The Taliban are due to form a government within days despite fighting in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley where forces battling the hardline Islamists say they are enduring "heavy" assaults ... Taliban and resistance tweets suggested the key district of Paryan had been taken and lost again, but that could also not be independently verified. Analysis ... ....
NAIROBI (Reuters) – A de facto blockade on aid to the Tigray region in Ethiopia’s north is bringing millions of people to the brink of famine, the United Nations humanitarian agency said on Thursday, warning of “looming catastrophe”. The U.N ... Those include 400,000 people who are already facing famine conditions, it said ... 22 ... .
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO’s secretary general called on Russia on Friday to be open about its “Zapad-2021” military exercises and the troop numbers involved as alarm grows in Poland, the Baltics and Ukraine about Moscow’s intentions ... The main phase of the exercises is due to start on Sept. 10 ... .
With Chad's withdrawal of troops and the imminent reduction in French troop strength across from the vast Sahel region of West Africa - where jihadist groups continue to stage attack after attack, targeting civilians and soldiers without discrimination - new anti-terror tactics are afoot ... Motorbikes massacres ... Recent attacks have been typical ... .
Chris Megerian. WASHINGTON – Even as PresidentJoe Biden assured Americans that he was ending the war in Afghanistan, he directed a very different message to Islamic State terrorists who had killed U.S. service members in a suicide bombing there. “We are not done with you yet,” he said ... forces from Afghanistan after two decades ... “It just has. Period.”.
Hurricane Ida’s remnants, which killed dozens of people and triggered flash floods across the tri-state area, marked the latest extreme weather event in a summer filled with climate-related disasters ... “We are moving into uncharted territory with climate change,” said Cobb, director of the global change program at Georgia Tech ... Gov ... NY Gov ... .
“This is surreal,” Monica Lewinsky keeps saying. She is trying to make her way to her seat in a crowded room where everyone wants her attention. It is a hot summer night in New York, in a blip of a pandemic reprieve before the Delta variant hits, and the city’s vaccinated elite are practically vibrating with energy ... Monica Lewinsky. Photograph ... Related.
Swedish supergroup ABBA announced their first new album in four decades on Thursday and said they would stage a series of virtual concerts using digital avatars of themselves in London next year. Fans piled online to celebrate the long-awaited reunion of one of the world's most successful bands ... The album "Voyage" will come out on Nov ... "ABBATARS" ... .
US PresidentJoe Biden says "historic investment" is needed to deal with the climate crisis, as the north-east reels from flash flooding and tornadoes that have killed at least 45 people. The US is facing climate-related destruction across the country and tackling it is "a matter of life and death", the president said ... 'Niagara Falls level of water'.
PresidentJoe Biden returned to a familiar role as comforter-in-chief on Friday as he visited Louisiana to witness the damage wreaked by Hurricane Ida. The category four storm made landfall on Sunday close to New Orleans with winds of up to 150mph and several feet of storm surge ... Decades-old city drainage systems failed under the deluge.
Israeli missile strikes hit military positions used by pro-Iran groups near the Syrian capital Damascus overnight, a war monitor said Friday ... The official SANA news agency said Syrian air defences shot down most of the missiles ... AFP reporters heard loud explosions in the Syrian capital ... ....