last year, after its founder publicly criticized financial regulators.

Hangzhou has grown to become one of China’s most affluent cities, thanks in large part to Alibaba and its group of affiliates. The country’s top e-commerce operator contributes billions in local taxes and is one of the top employers in the city, located in eastern Zhejiang province. It has also drawn hundreds and thousands of vendors and merchants to the city, all seeking to do business with Ma’s sprawling internet empire.

That outsized influence in Hangzhou has fostered a strong relationship with the local government. In 2019, Ma was presented with a “Meritorious Hangzhou citizen” award by none other than Zhou, the local party boss, who feted the billionaire tycoon for his contributions to the city’s economic and social development, according to government statements at the time. Local media have also published photos of Zhou attending Alibaba’s annual Singles’ Day shopping festival in 2019.

China under Xi Jinping has stepped up a years-long campaign against graft — considered a major destabilizing force for the Party — that’s ensnared several high-profile officials from Chongqing to Shanxi. Business executives have also come under fire. Last year, Hu Xiaogang, a veteran executive of bad-debt company China Great Wall Asset Management, was placed under investigation. China Huarong Asset Management’s former chairman Lai Xiaomin was executed in January for crimes including bribery.

The investigation into Zhou comes after Zhejiang was recently named by the government as a pilot zone for Xi’s wealth redistribution efforts. The province, traditionally a crucible for fast-growth private enterprises, has announced plans to raise per-capita disposable income to $11,555 (75,000 yuan) by 2025, a 45% increase within five years. It also wants wages to account for more than half of its gross domestic product. Xi has in recent months emphasized rhetoric about “common prosperity” as he seeks to reduce poverty, putting the nation’s wealthiest citizens on notice.

Speculation about Ant’s involvement in the Zhou investigation adds to an already troubled year for Ma. After its IPO was scrapped in November, the group was ordered to restructure into a financial holding company that would entail more government supervision. Alibaba was also placed under an antitrust investigation and fined a record $2.8 billion for violations such as forced exclusivity arrangements.

Published : August 24, 2021

By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Shiyin Chen, Coco Liu

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Biden faces pressure to extend Afghanistan evacuation mission as Taliban warns against doing so

The United States faced mounting global pressure on Monday to extend its evacuation mission in Afghanistan past President Joe Bidens Aug. 31 deadline, despite a Taliban warning against doing so.

The admonition from Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, who cautioned that foreign forces would be subject to “consequences” should they remain in Kabul into September, came as the U.S. military accelerated flights out of the Afghan capital following a week of chaos and insecurity that thwarted attempts by thousands of foreigners and desperate Afghans to depart.

“If they extend it, that means they are extending occupation,” Shaheen told Sky News. “If they are intent on continuing the occupation, it will provoke a reaction.”

The remarks add a new element of risk to Biden’s effort to contain the fallout from the Taliban’s surprise takeover of Afghanistan just eight days ago, a turn that has ignited a public reckoning over the manner in which the president withdrew American forces.

The militants’ resistance to any prolonged foreign presence injected fresh uncertainty into international coordination efforts a day before Biden holds crisis talks with leaders from the Group of Seven industrial bloc. British officials have said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will use the emergency meeting to propose new sanctions on the Taliban and push Biden to extend the evacuation operation.

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Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters Monday that the United States could finish its evacuation of Americans by the current deadline, which Biden set this spring.

“As I’ve said before, as the president has said before, we believe that we have time between now and the 31st to get out any American who wants to get out,” he said. The administration does not know exactly how many Americans are in the country nor how many want to leave, officials have said.

Sullivan declined to say what Biden will tell Johnson on Tuesday about extending the deadline.

Ben Wallace, Johnson’s defense minister, has said that Britain, like other nations reliant on U.S. air and manpower in Afghanistan, will be forced to end its own evacuation effort when the United States departs. “It’s really important for people to understand the United States have over 6,000 people in Kabul airport, and when they withdraw that will take away the framework . . . and we will have to go as well,” Wallace said.

France is also appealing for additional time. On Monday, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he was concerned by the timeline. President Emmanuel Macron, in a call with Biden on Friday, stressed a “collective moral responsibility” to vulnerable Afghans. “We cannot abandon them,” he said, according to the French Embassy.

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While Biden has resisted committing to changing his departure deadline, his aides are increasingly preparing for such a step. Officials said Monday that an extension, if authorized, would probably have a narrow focus on evacuating remaining Americans, not the much larger group of Afghans who want to escape.

One official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal planning, said any extension would be brief and likely to end before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Hanging over the deliberations is the possibility that the Taliban, newly emboldened as it takes charge of the Afghan state, would respond to a continued foreign footprint by not only suspending its cooperation with the evacuation operation but also targeting foreign troops at the airport.

Sullivan said the administration is in daily communication with Taliban officials but declined to say what their private message had been regarding the possibility of a prolonged U.S. presence, however short. “We are taking this day by day,” Sullivan said. “We’re going to keep making progress, and the president will ultimately make his decision about the precise shape and scope of the operation.”

The situation in Afghanistan has led to strains with European allies at a time when the Biden administration hoped to repair relations that it said were damaged under President Donald Trump. Some NATO officials, now scrambling to get their own staff and local employees to safety, have complained that they weren’t properly consulted before Biden’s decision.

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Discussions about an extended mission are occurring as the pace of evacuations finally gains speed. On Monday, officials said the military had evacuated nearly 11,000 people over the previous 24 hours, a major increase from previous days, when problems with airport access, passenger processing and security threats slowed or sometimes halted airlift operations.

It was the first time the military has met – and in fact exceeded – its goal of 5,000 to 9,000 evacuations daily. While most of those airlifted are being processed at military bases in the Persian Gulf countries or in Europe, at least several planeloads of Afghans have already landed in the United States. Diplomats are also making arrangements with countries from Europe to South America to take in Afghan refugees at least temporarily.

Even as flights ramped up, conditions remained trying for Afghans attempting to reach the relative safety of Hamid Karzai International Airport, where U.S. troops are now stationed along with forces from Turkey, Britain, France and other nations.

A U.S. official familiar with conditions on the ground said entry points to the airport remained closed Monday to most, if not all, Afghans who worked for the United States and are seeking refugee status under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. Some members of Afghanistan’s military are now attempting to flee as evacuees as well, the official said.

Communication problems have further hampered the effort. Phone reception at the airport is poor as thousands of Afghans crowd in, overwhelming cell towers.

Even as officials work to standardize the entry process, individuals with knowledge of the conditions said that procedures for admitting people from the crowds at the gates remain inconsistent. Some interpreters or former Afghan troops continue to say they got in only because former colleagues inside the perimeter recognized them, not through any fixed procedure.

“Happenstance and luck is not a way to plan for an airlift,” said Jack McCain, a former adviser to the Afghan Air Force. “It’s a sea of crushing humanity with no rhyme or reason.”

The Pentagon said U.S. troops had made multiple sorties beyond the airport to reach stranded Americans. Speaking to reporters Monday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that a second group of Americans had been airlifted into the airport, following another operation last week, and that rescue sorties were being employed “as needed” to bring more inside the perimeter.

“I don’t want to leave you with the idea that we’re patrolling the streets of Kabul,” Kirby cautioned, as he said that the military was using “a variety of methods” to extract Americans from the city.

The presence around the airport of Taliban foot soldiers, who have in some cases beaten or threatened Afghans attempting to gain entry, has deterred others from attempting to escape, according to the accounts of Afghans. While the Taliban has promised “amnesty” for Afghans linked to foreign nations, reports have intensified of militants searching for or arresting them.

In addition to a firefight that occurred at the airport Monday, it appeared that the Taliban shot and killed several SIV applicants nearby and were collecting information from Afghans in the crowd, an official familiar with conditions on the ground said.

“What’s that saying? ‘The fox in the hen house?’ ” the official said.

The official acknowledged that the increased number of people flying out had helped but still considered progress fragile.

“Every day is a new, terrible adventure,” the official said.

Published : August 24, 2021

By : The Washington Post · Missy Ryan, Anne Gearan, Karoun Demirjian, Dan Lamothe

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Tokyo covid playbook offers a lesson for Beijing 2022 Olympics

Covid cases soared in Japan as it hosted the Tokyo Olympics in July and August, raising the obvious question: Was the global event, which brought thousands of athletes and other people to the city, responsible?

There’s still more research to be done, but early indications suggest the Olympic influx had little direct impact on infections in Japan. Participants were tested on arrival and daily thereafter. They were banned from shopping, sightseeing and public transport and encouraged to leave promptly after their events. In the end, games organizers reported a 0.03% positivity rate from their testing, far lower than the current average of 23.6% in Tokyo as a whole.

The containment measures employed by event, delayed by a year and held in largely empty venues as a safety precaution, became a model for the Paralympics, which start this week. It also sets a precedent for the 2022 Beijing Olympics, which begin in six months.

“As scientists, we haven’t actually gathered statistics, but what’s clear to me is that the infections at the marathon, at the stadium, at the venues — there were some — are not related to the current surge in cases,” Shigeru Omi, head of the Japanese government’s virus advisory panel, told reporters Aug. 12.

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In the end, the bubble may have actually protected Olympians from the highly contagious delta variant spreading in Tokyo. Even though the city was under a state of emergency during the games, analysis of GPS data from X-Locations Inc. found that the levels of activity in some of the most popular shopping and entertainment districts was little changed from the same time period in 2020, when Japan wasn’t under a state of emergency.

That’s a sign that the state of emergency didn’t have the desired effect, though activity levels did drop during the games compared with the period immediately before. Staging the games in Tokyo may have diluted the “stay at home” message and prompted people to drop their guards, potentially contributing to the spread among the population.

“The government canceled the Olympics last summer because it was not safe,” said Holley Wilkin, an associate professor of health communication at Georgia State University. “By holding them this summer they are sending a message that it is safe now. This could have influenced beliefs about the seriousness and threat of covid-19,” she added.

That muddled message came just as the highly infectious delta variant that’s propelling the current surge around the world began to take hold in Japan. At the same time, local and national government resources were focused on the Olympics and containing the perceived threat of international arrivals.

“When it comes to the movement of people, there’s a debate about whether the staging of the Olympics affected people’s perceptions,” government adviser Omi said. “We think it did.”

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Many businesses continue to flout the rules of Japan’s current state of emergency, which essentially obliges bars and restaurants in Tokyo and some other areas to stop serving alcohol, and to close by 8 p.m. Without binding restrictions on individuals’ behavior, government coaxing has become less and less effective at persuading people to stay home.

Though the situation may be very different by the time the Olympics open in Beijing, the early data seem to validate Japan’s decision to ban spectators from the event. Whether for sports, concerts or anything else, mass gatherings are known to stoke viral spread. Earlier this year, a public health leader at the World Health Organization criticized the Union of European Football Associations for allowing spectators at the European Championship, culminating with a final in a packed Wembley stadium.

Beijing organizers haven’t made a decision on spectators. Tickets haven’t gone on sale yet. That’s prudent, said S.V. Mahadevan, director of South Asia Outreach at the Center for Asian Health Research and Education at Stanford University Medical Center.

“It’s too hard to know what is going to happen in six months,” he said. “Whether the virus will continue to mutate and cause additional waves or if it’s something where we finally achieve herd immunity because delta is so ubiquitous and it has infected everyone.”

It’s also possible the Olympics may have had a palliative effect in Japan, offering a much-needed dose of excitement for a pandemic-weary public, according to Nobuhiko Okabe, who heads a health research center in Kawasaki and acted as a pandemic adviser to the Tokyo Olympics organizers.

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“I’m not saying it deserves a gold medal, but I think it creates a reference point for the future,” he said. “I think we can call that a kind of success.”

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised Japan and the IOC for doing their best to minimize the dangers. “Nobody should expect zero risk,” he said last month. “There will always be a risk and there is no zero risk in life.”

Published : August 24, 2021

By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Isabel Reynolds, Michelle Fay Cortez, Grace Huang