Six In The Morning Saturday 28 August 2021

 

Afghanistan live news: last dedicated civilian flight to UK has left Kabul, says Ministry of Defence

Final UK evacuation flight purely for Afghan nationals has departed; US drone strike killed Islamic State member, no civilians

• Afghanistan drone strike targeted Islamic State ‘planner’ in car, US says
• UK councils ‘ready to assist’ Afghan refugees but lack housing
• Fear and fury in Kabul as thousands face being abandoned by UK
• Ending evacuation is ‘heartbreaking’, UK armed forces chief says
• Twelve days of chaos in Kabul – in pictures
• See all our Afghanistan coverage

US has helped evacuate 117,000 from Afghanistan

The Pentagon said the US has helped a total of 117,000 people evacuate from Afghanistan, including 6,800 in the past 24 hours.

Maj Gen Taylor also insisted the US remains in control of the airport in Kabul despite the Taliban suggesting otherwise.

He said: “We’re going to continue to run the airport until the end … to make sure that we can execute our operations.”

Republican election audits have led to voting system breaches, experts say

MyPillow chief gave out election software at South Dakota event derived from Republican challenges in Colorado and Michigan

Associated Press in New York

Sat 28 Aug 2021 14.47 BST

Republican efforts to question Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020 have led to voting system breaches experts say pose a risk to future elections.

Copies of Dominion Voting Systems softwares used for designing ballots, configuring voting machines and tallying results were distributed at an event this month in South Dakota organized by the MyPillow chief executive, Mike Lindell, a Trump ally who has made unsubstantiated claims about last year’s election.

Matt Masterson, a former top election security official in the Trump administration, said: “We told election officials, essentially, that you should assume this information is already out there. Now we know it is, and we don’t know what [hackers] are going to do with it.”

Young, Jewish and on the move in Germany

What does it mean to live in Germany today as a descendent of Holocaust survivors? Deborah Feldman, author of "Unorthodox," and others shared their opinions in a DW panel.

They're Jewish, live in Germany and are part of the "Third Generation," the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors: Soprano Shai Terry, writer and feminist Laura Cazes, writer Dmitrij Kapitelman and Deborah Feldman, author of the global bestseller Unorthodox. The memoir tells the story of her upbringing in an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community in New York City. Feldman became known to millions around the world after her book was made into an Emmy Award-winning Netflix series of the same name.

The four cultural figures were panelists in the DW discussion "Jewish Life in Germany. The Third Generation on the Move." The event, which took place at the Jewish Museum Berlin, was part of a year-long program celebrating 1,700 years of Jewish life in Germany. But rather than revolving around the past, the anniversary seeks to focus on the future of Judaism and the questions surrounding it.

Biden says China withholding 'critical information' about origins of pandemic

US President Joe Biden said Friday that China was still withholding "critical information" on the origins of Covid-19 as the US intelligence community said it did not believe the virus was a bioweapon – but remained split on whether it escaped from a lab.

"Critical information about the origins of this pandemic exists in the People's Republic of China, yet from the beginning, government officials in China have worked to prevent international investigators and members of the global public health community from accessing it," Biden said in a statement. 

"To this day, the PRC continues to reject calls for transparency and withhold information, even as the toll of this pandemic continues to rise," he added.

Delta outbreak tests New Zealand's zero Covid strategy -- but lockdown has broad support at home

By Julia Hollingsworth, CNN

Updated 0023 GMT (0823 HKT) August 28, 2021

When New Zealand went into lockdown last week over a single Delta case, critics were quick to mock the country's risk-averse approach.

British newspapers didn't hold back. The Times called New Zealand a "mysterious socialist hermit nation" where the public "languish in a Covid prison," while The Telegraph slammed a once-welcoming country that had turned into an "isolated dystopia."

The reaction to New Zealand's approach speaks to a divide on how countries across the world are handling Covid. More than 18 months into the pandemic, some countries, including the United Kingdom, have accepted they may never eliminate the virus -- so instead, they're learning to live with it.

Palestinian boy dies after being shot by Israeli forces in Gaza

Hassan Abu al-Neil, 12, dies of wounds a week after he was shot by Israeli forces during protests at the Gaza border.

A 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot in the head by Israeli forces during a demonstration at the Gaza-Israel border last week has died of his wounds, Gaza health officials said.

Hassan Abu al-Neil, who died on Saturday, was shot on August 21 during the demonstration organised by Gaza’s Hamas rulers to mark the 52nd anniversary of the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem and to protest against the crippling blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt.

The firing by Israeli forces injured at least 41 Palestinians during the protests.