Six In The Morning Friday 20 August 2021

 

Afghanistan reports of torture and killing contradict Taliban’s promises

Fighters tortured Hazara men to death, say witnesses, and relative of journalist killed

Peter Beaumont and Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Fri 20 Aug 2021 14.51 BST

Evidence of Taliban killings, detentions and intimidation is emerging across Afghanistan ominously contradicting the hardline Islamist group’s promise earlier this week not to take revenge against its opponents.

With reports of the Taliban going door to door searching for those who worked with the former Afghan government or western countries, claims have also emerged of Taliban fighters torturing and killing members of an ethnic minority in Afghanistan after overrunning their village last month.

Amnesty International said its researchers had spoken to witnesses in Ghazni province who recounted how the Taliban killed nine Hazara men in the village of Mundarakht between the 4 and 6 of July. It said six of the men were shot, and three were tortured to death.

Seven Russians sanctioned by UK over Alexei Navalny poisoning

The Kremlin’s foremost critic victim of suspected attack using nerve agent Novichok

Daniel Keane

Seven Russian nationals have been sanctioned by the British government following the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.

The Kremlin's foremost domestic critic fell ill on a flight to Moscow last year and was subsequently found to have been poisoned with what experts concluded was the nerve agent Novichok.

Mr Navalny was arrested on January 17 after returning from Germany, where he spent months recovering from the attack. The 45-year-old is currently in prison in Russia on charges of embezzlement.

Youth at ‘extremely high risk’ from global warming, UN says, on anniversary of Thunberg-led strikes

Nearly half the world’s children are at “extremely high risk” from the effects of global warming, a new UN report has found, which was launched to coincide with the third anniversary of activist Greta Thunberg’s first climate school strike.

In the first index of its kind to assess the risk of climate change for children, the August 20 report by the UN children’s agency UNICEF found that almost all the world’s 2.2 billion children are exposed to at least one climate or environmental risk – from floods, drought, heatwaves and air pollution – but nearly half of these children live in 33 countries facing multiple environmental shocks. These countries include much of sub-Saharan Africa, India, Nigeria and the Philippines and are among the world’s lowest carbon emitters, but extreme weather coupled with existing inequities made children there more vulnerable.

The report used high-resolution maps showing changes to the climate overlaid with maps showing factors contributing to child vulnerability such as poverty and access to education, healthcare, food and clean water.

4,000 Gaza students displaced after Israel attacks

After being hit by Israeli air strikes, two UN schools had to relocate thousands of students to other facilities.

By Fernanda Seavon

20 Aug 2021

While children around the world check their school supplies list and prepare to attend classes, 4,000 Palestinian students are caught up in uncertainty.

They do not know when – or if – they will be able to return to their familiar hallways and classrooms.

Despite their worries, like all pupils in Gaza, they began the academic year on August 16. However, classes took place in different schools, as their original educational facilities remain under investigation.

China insists its zero-Covid strategy is correct. Challenging it can be dangerous

By Nectar Gan and Steve George, CNN

Updated 0644 GMT (1444 HKT) August 20, 2021

As the highly infectious Delta variant took hold in China last month, Zhang Wenhong, a well-respected infectious disease expert in Shanghai, told a concerned Chinese public to prepare to live with the coronavirus for the long haul — but his candor came at a price.

For more than a year, China had largely kept the virus at bay by tightly sealing its borders and swiftly taming local flare-ups with zero tolerance for infections. But despite stringent measures, a dozen cases of the Delta variant were detected among cleaning staff at one of the country's busiest airports. The variant soon spread to more than half of China's 31 provinces, resulting in excess of 1,000 infections in less than three weeks.

The rapid spread of Delta coincided with efforts to ramp up vaccinations. To date, 1.9 billion doses of domestic vaccines have been administered in China, according to the National Health Commission (NHC).

Family of American taken by Taliban beg for return

By Bernd Debusmann Jr
BBC News

Charlene Cakora spent a frantic week in Washington DC trying to convey a message to President Joe Biden: rescue her brother from Taliban captivity.

Mrs Cakora's brother, Mark Frerichs, was kidnapped by the group over a year ago. He is one of two remaining Americans thought to have been kidnapped by the Taliban during the US war in Afghanistan who is still unaccounted for.

Amid the Afghan government's collapse, the fall of Kabul and chaotic scenes of thousands scrambling to flee the country being broadcast around the globe, his family said they were increasingly desperate for his return, and frustrated by the lack of progress from the government.