Afghanistan crisis: Taliban kill civilians in resistance stronghold
The BBC has found that at least 20 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, which has seen fighting between the Taliban and opposition forces. Communications have been cut in the valley, making reporting difficult, but the BBC has evidence of Taliban killings despite promises of restraint.
Footage from a dusty roadside in Panjshir shows a man wearing military gear surrounded by Taliban fighters. Gunfire rings out and he slumps to the ground.
It is not clear if the man killed was an army member - combat uniforms are common in the region. In the video a bystander insisted he was a civilian.
The BBC has established there have been at least 20 such deaths in Panjshir.
Taliban assure UN over safety and security of humanitarian workers
Written assurances also say aid agencies will be able to operate independently of government and will be free to employ women
The Taliban have given the UN written assurances on the safe passage and freedom of movement for humanitarian workers operating in Afghanistan, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, has told a UN fundraising conference in Geneva.
Reading extracts from the Taliban undertakings, Griffiths said he had also received the assurances that aid agencies would be able to operate independently of the government, and would be free to employ women.
The assurances were given by the Afghan deputy prime minister, Mullah Baradar, and follow talks Griffiths held with the Taliban leadership last week in Kabul.
‘We don’t believe western promises’: Kiev’s foreign minister says Ukraine needs to militarise to survive
Oliver Carroll talks to Dmytro Kuleba in Kiev
Smooth-talking Dmytro Kuleba is too much of a diplomat to admit he’s angry with the west.
One way or another, he’s been a front-row witness to some infuriating letdowns: a foreign ministry envoy when Europe issued meek statements of “concern” as Russia annexed Crimea and fanned conflict in the Donbas; deputy prime minister during “Ukrainegate”, when his country was weaponised by Donald Trump; and Ukraine’s youngest ever foreign minister, now fighting an increasingly rearguard battle to maintain international pressure on Moscow.
“This country has learnt a number of bitter lessons that western promises are likely unfulfilled,” he says. “We do not believe in promises.”
N. Korea says it test-fired new long-range missile, US warns of ‘threat’ to allies
North Korea test-fired a new “long-range cruise missile” over the weekend, state media reported Monday, with the United States saying the nuclear-armed country was threatening its neighbours and beyond.
Pictures in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed a missile exiting one of five tubes on a launch vehicle in a ball of flame, and a missile in horizontal flight.
Such a weapon would represent a marked advance in North Korea’s weapons technology, analysts said, better able to avoid defence systems to deliver a warhead across the South or Japan – both of them US allies.
SPY IN DISGUISE
An FBI Informant’s Unlikely Role in Upcoming Supreme Court Case on Surveillance of Muslims
CRAIG MONTEILH WAS no stranger to federal agents. A hulking man who’d spent much of his teenage and adult years as an amateur bodybuilder, Monteilh had once made a living ripping off drug dealers. One time, in 1986, the deal went bad, and Monteilh found himself sitting across the table from agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration. They gave him two options: Go to prison, or become an informant.
Monteilh chose the latter, launching a career as a professional snitch that lasted more than two decades. Because of his ethnically ambiguous appearance, Monteilh was a versatile informant for both the DEA and the FBI — going into cases with covers ranging from a white supremacist to a Russian hit man to a Sicilian drug trafficker.
Japan seeing more 'breakthrough' COVID cases involving the double-vaccinated
Amid the advancement of Japan's coronavirus vaccinations, more and more reports are emerging of "breakthrough" infections in which people who have received both shots are developing COVID-19.
One such man in the southwestern Japan city of Fukuoka who was infected in August and stayed at a recovery accommodation facility told the Mainichi Shimbun: "I took care even after the second shot. I really didn't think that I would get infected."
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