World

KABUL — The Taliban on Tuesday thanked the world for pledging hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency aid to Afghanistan, and urged the United States to show "heart" to the impoverished country.

A donor conference in Geneva on Monday saw countries promise a total of $1.2 billion in aid for Afghanistan, which was taken over by the hardline group last month in a lightning offensive that took retreating US troops by surprise.

Afghanistan, already heavily dependent on aid, is facing an economic crisis, with the new authorities unable to pay salaries and food prices soaring.

Amir Khan Muttaqi, the regime's acting foreign minister, told a press conference the Taliban would spend donor money wisely and use it to alleviate poverty.

"The Islamic Emirate will try its best to deliver this aid to the needy people in a completely transparent manner," Muttaqi said.

He also asked Washington to show appreciation for the Taliban allowing the US to complete a troop withdrawal and evacuation of more than 120,000 people last month.

"America is a big country, they need to have a big heart," he said.

Muttaqi said Afghanistan, which is also facing a drought, had already received aid from countries such as Pakistan, Qatar and Uzbekistan, but did not give further details.

He said he had held discussions with China’s ambassador on the coronavirus vaccine and other humanitarian causes, with Beijing pledging $15 million which will be available “soon”.

Since the Taliban takeover, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have halted Afghanistan’s access to funding, while the United States has also frozen cash held in its reserve for Kabul.

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Monday said he believed aid could be used as leverage with the Islamist hardliners to exact improvements on human rights, amid fears of a return to the brutal rule that characterised the first Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001.

“It is impossible to provide humanitarian assistance inside Afghanistan without engaging with the de facto authorities,” the UN secretary general told ministers attending the Geneva talks.

“It is very important to engage with the Taliban at the present moment.”

The Taliban have promised a milder form of rule this time around, but have moved swiftly to crush dissent, including firing in the air to disperse recent protests by women calling for the right to education and work.

UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said she was “dismayed by the lack of inclusivity of the so-called caretaker cabinet, which includes no women and few non-Pashtuns”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has previously warned that the Taliban would have to earn legitimacy and support, after talks with allies on how to present a united front.

The caretaker cabinet, he said, would be judged “by its actions”.

Meanwhile, Afghans are resorting to selling their household goods to raise money to pay for essentials, and bustling second-hand goods markets have mushroomed in most urban centres.

Ajmal Ahmady, former acting governor of the Afghan central bank, tweeted last week that the country no longer had access to around $9 billion in aid, loans and assets.

BEIJING — Southern Chinese cities closed schools and ordered testing for millions on Tuesday in a race to curb a new COVID-19 outbreak which has sparked concerns over infections among unvaccinated schoolchildren.

Putian, a city of 3.2 million in coastal Fujian province, ordered testing of all residents on Tuesday after Delta variant cases linked to a returnee from Singapore ballooned into a province-wide outbreak of more than 100 people.

China has now been hit by multiple outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant after initially vanquishing the first wave of the coronavirus last year.

The Fujian cluster is the biggest rebound in weeks and comes after the country declared the COVID outbreak spurred by the Delta under control, in a test of China's "zero case" approach to the pandemic.

China reported 59 new domestically transmitted cases on Tuesday, up from 22 the day before, all in Fujian province.

Authorities said the cluster's suspected patient zero was a man who had recently returned from Singapore and developed symptoms after completing a 14-day quarantine and initially testing negative for the virus.

The man’s 12-year-old son and a classmate were among the first patients detected in the cluster last week, shortly after the new school term began.

The variant then raced through classrooms, infecting more than 36 children including 8 kindergartners, city authorities said on Tuesday, in the first major school-linked spread the country has seen since the start of the pandemic.

China has administered more than two billion doses of its coronavirus vaccines as of Sunday, according to the official Xinhua news agency, enough to fully vaccinate around 70 per cent of its population.

But most young children remain unvaccinated, sparking fear that the latest Fujian outbreak could hit the most vulnerable people in the country disproportionately.

The Putian government has ordered schools to stop in-person classes on Monday, while nearby port city Xiamen followed suit on Tuesday and shut down long-distance bus services, while ordering all residents to be tested.

The Chinese embassy in Singapore on Monday warned its citizens to be “cautious” about travelling to the southeast Asian country and “be psychologically and economically prepared” for difficulties reentering China.

WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden kicked off a visit to scorched western states on Monday to hammer home his case on climate change and big public investments, as well as to campaign in California’s recall election.

The Democrat was bound for California, a party stronghold that he hasn’t visited since his 2020 presidential victory, to support Governor Gavin Newsom, who is facing a referendum that could cost him his job.

Before hitting the Golden State, Biden departed for Boise, Idaho, where he will visit the federal firefighting coordination centre.

He will then head to California capital Sacramento where, according to the White House, he will survey damage from northern California wildfires that have burned hundreds of thousands of hectares and destroyed thousands of structures.

The final leg of his trip will take him to Denver, Colorado, where he will make the case for two bills he has proposed that would spend nearly $5 trillion over the coming decade to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure, expand an array of social services and fight climate change.

Biden is expected to reiterate what is becoming a familiar message on the urgency of tackling climate change and the disasters associated with it, including forest fires and storms — both of which have devastated different areas of the country in recent months.

During an address after surveying damage from California’s Caldor Fire, “the president will make clear that these extreme weather events require bold, ambitious and decisive action — now”, a White House official said.

He will also underscore how his huge proposed investments currently under consideration by Congress “will strengthen our nation’s resilience to climate change and extreme weather events, advance environmental justice and create good-paying union jobs”.

Forest fires have raged across the western United States this summer, including in states Biden will be visiting.

As of Sunday, the National Interagency Fire Centre counted 80 large active fires in the country, including 22 in Idaho alone, involving more than 22,000 firefighters.

Biden, who has broken with the climate change skepticism of his predecessor Donald Trump, recently said the world faces a “code red” on climate danger and called for parties to put aside their political differences to address the issue.

California recall 

But in a step away from calls for bipartisan action, the president will enter the partisan arena during his trip, lending his support to California’s governor at a last-minute campaign rally in Long Beach.

Californians will vote Tuesday on whether to oust Newsom, 53, in a recall election prompted by Republicans angered over COVID-19 mask mandates, a high cost of living and skyrocketing homelessness in the wealthiest and most populous state in the nation.

Eighteen years ago, a similar vote allowed Arnold Schwarzenegger to win California’s governorship.

On paper, Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco who was easily elected governor in 2018 and whose term does not end until next year, does not risk much in a solidly Democratic state.

After a shaky start, Newsom now appears likely to avoid defeat, with respected poll-crunching website fivethirtyeight.com predicting 55 per cent will vote to keep him.

But Democrats are still taking the vote seriously, knowing that a surprise recall is always possible, especially if turnout is low.

NEW YORK — America marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 Saturday with pleas for unity at solemn ceremonies given added resonance by the messy withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and return to power of the Taliban.

At the 9/11 memorial in New York, relatives wiped away tears, their voices breaking as they read out the names of the almost 3,000 people killed in the Al-Qaeda attacks.

"We love you and we miss you," they said as somber violin music played at the official ceremony, attended by President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

The service at Ground Zero where 2,753 people died, some of whom jumped to their deaths from the burning towers, took place under tight security, with Lower Manhattan effectively locked down.

The first of six moments of silence was marked at 8:46 am, with a bell ringing to symbolize the time the first hijacked plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

At 9:03 am, attendees stood still again to mark the moment the South Tower was struck. At 9:37 am, it was the Pentagon, where the hijacked airliner killed 184 people in the plane and on the ground.

At 9:59, the moment the South Tower fell. At 10:03 am, they remembered the fourth plane to crash in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought the hijackers, and at 10:28 am, the North Tower falling.

Mourners clutched photos of their loved ones, their pain still raw despite a whole generation having grown up since the morning of September 11, 2001.

“It feels like it was yesterday. Every year [that] we get further away it becomes more important to remember,” said Joanne Pocher-Dzama, whose brother died at the World Trade Centre.

 Bush’s fear 

Bruce Springsteen performed “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and smaller ceremonies across New York remembered the 343 firefighters who lost their lives saving others. After nightfall, powerful twin light beams symbolising the Twin Towers were projected into the sky to commemorate the dead.

Heart-wrenching commemorations also took place at the Pentagon and Shanksville, where George W. Bush, president on 9/11, said the unity America showed following the attacks “seems distant” from today.

“So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment. That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together,” he added.

World leaders sent messages of solidarity, saying the attackers had failed to destroy Western values.

Speaking in Shanksville Saturday, Biden said the United States must come together and lead the world by example.

“That’s the thing that’s going to affect our wellbeing more than anything else: How the rest of the world responds to us, knowing that we actually can, in fact, lead by the example of our power again,” Biden said. “And I think we can do it. We got to do it.”

He also asked: “Are we going to, in the next four, five, six, 10 years, demonstrate that democracies can work, or not?”

But former president Donald Trump shattered the sentiment, releasing a video slamming the “inept administration” of Biden for its “incompetence” over the Afghan withdrawal, and later telling New York police officers that the United States had been “embarrassed”.

The memorials come less than two weeks since the last soldiers left Kabul, ending the so-called “forever war”.

But national discord over the chaotic exit, including the deaths of 13 US troops in a suicide bomb and the return to power of Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden’s protectors the Taliban, overshadowed what was supposed to be a pivotal day in Biden’s nearly eight-month-old presidency.

Again he defended the withdrawal, saying the US could not “invade” every country where Al Qaeda is present, before he concluded his tour of all three attack sites at the Pentagon.

In the last 20 years, bin Laden has been killed and a new skyscraper dubbed the “Freedom Tower” has risen over Manhattan, replacing the Twin Towers.

But the consequences of 9/11 rumble on.

On Saturday the FBI released a declassified memo that strengthened suspicions of official Saudi involvement with the hijackers but fell short of conclusive proof.

The document from April 4, 2016 is the first from the FBI investigation to be released following an order from Biden last week. Still significantly redacted, the memo showed links between a suspected Saudi intelligence operative and two of the Al Qaeda hijackers.

In Guantanamo Bay, accused mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men continue to await trial, nine years after charges were filed.

For many Americans 9/11 remains about one thing: Loss.

“So many families were disrupted. And we just need to let them know that all those people are not forgotten,” said Mark Papadimitriou, paying his respects in Times Square.

FRANKFURT — A televised election debate on Sunday marks one of the last chances for Germany’s struggling chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, from Angela Merkel’s conservative camp, to close the gap with his centre-left rival.

Two weeks before voters head to the polls, gaffe-prone Laschet will face off against Finance Minister Olaf Scholz from the Social Democrats (SPD) and Annalena Baerbock from the left-leaning Greens in the second of three primetime debates.

The first general election of the post-Merkel era has become an unexpected nailbiter in Europe’s top economy.

Surveys show support for Merkel’s centre-right CDU/CSU bloc plummeting to historic lows of around 20 per cent while the SPD has come from behind to lead at around 26 per cent.

With the Greens polling at 15 per cent, a number of coalition outcomes are possible — but observers say the chances of one-time frontrunner Laschet taking the crown are fading fast.

Bild newspaper said the debate could be make-or-break for Laschet.

“To turn the tide, he needs a clear success,” it wrote.

Viewers were left unconvinced by Laschet’s performance in the first debate last month, when Scholz was declared the winner.

‘Historic debacle’ 

Laschet, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia state, has been on a downward spiral following a series of missteps, including being caught on camera laughing during a tribute to victims of Germany’s deadly floods in July.

Scholz meanwhile, although often described as wooden and uncharismatic, has run an error-free campaign.

As vice chancellor and guardian of the nation’s finances, the 63-year-old has positioned himself as the continuity candidate and the natural heir to Merkel’s legacy — despite hailing from a rival party.

The CDU/CSU alliance that has dominated Germany’s post-war politics now faces a “historic debacle” on September 26, Der Spiegel weekly news magazine wrote.

In a sign of growing nervousness, conservatives have gone on the attack against Scholz, accusing him of riding on Merkel’s coat-tails and of trying to steer Germany to the left.

Even Merkel, who is bowing out after 16 years in power and had vowed to stay out of the election battle, has joined the fray.

She visited a flood-hit region with Laschet and used a speech in parliament this week to cast him as the best choice to succeed her, saying he stood for “stability” and “centrism”.

Comeback king? 

The still immensely popular chancellor also distanced herself from Scholz, criticising him for not unequivocally ruling out a coalition with the radical-left Linke Party, which wants to disband NATO.

The Linke is currently polling at 6 per cent and could theoretically be part of a three-way coalition with the SPD and the Greens.

Addressing a congress of the CSU on Saturday, Laschet said such a coalition would lead to “less security” and endanger Germany’s economic growth through higher taxes and more bureaucracy.

Laschet, 60, also courted controversy by saying that the Social Democrats were “on the wrong side” at key moments in Germany’s post-war history.

The remark drew an immediate rebuke from the SPD, which said it revealed Laschet’s “panic” at his slump in the polls.

SPD general-secretary Lars Klingbeil said the CDU/CSU alliance had “lost its dignity under Laschet”, adding: “It belongs in the opposition.”

Laschet has played down the importance of Sunday’s debate, saying the battle for the chancellery would be fought until polling day.

But Laschet’s fate could be sealed sooner, with record numbers expected to vote by post because of the pandemic.

Although Laschet has a track record of snatching unexpected last-minute victories, Spiegel said a typical Laschet comeback “is looking unlikely”.