China will now allow couples to legally have a third child as it seeks to hold off a demographic crisis that could threaten its hopes of increased prosperity and global influence.

The ceremonial legislature on Friday amended the Population and Family Planning Law as part of a decades-long effort by the ruling Communist Party to dictate the size of families in keeping with political directives. It comes just six years after the last change.

From the 1980s, China strictly limited most couples to one child, a policy enforced with threats of fines or loss of jobs, leading to abuses including forced abortions. A preference for sons led parents to kill baby girls, leading to a massive imbalance in the sex ratio.

The rules were eased for the first time in 2015 to allow two children as officials acknowledged the looming consequences of the plummeting birthrate. The overwhelming fear is that China will grow old before it becomes wealthy.

China long touted its one-child policy as a success in preventing 400 million additional births in the world’s most populous country, thus saving resources and helping drive economic growth.

However, China’s birth rate, paralleling trends in South Korea, Thailand and other Asian economies, already was falling before the one-child rule. The average number of children per mother tumbled from above six in the 1960s to below three by 1980, according to the World Bank.

Meanwhile, the number of working-age people in China has fallen over the past decade and the population has barely grown, adding to strains in an aging society. A once-a-decade government census found the population rose to 1.411 billion people last year, up 72 million from 2010.

Statistics show 12 million babies were born last year, which would be down 18% from 2019’s 14.6 million.

Chinese over 60, who number 264 million, accounted for 18.7% of the country’s total population in 2020, 5.44 percentage points higher than in 2010. At the same time, the working-age population fell to 63.3% of the total from 70.1% a decade ago.

The shift to the two-child rule led to a temporary bump in the numbers of births but its effects soon wore off and total births continued to fall because many women continued to decide against starting families.

Japan, Germany and some other wealthy countries face the same challenge of having fewer workers to support aging populations. However, they can draw on investments in factories, technology and foreign assets, while China is a middle-income country with labor-intensive farming and manufacturing.

At its session Friday, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress canceled the leveling of fines for breaking the earlier restrictions and called for additional parental leave and childcare resources. New measures in finance, taxation, schooling, housing and employment should be introduced “to ease the burden on families,” the amendment said.

It also seeks to address longstanding discrimination against pregnant women and new mothers in the workplace that is considered one of the chief disincentives to having additional children, along with high costs and cramped housing.

hile female representation in the labor force is high, women, especially those with children, are severely underrepresented at the higher levels, holding just 8.4% of leadership positions at the central and provincial levels. Among the young party leaders who will take the reins in the coming decades, only 11% are women.

(AP)

The Pentagon’s top general defended on Wednesday the US military’s response to the Taliban’s breakneck seizure of power in Afghanistan, saying no one foresaw the collapse of US-trained Afghan forces that fast.

“There was nothing that I, or anyone else, saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days,” US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley said.

“The Afghan security forces had the capacity, and by that I mean they had the training, the size, the capability, to defend their country. This comes down to an issue of will and leadership,” he added.

The US military and the administration of President Joe Biden are under political attack domestically over the Taliban’s defeat of the Afghan forces with little fight and the collapse of president Ashraf Ghani’s US-backed government last weekend.

The speed appeared to catch the US government off guard and it launched a rapid evacuation operation for US citizens and Afghans granted special visas for their work for US forces.

Since Saturday, around 5,000 US troops have flown in to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport to manage evacuations of thousands.

Critics have faulted the State Department, US intelligence and the Pentagon for not anticipating the debacle and preparing earlier for the evacuation, which involves more than 10,000 US citizens.

Douglas London, the CIA’s former counterterrorism chief for South Asia and then an advisor to Biden’s presidential campaign, said US intelligence had predicted the Taliban would defeat Afghan forces and that it was possible the government would capitulate within days.

Those projections were “highlighted to Trump officials and future Biden officials alike,” in the last year, London wrote Wednesday on the Just Security website.

Source: AFP

Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned over a barrage of sexual harassment allegations Tuesday in a fall from grace a year after he was widely hailed nationally for his detailed daily briefings and leadership during the darkest days of COVID-19.

The three-term governor’s decision, which will take effect in two weeks, was announced as momentum built in the Legislature to remove him by impeachment. It came after New York’s attorney general released the results of an investigation that found Cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women.

Investigators said he subjected women to unwanted kisses; groped their breasts or buttocks or otherwise touched them inappropriately; made insinuating remarks about their looks and their sex lives; and created a work environment “rife with fear and intimidation.”

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a 62-year-old Democrat and former member of Congress from the Buffalo area, will become the state’s 57th governor and the first woman to hold the post.

The #MeToo-era scandal cut short not just a career but a dynasty: Cuomo’s father, Mario Cuomo, was governor in the 1980s and ’90s, and the younger Cuomo was often mentioned as a potential candidate for president, an office his father famously contemplated seeking. Even as the scandal mushroomed, Cuomo was planning to run for reelection in 2022.

Cuomo still faces the possibility of criminal charges, with a number of prosecutors around the state moving to investigate him.

The string of accusations that spelled the governor’s downfall began to unfold in news reports last December and went on for months.

Cuomo called some of the allegations fabricated, forcefully denying he touched anyone inappropriately. But he acknowledged making some aides uncomfortable with comments he said he intended as playful, and he apologized for some of his behavior.

He portrayed some of the encounters as misunderstandings attributable to “generational or cultural” differences, a reference in part to his upbringing in an affectionate Italian American family.

As a defiant Cuomo clung to office, state lawmakers launched an impeachment investigation, and nearly the entire Democratic establishment in New York deserted him — not only over the accusations, but also because of the discovery that his administration had concealed thousands of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home patients.

The harassment investigation ordered up by the attorney general and conducted by two outside lawyers corroborated the women’s accounts and added lurid new ones. The release of the report left the governor more isolated than ever, with some of his most loyal supporters abandoning him and President Joe Biden joining those calling on him to resign.

His accusers included an aide who said Cuomo groped her breast at the governor’s mansion. Investigators also [found] the governor’s staff retaliated against one of his accusers by leaking confidential personnel files about her.

As governor, Cuomo touted himself as an example of a “progressive Democrat” who gets things done: Since taking office in 2011, he helped push through legislation that legalized gay marriage, began lifting the minimum wage to $15 and expanded paid family leave benefits. He also backed big infrastructure projects, including airport overhauls and construction of a new bridge over the Hudson River that he named after his father.

At the same time the behavior that got him into trouble was going on, he was publicly championing the #MeToo movement and surrounding himself with women’s rights activists, signing into law sweeping new protections against sexual harassment and lengthening the statute of limitations in rape cases.

His national popularity soared during the harrowing spring of 2020, when New York became the epicenter of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak.

His tough-minded but empathetic response made for riveting television well beyond New York, and his stern warnings to people to stay home and wear masks stood in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s brush-off of the virus. His briefings won an international Emmy Award, and he went on to write a book on leadership in a crisis.

But even those accomplishments were soon tainted when it was learned that the state’s official count of nursing home deaths had excluded many patients who had been transferred to hospitals before they succumbed. A Cuomo aide acknowledged the administration feared the true numbers would be “used against us” by the Trump White House.

Also, Cuomo’s administration was fiercely criticized for forcing nursing homes to accept patients recovering from the virus.

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the state’s handling of data on nursing home deaths. In addition, the state attorney general is looking into whether Cuomo broke the law in using members of his staff to help write and promote his book, from which he stood to make more than $5 million.

The governor had also increasingly come under fire over his rough and sometimes vindictive treatment of fellow politicians and his own staff, with former aides telling stories of a brutal work environment.

Cuomo has been divorced since 2005 from the author and activist Kerry Kennedy, a member of the Kennedy family, and was romantically involved up until 2019 with TV lifestyle personality Sandra Lee. He has three adult daughters.

He gained political experience early on as his father’s hard-nosed and often ruthless campaign manager, and went on to become New York attorney general and U.S. housing secretary under President Bill Clinton before getting elected governor in 2010.

New York has seen a string of high-level political figures brought down in disgrace in recent years.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in 2008 in a call-girl scandal. Rep. Anthony Weiner went to prison for sexting with a 15-year-old girl. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman stepped down in 2018 after four women accused him of abuse. And the top two leaders in the Legislature were convicted of corruption.

(AP)

President Joe Biden will set a target on Thursday that half of all cars sold in the United States by 2030 will be zero-emission vehicles, the White House announced.

Biden’s plan follows the dramatic loosening of many environmental regulations and climate protections under the Donald Trump administration.

“The President will sign an Executive Order that sets an ambitious new target to make half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 zero-emissions vehicles, including battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric, or fuel cell electric vehicles,” a White House statement said.

The order, due to be signed on Thursday, will position “America to drive the electric vehicle future forward, outcompete China, and tackle the climate crisis,” it added.

The three big American auto manufacturers — Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis — expressed their “shared aspiration to achieve sales of 40-50%” of electric vehicles including battery electric, fuel cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2030.

In another statement, the manufacturers BMW, Honda, Volkswagon and Volvo — whose electric vehicles are often considered more advanced than their US competitors — applauded the initiative.

– Union support –

One of America’s largest unions, United Auto Workers (UAW), rallied behind the move.

“The members of the UAW, current and future, are ready to build these electric cars and trucks and the batteries that go in them,” President Ray Curry said in a statement released through the White House.

Electric car sales account for only two percentage of the overall US market, compared with 10 percent in Europe

Electric car sales account for only two percentage of the overall US market, compared with 10 percent in Europe Drew Angerer GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

“Our members are America’s secret weapon in winning this global race.”

Although the 50 percent figure would not exceed what many American manufacturers were already considering, it is a steep target for the United States as a whole.

The country is home to Tesla, a world leader in electric cars, but it has been slow to adopt such vehicles — especially compared with China or Europe.

While around 10 percent of European car sales are of electric vehicles, they account for less than two percent in the United States, according to the International Energy Agency in 2020.

Biden also intends to beef up fuel consumption and emission regulations, which had been dramatically rolled back under his predecessor Trump.

Car emissions are the single biggest US contributor to climate change.

The current emissions regulations, which date from March 2020, require manufacturers to improve by 1.5 percent the energy efficiency of their vehicles between 2021 and 2026 — compared with the five percent demanded by the Obama administration.

The Biden administration did not immediately unveil a new quantified objective.

Source: AFP

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo “sexually harassed multiple women”, including employees, New York’s Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday as she announced the findings of an independent investigation into allegations against the powerful Democrat.

The explosive report, which was swiftly made public, details allegations by 11 women that paint a “deeply disturbing yet clear” picture of a pattern of abusive behavior by the governor and his senior staff, James said — allegations which Cuomo himself quickly denied.

It was not clear if he would face criminal prosecution, with James saying the investigation was “civil in nature.”

The five-month investigation “concluded that Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women and in doing so violated federal and state law,” James told a news conference.

She said Cuomo “sexually harassed current and former New York state employees by engaging in unwelcome and non-consensual touching and making numerous comments of a suggestive sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.”

The investigation also found that Cuomo and his senior team took retaliatory action against at least one former employee for coming forward with her story, she said.

Cuomo issued an unequivocal denial and gave no indication that he was considering his position.

“First, I want you to know directly from me that I never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances,” he said in a televised statement.

“I am 63 years old. I have lived my entire adult life in public view. That is just not who I am. And that’s not who I have ever been.”

He said that he had published a response to every allegation made by the women against him on his website, adding: “Please take the time to read the facts and decide for yourself.”

And he suggested that resignation was not on his mind, saying: “What matters to me at the end of the day is getting the most done I can for you.

“And that is what I do every day. And I will not be distracted from that job. We have a lot to do.”

In recent months multiple women have publicly denounced what they said were inappropriate words and gestures from Cuomo, who drew praise nationwide for his pandemic response early in the crisis.

In March President Joe Biden said that if the accusations against Cuomo are proven he should go.

‘Climate of fear’

Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, was one of the first to call for Cuomo to face consequences over the report.

“Governor Cuomo must resign and be arrested immediately,” she tweeted.

New York lawmakers also reacted swiftly, with state senate majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins saying it “should be clear to everyone that he can no longer serve as governor.”

Carl Heastie, speaker of the New York assembly, said the report would be examined by lawmakers but appeared to demonstrate Cuomo was “not fit for office.”

The investigators released some details of the allegations against Cuomo during the news conference.

One former employee said the charismatic, media-friendly politician slipped his hand under her blouse last year, while a trooper on Cuomo’s protective detail said he inappropriately touched her stomach and hip.

His conduct was “not just old fashioned affection and behavior as he and some of his staff would have it, but unlawful sex-based harassment,” said Anne Clark, one of the lawyers heading the investigation.

She said that Cuomo himself responded to investigators with “a mixture of admitting to certain things but putting a different spin on them and denying others.”

But none of the women welcomed his attentions, the other lawyer leading the probe, Joon Kim, said. “All of them found it disturbing, humiliating, uncomfortable and inappropriate.”

Clark detailed one incident where Cuomo prepared a letter he wanted to release to the press attacking one of the alleged victims, though he was ultimately persuaded not to.

And Kim said Cuomo and his staff fostered a “climate of fear” that kept women from speaking out. “It was a culture where you could not say no to the governor,” he said.

The investigators said that at least one report has been made to police about Cuomo’s behavior, and that their findings could be used in any criminal investigations.

The women involved can also decide whether they want to sue Cuomo, they said.

James praised the women, saying the investigation had found that all 11 were credible.

“I am inspired by all the brave women who came forward. But more importantly, I believe them,” she said.

(AFP)

Mourners were set to offer their final farewell to Haiti’s slain president Jovenel Moise under tight security on Friday, just over two weeks after his assassination rattled a country mired in poverty, corruption, and political instability.

Moise, who was 53 when he was shot dead in his home in the early hours of July 7, is set to be interred in Cap-Haïtien, the main city in his native northern region.

According to the official program, the funeral is due to begin in the morning and last for several hours, with large screens set up for mourners to follow the event.

Moise’s widow is expected to be joined at the event by the late president’s relatives, cabinet members, and current and former senior government officials, as well as religious figures and representatives of trade unions and civil society groups.

Cap-Haitien was calm Thursday, but a day earlier clashes broke out when police chief Leon Charles visited. He was booed and heckled while inspecting security arrangements for the funeral.

Local residents blame the police chief for not protecting Moise, whose wife Martine was seriously wounded in the gun attack seemingly carried out by a group of mainly Colombian retired soldiers – with no injuries to the presidential guard.

So far, more than 20 people have been arrested, most of them Colombians, and police say the plot was organized by Haitians with political ambitions and links outside the country.

But the case remains murky, with many unanswered questions.

Haitians have expressed shock that those tasked with protecting the president and his home failed him so abjectly. The impoverished Caribbean nation is riddled with crime and powerful gangs – problems that were exacerbated during Moise’s presidency.

His death has rekindled long-standing tensions between the north of Haiti and the west, which in part stems from historic racial divisions dating back to French colonialism between northern blacks who are descendants of slaves and lighter-skinned Haitians of mixed race living in the south and west.

Some residents have even set up barricades on roads leading to Cap-Haitien to keep people from the capital Port-au-Prince from attending the funeral.

“We are going to do everything we can to honor him the way he deserves, in line with his importance for our city,” said Cap-Haitien Mayor Yvrose Pierre.

Praying for justice

A Catholic mass was held for Moise Thursday at the city’s cathedral, followed by a procession in his honor.

“His assassination saddened me very much. I prayed for his soul. I prayed that justice will be rendered,” said a woman standing near the cathedral, who only gave her first name Carine.

Memorial ceremonies in honor of Moise have been held this week in Port-au-Prince as well.

Attending one of them was new Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was sworn in Tuesday and vowed to restore order and organize long-delayed elections as sought both by Haitians and the international community.

The US State Department on Thursday named a new special envoy to Haiti tasked with helping to usher along the organization of elections.

Haiti currently has no working parliament and only a handful of elected senators. The interim government installed this week has no president.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Henry on Thursday to express Washington’s “commitment to supporting the Haitian people following the heinous assassination” of Moise.

Blinken also “emphasized the importance of establishing the conditions necessary for Haitians to vote in free and fair legislative and presidential elections as soon as feasible.”

Washington earlier said those elections should be held later this year.

France on Thursday called for legislative and presidential elections to be held “as soon as conditions allow it.”

Moise had ruled Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, by decree after legislative elections due in 2018 were delayed in following multiple disputes.

As well as presidential, legislative and local elections, Haiti had been due to have a constitutional referendum in September after it was twice postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: AFP

US President Joe Biden said Friday that social media misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccinations is “killing people” and the White House said Facebook needs to clean up its act.

“They’re killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people,” Biden told reporters at the White House, as he left for a weekend at the presidential retreat in Camp David.

The White House is turning up the pressure on social media companies to weed out what officials say is widely spread misinformation on coronavirus vaccinations.

According to US health officials, a current spike in Covid-19 deaths and illnesses around the country is almost exclusively hitting people who remain unvaccinated.

“There is a clear message that is coming through: this is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky told reporters on Friday.

President Joe Biden said social media platforms ‘are killing people’ after the White House criticized Facebook for allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on its platform

Many of those refusing vaccinations, despite the ease of availability throughout the United States, have said they do not trust the shots.

Skepticism is being fueled both by false posts spread by anti-vaccine activists online and by Republican politicians claiming the vaccinations are part of attempts at government control.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Facebook and others are not doing enough to push back.

“Everybody has a role to play in making sure there’s accurate information,” she said.

Psaki said the White House was taking a more active approach in calling out what it sees as misinformation but insisted that Facebook in particular should react more quickly in taking down problematic posts.

Prolific fake news posters 

“There’s about 12 people who are producing 65 percent of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. All of them remain active on Facebook, despite some even being banned on other platforms,” Psaki said, without identifying those dozen posters.

The White House has “proposed that they create a robust enforcement strategy that bridges their properties and provides transparency about the rules,” she said.

The turning up of the volume against fake news immediately drew accusations from right-wing media that Biden was installing a “Big Brother” type surveillance over citizens’ opinions.

Facebook, which has contracted an army of independent outside fact checkers, including from AFP, to try and clean up its content, pushed back at the White House claims.

“We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts,” a Facebook spokesperson told AFP.

“The fact is that more than two billion people have viewed authoritative information about Covid-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period.”

Earlier, Facebook said it was taking “aggressive action against misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines to protect public health,” and that it had removed “more than 18 million pieces of Covid misinformation,” and disabled accounts spreading false information.

The CDC reported more than 33,000 new cases in the United States on Thursday, bringing the seven-day average up to 26,306, a 70 percent rise on the week before.

The seven-day average of hospital admissions is about 2,790 per day, an increase of 36 percent. And after weeks of declines, the seven-day average of deaths was 211, an increase of 26 percent.

The spikes are focused in communities with low vaccination rates and “unvaccinated Americans account for virtually all recent Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths,” said Jeff Zients, White House coronavirus response coordinator.

The new wave is driven by the Delta variant, which now accounts for more than 80 percent of new cases, according to the covSpectrum tracker.

Source: AFP

One person died and more than 100 others, including independent journalists and dissidents, have been arrested after unprecedented anti-government protests in Cuba, with some remaining in custody on Tuesday, observers and activists said.

A 36-year-old man named by the state news agency as Diubis Laurencio Tejeda died during an anti-government protest on the outskirts of Havana on Monday, the interior ministry said.

The ministry said it “mourns” his death while the news agency said he had taken part in “disturbances.”

Relatives and friends of those detained during and after Sunday’s historic demonstrations engaged in a desperate search on Tuesday for news on their whereabouts.

“They took him from the house handcuffed and beaten, without a shirt, without a mask,” said a 50-year-old woman who did not wish to give her name, enquiring about her 21-year-old son at a police station in the capital.

“They took many from the neighbourhood, young and old,” she said, before leaving empty-handed.

Cuba’s San Isidro free speech protest movement published late on Monday a list on Twitter of 144 people held or reported as disappeared after thousands of Cubans took to the streets in dozens of cities and towns in a spontaneous outburst of public anger.

Droves of demonstrators chanted “Down with the dictatorship” in protests dispersed by police in some 40 different locations Sunday.

About 100 protesters again gathered in Havana Monday evening, shouting “Down with communism.”

The rallies were unlike any seen since the Cuban revolution. They came as the country endures its worst economic crisis in 30 years, with chronic shortages of electricity, food and medicine and a recent worsening of the coronavirus pandemic.

But Cuba’s foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez denied on Tuesday there had been a “social outbreak” on Sunday, insisting that the people still support “the revolution and their government.”

‘Economic suffocation’

Havana blamed the show of discontent on the United States pursuing a “policy of economic suffocation to provoke social unrest in the country.”

Cuba has been under US sanctions since 1962.

But Washington pointed the finger at “decades of repression” in the one-party communist state.

Cuba’s Catholic church called for “understanding” in a statement published on the Bishops Conference website, adding that “the people have the right to express their needs, desires and hopes.” The bishops also criticised the government’s “immobility that contributes to giving continuity to the problems, without solving them.”

Many Cubans were looking for loved ones.

“They took my daughter yesterday (Monday) and I have no news of her,” said a woman at a Havana police station.

A young man said his brother, 25, was taken from a neighbor’s house. “They gave him a tremendous blow, unjustly, and took him away,” he said.

A police official told worried family members that those arrested were taken to different detention centers, without providing details of who went where.

Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary in the US State Department’s Bureau for Western Hemisphere affairs, called in a tweet Monday for the “immediate release” of the detainees.

“Violence and detentions of Cuban protesters & disappearances of independent activists… remind us that Cubans pay dearly for freedom and dignity,” she said.

Those held included dissident Guillermo Farinas, former political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer and artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara.

‘Counterrevolutionary elements’

Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba’s governing Communist Party, said Tuesday that President Miguel Diaz-Canel had met with his retired predecessor Raul Castro and the rest of the communist party politburo on Sunday to discuss the protests.

They “analysed the provocations orchestrated by counterrevolutionary elements, organized and financed from the United States for destabilisation purposes,” Granma said.

Mobile internet was down in Cuba for much of Sunday and on Monday the authorities cut access to major social media platforms, according to London-based group NetBlocks.

The United States on Tuesday urged Cuba to end the internet restrictions and demonstrate “respect for the voice of the people by opening all means of communication, both online and offline.”

‘Treated like rubbish’

Among those arrested was theatre director Yunior Garcia, a leader of the 27N movement which was born after a much smaller protest by members of the art community on November 27 last year to demand free speech.

Garcia said on Facebook that he and a group of friends were beaten “and forcefully dragged and thrown into a truck.”

“We were treated like rubbish,” he said, adding they were taken to a detention center in Havana where they saw “dozens of young people” arrive.

He was released on Monday afternoon.

Also arrested on Monday was Camila Acosta, a Cuban correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC, its foreign editor said.

Spain’s foreign ministry on Tuesday urged the Cuban authorities to respect the right to protest and demanded that Cuba “immediately” release Acosta.

The last major protests, and the first since the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959, were in 1994.

Those were also against economic hardship but were limited to the capital and quickly put down by police.

(AFP)

The Taliban do not want to battle government forces inside Afghanistan’s cities, a senior insurgent leader said Tuesday, as the militants also warned Turkey against extending its troop presence.

The insurgents have swept through much of northern Afghanistan in recent weeks, and the government now holds little more than a constellation of provincial capitals that must largely be reinforced and resupplied by air.

On Tuesday, the head of a Taliban commission that oversees government forces who surrender to the insurgents urged the residents of cities to reach out to them.

“Now that the fighting from mountains and deserts has reached the doors of the cities, Mujahiddin don’t want fighting inside the city,” Amir Khan Muttaqi said in a message tweeted by a Taliban spokesman, using another term for the group.

“It is better… to use any possible channel to get in touch with our invitation and guidance commission,” he said, adding this would “prevent their cities from getting damaged”.

The strategy is one well-worn by the Taliban — particularly during their first rise to power in the 1990s — cutting off towns and district centres and getting elders to negotiate a surrender.

In a separate statement Tuesday, the Taliban said Turkey’s decision to provide security to Kabul airport when US-led forces leave was “reprehensible”.

“We consider stay of foreign forces in our homeland by any country under whatever pretext as occupation,” the group said, days after Ankara agreed with Washington to provide security for Kabul airport.

– Rapid changes –

As foreign forces wind up their withdrawal — due to be completed by August 31 — the situation on the ground is changing rapidly.

The top US general in Afghanistan relinquished his command Monday at a ceremony in the capital, the latest symbolic gesture bringing America’s longest war nearer to an end.

The pace of the pullout — and multiple offensives launched by the Taliban — have raised fears that Afghanistan’s security forces could be swiftly overwhelmed, particularly without vital US air support.

Around 650 American service members are expected to remain in Kabul, guarding Washington’s sprawling diplomatic compound.

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday he had agreed with the United States on the “scope” of how to secure Kabul airport.

Peace talks between the insurgents and the government supposedly taking place in Doha have largely fizzled out, and the Taliban now appear set on a complete military victory.

But claims by the hardline group to control 85 percent of the country are impossible to verify independently — and strongly disputed by the government.

Last week in Moscow, a visiting Taliban delegation said the group now controls more than half the country’s near-400 districts — a claim steadfastly rejected by security forces spokesman Ajmal Omar Shinwari.

Still, the situation has alarmed foreign nations, and on Sunday India became the latest country to evacuate some of its diplomats.

On Monday, Russia announced it was relocating some diplomats to Uzbekistan, while China also evacuated 210 nationals from Afghanistan.

Source: AFP

The Taliban claimed Friday to be in control of 85 percent of Afghanistan after seizing key border crossings with Iran and Turkmenistan, part of a sweeping offensive launched as US troops pull out of the war-torn nation.

Hours after President Joe Biden issued a staunch defence of the US withdrawal, the Taliban said its fighters had seized the two vital crossings in western Afghanistan – completing an arc of territory from the Iranian border to the frontier with China.

In Moscow, a delegation of Taliban officials said they controlled about 250 of Afghanistan’s nearly 400 districts – a claim impossible to independently verify and disputed by the government.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid separately told AFP their fighters had captured the border town of Islam Qala on the Iranian frontier and the Torghundi crossing with Turkmenistan.

Afghanistan’s interior ministry spokesman Tareq Arian said efforts were under way to dislodge the insurgents from their positions.

The Afghan government has repeatedly dismissed the Taliban’s gains as having little strategic value, but the seizure of multiple border crossings along with mineral-rich areas will likely fill the group’s coffers with several sources of new revenue.

Hours earlier, Biden said the US military mission would end on August 31 – nearly 20 years after it began – having “achieved” its goals.

But he admitted it was “highly unlikely” Kabul would be able to control the entire country.

“The status quo is not an option,” Biden said of staying in the country. “I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan.”

With the Taliban having routed much of northern Afghanistan in recent weeks, the government holds little more than a constellation of provincial capitals that must largely be reinforced and resupplied by air.

The air force was under severe strain even before the Taliban’s lightning offensive overwhelmed the government’s northern and western positions, putting further pressure on the country’s limited aircraft and pilots.

Biden said the Afghan people alone should determine their future, but he acknowledged the uncertainty about what that would look like.

Asked if a Taliban takeover was inevitable, the president said: “No, it is not.”

But, he admitted, “the likelihood there is going to be one unified government in Afghanistan controlling the whole country is highly unlikely”.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday called for international pressure to force a deal between Kabul and the Taliban to end the conflict in the country.

“The security situation in Afghanistan only argues more for international pressure to have a negotiated political settlement to end this conflict, and give the Afghan people [the] government they want and they deserve,” Austin said in a tweet.

“The entire world can help by continuing this push,” Austin added.

US exit ‘positive step’

The Taliban, for their part, welcomed Biden’s statement.

“Any day or hour that US and foreign troops leave earlier is a positive step,” spokesperson Suhail Shaheen told AFP.

Afghan commandos clashed with the insurgents this week in a provincial capital, with thousands of people fleeing Qala-i-Naw in northwest Badghis province.

On Friday the Afghan defence ministry said government forces had “full control” of the city.

“They have retreated from the city and the fighting has stopped inside for now,” Badghis provincial council chief Abdul Aziz Bek told AFP.

Hours later a group of Taliban fighters attacked a prison on the edge of Kandahar city, the capital of their former bastion of Kandahar province.

“The Taliban … tried to get to the prison there. Fighting continues and we have deployed reinforcements including special forces to clear the area,” said Kandahar police spokesman Jamal Naser Barekza.

President Ashraf Ghani said the government could handle the situation, but admitted difficulties lay ahead.

“What we are witnessing is one of the most complicated stages of the transition,” he said in a speech in Kabul on Thursday.

Ismail Khan, a veteran warlord whose militia helped US forces topple the Taliban in 2001, vowed to back government forces in fighting against the insurgents.

“We will soon go to the front lines and with the help of God change the situation,” Khan told reporters in the western city of Herat.

As the Afghan military struggled to hold its ground against the Taliban, the country’s leadership also appeared to be enveloped in chaos.

In a leaked audio call published on social media, Vice President Amrullah Saleh could be heard issuing a death threat to a parliamentarian after accusing the official of encouraging security forces to surrender to the Taliban in Badghis.

The Taliban have been emboldened by the troop withdrawal and – with peace talks in Doha deadlocked – appear to be pressing for a full military victory.

Still, on Thursday, Shaheen, who is also a member of the Taliban negotiating team in Doha, insisted the insurgents were seeking a “negotiated settlement”.

In Moscow, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said the Taliban controlled about two-thirds of the Afghan-Tajik border as a delegation from the insurgents wound up a visit.

About “85 percent of Afghanistan’s territory” was under the group’s control, said Taliban delegate Shahabuddin Delawar, who added that the group was committed to preventing other jihadists from using Afghanistan as a base for their operations.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)