Six In The Morning Sunday 22 August 2021

 

Taliban seek to assert control around Kabul airport as death toll rises to 20

With airfield surrounded by militants and a perceived new Isis threat, US planes now perform combat landings

Peter Beaumont and agencies

Sun 22 Aug 2021 12.49 BST

The Taliban have been attempting to demonstrate they control the areas around the chaotic Kabul airport, where Nato said 20 people died in the past week.

As witnesses reported on Sunday that Taliban fighters were firing into the air and using batons to force people to form orderly queues outside the main gates and not gather at the perimeter, the militant group that retook the Afghan capital last week after 20 years said it was seeking “complete clarity” on the evacuation plan being led by foreign forces.

It was not clear, however, whether the Taliban’s increasingly organised presence around the airport would also result in it controlling who is able to enter the airport and leave the country as the group’s spokesmen used the situation at the airport to criticise the US.

‘They’re trying to stigmatise us like a rash’: Russian independent TV boss rails against Kremlin crackdown

The Kremlin has continued its attacks on the media by designating Russia’s only independent network a “foreign agent”. Its editor-in-chief Tikhon Dzyadko says the aim is to “muzzle any semblance of free thought

Oliver Carroll@olliecarroll

For a man whose day job is to fill silences, Tikhon Dzyadko is struggling to find words to express what he’s feeling.

The editor-in-chief and anchor of Russia’s only independent TV channel has spent most of the last 24 hours agonising over what a new “foreign agent” designation means for him and his 160 staff. Only after a long pause, he says he’s “angry” and “bewildered” at the unfairness of the Kremlin’s ruling – but admits he could have expected nothing else.

“We knew the country we were living in,” he says. “But we had to push the prospect of an attack to the back of our minds. There was no way of working otherwise.”

A Trillion Dollar IllusionThe Entirely Predictable Failure of the West's Mission in Afghanistan

In early July, I met with a leading Taliban military commander. I asked when his fighters would arrive in Kabul. His answer: "They are already there." How the Afghanistan mission failed and what happens next.

By Christoph Reuter

In early July, before the great storm broke over Afghanistan, Kabul was already surrounded by the Taliban. And nowhere were the Islamist fighters closer to the Afghan capital city than on the shores of the Qargha Reservoir, a popular getaway on the western edge of the city. People were saying that the Taliban had gathered in the villages behind the nearby hills. The last frontline, it was said, was on the shore of the reservoir at the amusement park.

During the day, families were still taking their children to the rides and the restaurants or going out on the water in swan-shaped paddle boats. A small, six-member special forces unit even enjoyed a picnic in a wooden pavilion on the shore. One of them had to stand guard at the gun turret of their armored Humvee as the rest smoked hookahs and drank colorful sodas.

Dozens hurt as Israel raids Gaza, fires at Palestinian protesters

Two Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy shot in the head by Israeli forces, are in a critical condition.

The Israeli military launched air raids on Gaza following clashes between its soldiers and Palestinian protesters during a demonstration to commemorate the burning of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque 52 years ago.

In a statement late on Saturday, the Israeli military said it struck four weapons manufacturing and storage sites in Gaza belonging to Hamas, the group that governs the besieged Palestinian enclave. Eleven Palestinians were reportedly wounded.

The raids came hours after Israeli soldiers opened fire on crowds of young Palestinians protesting at the fence separating Gaza and Israel.

The Middle East is running out of water, and parts of it are becoming uninhabitable

By Frederik Pleitgen, Claudia Otto, Angela Dewan and Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN

Updated 0408 GMT (1208 HKT) August 22, 2021

The ferries that once shuttled tourists to and from the little islets in Iran's Lake Urmia sit rusty, unable to move, on what is rapidly becoming a salt plain. Just two decades ago, Urmia was the Middle East's biggest lake, its local economy a thriving tourist center of hotels and restaurants.

"People would come here for swimming and would use the mud for therapeutic purposes. They would stay here at least for a few days," said Ahad Ahmed, a journalist in the former port town of Sharafkhaneh as he showed CNN photos of people enjoying the lake in 1995.

Covid: New Zealand pandemic strategy in doubt amid Delta spread

The arrival of the highly infectious Delta variant "does raise some big questions" about New Zealand's pandemic response, a minister has said.

Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said the variant "changes the game considerably" and makes existing protections "look less adequate".

It comes as the country announced a further 21 confirmed cases in the latest outbreak of the virus.

New Zealand had quashed earlier Covid outbreaks with rapid, strict lockdowns.