Six In The Morning Tuesday 31 August 2021

 

UK and US took ‘joint decision’ to keep Kabul airport gate open

British sources dispute claim US forces kept gate ‘open longer than they wanted to’ before deadly attack last week

Dan Sabbagh and Patrick Wintour

Tue 31 Aug 2021 13.17 BST

The UK and the US took a “joint decision” to keep Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate open last Thursday, British sources have said, despite what turned out to be a prophetic warning that a terror attack by Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) on western soldiers and gathering crowds was imminent.

The fresh briefing comes in the aftermath of an unusually detailed leak of the run-up to Thursday’s deadly bombings, which had claimed that the Americans had kept the gate “open longer than they wanted to” so the UK could finish its evacuation from Afghanistan.

British defence sources in effect disputed the leaked account, arguing in a fresh briefing that both countries’ militaries had agreed to keep the Abbey Gate open, in what was described by the UK as a “joint decision” despite the acknowledged risk.

EU says 70% of its citizens are now fully vaccinated

Countries in the EU are battling a surge in Covid-19 cases driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

The EU has fully vaccinated 70 per cent of its adult population against Covid-19, the 27-member bloc’s president Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday.

The EU had set the target to vaccinate 70 per cent of its population by the “end of the summer”, first implied to be at the end of September. Although the EU’s vaccination drive began at a slower pace due to lack of supply, the bloc said in July that 70 per cent of its citizens had received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine.

In a video message shared on social media, Ms Von der Leyen said that “today we reached an important milestone in our vaccination campaign”.

Philippines: Nurses threaten mass resignation amid COVID surge

Saying they are overworked and underpaid, health care workers across the Philippines are threatening to walk off the job unless they receive benefits promised by the government.

The Philippines is currently experiencing record-high COVID caseloads driven by the highly transmissible delta variant. As hospitals fill up, overworked nurses have staged protests and are threatening mass resignations if government benefits are not paid by September 1.

At the start of the pandemic last year, the Philippines' government set aside special risk allowances for health care workers, which included hazard pay and money for accommodation and transportation.

Wildfire prompts evacuation of South Lake Tahoe, a popular tourist destination

A popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists was clogged with fleeing vehicles Monday after the entire resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to leave as a ferocious wildfire raced toward Lake Tahoe, a sparkling gem on the California-Nevada border.

Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were stuck in gridlock traffic in the city of 22,000, stalled in hazy, brown air that smelled like a campfire. Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by. 

Ken Breslin was in bumper-to-bumper traffic less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from his home, with only a quarter-tank of gas in his Ford Escape. His son begged him to leave Sunday night, but he shrugged him off, certain that if an evacuation order came, it would be later in the week.

South African researchers keep wary eye on yet another new coronavirus variant

By Maggie Fox, CNN

Updated 1108 GMT (1908 HKT) August 31, 2021

Genetics researchers who have been watching for new coronavirus variants say they've seen a troubling new lineage that carries many of the same hallmarks as other strains, including Alpha, Beta and Gamma.

The variant they are watching, called C.1.2, has popped up across South Africa as well as in seven other countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, the researchers report. They're not sure whether its constellation of mutations will make it more dangerous, but it carries changes that have given other variants increased transmissibility and the ability to evade the immune system's response to some degree.

Having more mutations does not necessarily equal more danger -- some mutations can weaken a virus and it's the combination of changes that affects whether a virus becomes more efficient. One extra mutation could cancel out the effects of another.

Fox News accused of stoking violence after Tucker Carlson ‘revolt’ prediction

Martin Pengelly in New York

Tue, August 31, 2021, 7:45 AM

Fox News is driving political violence in the US, a media watchdog warned, after the primetime host Tucker Carlson predicted “revolt” against the Biden administration.

In a Monday night monologue targeting the White House and military leaders over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Carlson demanded resignations. He also said: “When leaders refuse to hold themselves accountable over time, people revolt. That happens.

“We need to change course immediately and start acknowledging our mistakes. The people who made them need to start acknowledging them or else the consequences will be awful.”