KEY COVID NOS. WORLDWIDE

Pos   /   Country   /   New Daily cases   /   Total Deaths   /        Daily Deaths /           Active Cases   /           Deaths/1M Pop

               World    6,92,889              /             44,75,054            /             10,807   /             1,81,82,842               /             574.1

1             USA        1,61,711              /             6,49,632              /             1,239     /             78,22,927               /             1,950

2             UK          35,847   /             1,32,003              /             149        /             12,61,604            /               1,933

3             Iran        39,983   /             1,04,022              /             665        /             6,71,511              /               1,221

4             Russia    19,536   /             1,78,423              /             809        /             5,53,330              /               1,222

5             Spain     10,781   /             83,690   /             163        /             5,14,071              /               1,789

6             Brazil     30,529   /             5,76,645              /             816        /             4,91,757              /               2,691

7             Turkey   19,970   /             55,212   /             217        /             4,62,063              /             647

8             France   23,706   /             1,13,665              /             93           /             4,39,367              /               1,737

9             Mexico  18,262   /             2,54,466              /             940        /             4,04,043              /               1,950

10           India      46,397   /             4,36,396              /             608        /             3,40,419              /               313

11           Malaysia              22,642   /             14,818   /             265        /             2,64,292              /               451

12           Indonesia            18,671   /             1,29,293              /             1,041     /             2,57,677               /             467

13           Japan     21,570   /             15,693   /             30           /             2,20,531              /             125

14           Honduras             1,681     /             8,704     /             34           /             2,16,871              /               863

15           Argentina            6,994     /             1,10,966              /             160        /             2,10,853               /             2,430

16           Vietnam               12,096   /             9,349     /             335        /             2,02,093              /               95

17           Thailand               18,417   /             10,085   /             297        /             1,89,268              /               144

18           South Africa       13,251   /             80,469   /             516        /             1,67,488              /               1,337

19           Poland   234        /             75,329   /             5             /             1,55,586              /               1,993

20           Iraq        7,787     /             20,410   /             73           /             1,40,774              /             495

22           Philippines           13,573   /             32,492   /             228        /             1,25,378              /               292

25           Pakistan               4,199     /             25,220   /             126        /             91,204   /             112

32           Bangladesh         4,966     /             25,627   /             114        /             62,732   /             154

TALIBAN FACE MOUNTING CHALLENGES AHEAD

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s firefighting mission to get Tajikistan’s assent for a Taliban Government in Kabul received a rude shock from its President even as financial problems mounted for Afghanistan with the World Bank stopping its aid days after the International Monetary Fund had withheld a loan.

Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon told Qureshi pointblank that it is necessary to establish an inclusive government, especially with the participation of Afghan Tajiks and Dushanbe “will not recognise any other government that will be formed through oppression, without taking into account the position of the entire Afghan people, especially all its national minorities”.

A lengthy statement from the Tajik Presidential blamed the Taliban for abandoning its previous promise to form an interim government with the broad participation of other political forces. Instead, the group is preparing to establish an Islamic emirate, it noted.

The forthright statement has implications for the Panjshir Valley holdouts led by Tajiks Ahmad Massoud and Amrullah Saleh who have been joined by some officers of the Afghan army and Uzbek origin military leaders.

Emomali Rahmon also spoke up for the Uzbeks and other national minorities who, along with Afghan Tajiks, are being subjected to “all forms of lawlessness, murder, looting and persecution”.

Meanwhile, there was more financial trouble for the Taliban as the World Bank “paused disbursements in our operations in Afghanistan and we are closely monitoring and assessing the situation in line with our internal policies and procedures,” said its spokesperson Marcela Sanchez-Bender.

The IMF has also suspended Afghanistan’s access to about $ 440 million in new monetary reserves because of the absence of a government in Kabul. The Taliban had appointed a Maulana as the head of the Afghan Central Bank. It remains to be seen whether the two multilateral banks, in which the trans-Atlantic alliance has a controlling stake, will react to the new announcement.

However, even if the IMF or the World Bank were to relent, American consent is required because its Treasury has imposed sanctions on most of the Taliban leadership.

Meanwhile, China has established its first diplomatic contact with the Taliban in Kabul after the militant group took control of Afghanistan and the two sides now have “unimpeded and effective communication”, a Chinese official said on Wednesday.

China along with Pakistan and Russia kept its embassy open in Kabul while India, the US and other countries closed down their diplomatic missions after the Taliban took control of Kabul on Aug 15.

COMMANDER SAMI SADAT ON WHY AFGHAN ARMY FAILED IN FRONT OF TALIBAN

Lieutenant general Sami Sadat of Afghanistan army launched a harsh attack on the US and Afghan governments, saying that politics and presidents had failed his Army.

In his opinion article for The New York Times, Sami Sadat wrote that Joe Biden’s full and accelerated withdrawal has only made matters worse. The US president ignored the conditions on the ground, wrote Sadat.

"The last days of the fighting were surreal. We engaged in an intense exchange of fire on the ground against the Taliban as American fighter jets circled above us, in fact spectators. Our sense of abandonment and betrayal was matched only by the frustration the American pilots felt and conveyed to us – being forced to witness the war on the ground, seemingly unable to help us," he wrote.

"We have been betrayed by politics and presidents. It wasn’t just an Afghan war; it was an international war, with many military personnel involved. It would have been impossible for a single army, ours, to resume work and fight. It was a military defeat, but it stemmed from a political failure," he wrote.

Appreciating his soldiers he wrote that "My corps, which had carried on even after I was called away to Kabul, was one of the last to give up its arms — only after the capital fell."

"The Taliban had a firm American end date and feared no military retaliation for anything they had done in the meantime, sensing the unwillingness of the United States. And so the Taliban continued to gain strength. My soldiers and I suffered up to seven Taliban car bombings per day in July and the first week of August in Helmand province," he wrote.

Sadat had been using firepower as well as social media to wage a war against the Taliban, especially in its heartland.

In Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern province of Helmand, the 36-year-old commander of the country's Special Forces had been fighting the Taliban and keeping them out.

In southwestern Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Sami Sadat led the Afghan National Army's 215th Maiwand Corps.

Prior to that, he was the Afghan National Intelligence Agency's Senior Director.

CHINA, TALIBAN HOLD TALKS IN KABUL

China has established its first diplomatic contact with the Taliban in Kabul, a Chinese official said on Wednesday. “China and the Afghan Taliban have smooth and effective communication and consultation,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said when asked about the talks between the deputy head of the Taliban’s political office Abdul Salam Hanafi and Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan Wang Yu in Kabul. “Kabul is naturally an important platform for the two sides to discuss various important matters,” Wang said, without disclosing the details.

“We always respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, follow the principle of non-interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs and adhere to the friendly policy for all the Afghan people,” Wang said. “China also stands ready to continue to develop goodneighbourliness, friendship and cooperation with Afghanistan and play a constructive role in Afghanistan’s peace and reconstruction,” he said.

Since the Taliban entry into Kabul, China — which had hosted a Taliban delegation headed by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar last month — remained calm and called for an inclusive government in Kabul. In his talks with Baradar, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi had asked the outfit to sever its links with terror groups especially the East Turkistan Islamic Movement. Baradar assured Wang that the Taliban will not permit the ETIM to operate from Afghanistan.

CANADA MILITARY TO STAY IN AF AFTER AUG 31: TRUDEAU

1 au announced on Tuesday that Canada is to keep its military personnel in Afghanistan despite US President Biden’s commitment for troop withdrawal by August 31. “Our commitment to Afghanistan doesn’t end when this current phase, this current deadline comes. We will continue to put pressure on the Taliban to allow people to leave the country,” Trudeau said. “We’re going to continue to work every single day to get as many people out alongside our allies....” Trudeau’s remarks came after the virtual summit of G7 leaders.

‘NO DEADLINE’ ON EVACUATING AMERICANS AND ALLIES: BLINKEN

As many as 1,500 American citizens may still need to be evacuated from Afghanistan and the Taliban have pledged to allow some departures after US troops leave on August 31, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. Blinken told a news conference there was no deadline on the effort to help people who want to leave Afghanistan, both Americans and others, and that that effort would continue “as long as it takes”. “People who want to leave Afghanistan after the US military departs should be able to do so,” he said. “Taliban have made public and private commitments to provide and permit safe passage for Americans, for third country nationals and for Afghans at risk going forward past August 31”.

Blinken told reporters that at least 4,500 American citizens of the 6,000 Americans who wanted to leave Afghanistan have already departed the country. He said officials have been in “direct contact” with another 500 Americans who want to leave and were reaching out to the other 1,000.

“From this list of approximately 1,000, we believe the number of Americans actively seeking assistance to leave Afghanistan is lower, likely significantly lower,” he said, cautioning repeatedly that the numbers could be changing every hour. He also said 45% to 46% of the more than 82,000 people who have so far been evacuated have been women and children.

Over 10,000 people were still inside the Kabul airport awaiting flights out of the country on Wednesday, and Afghans with proper credentials continued to be cleared into the airfield, Pentagon officials said.

PUTIN, XI JINPING AGREE TO JOINTLY COMBAT ‘THREATS’

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have agreed their countries will step up efforts to counter “threats” emerging from Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

In a phone call, the two leaders “expressed their readiness to step up efforts to combat threats of terrorism and drug trafficking coming from the territory of Afghanistan,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

They also spoke of the “importance of establishing peace” in Afghanistan and “preventing the spread of instability to adjacent regions”.

Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi “agreed to intensify bilateral contacts” and “make the most of the potential” of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that is due to convene for a summit in Tajikistan next month.

SEARCH FOR COVID-19 ORIGINS STALLED: WHO EXPERTS

The international scientists dispatched to China by the World Health Organization to find out where the coronavirus came from, said on Wednesday that the search has stalled and warned that the window of opportunity for solving the mystery is “closing fast”.

Meanwhile, a U.S. intelligence review ordered up by President Joe Biden proved inconclusive about the virus’s origin, including whether it jumped from an animal to a human or escaped from a Chinese lab, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

In a commentary published in the journal Nature, the WHO-recruited experts said the origins investigation is at “a critical juncture”, requiring urgent collaboration but has instead come to a standstill. They noted among other things that Chinese officials are still reluctant to share some raw data, citing concerns over patient confidentiality.

China said on Wednesday that officials should “concentrate on other possible avenues that may help trace the origin” of COVID-19 and suggested studies should be pursued in other countries.

FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR WATER TO BE RELEASED VIA UNDERSEA TUNNEL

The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant said on Wednesday it plans to build an undersea tunnel so that massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water can be released into the ocean about 1 km away from the plant to avoid interference with local fishing.

The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, said it hopes to start releasing the water in spring 2023. TEPCO says hundreds of storage tanks at the plant need to be removed to make room for facilities necessary for the plant’s decommissioning.

An official, Junichi Matsumoto, said TEPCO will construct the undersea tunnel by drilling through bedrock in the seabed near its No. 5 reactor, which survived the meltdowns at the plant, to minimise possible underground contamination or leakage of radioactive ground water into the tunnel. Radioactive water has been stored in about 1,000 tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant since 2011, when a massive earthquake and tsunami damaged three reactors and their cooling water became contaminated and began leaking.

Under the new plan, the water will be released at a depth of about 12 m below the ocean’s surface, said Mr. Matsumoto.

‘VAX PROTECTION AGAINST COVID-19 WANES IN 6 MTHS’

Protection against Covid-19 offered by two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines begins to fade within six months, underscoring the need for booster shots, according to researchers in Britain. After five to six months, the effectiveness of the Pfizer jab at preventing Covid-19 infection in the month after the second dose fell from 88% to 74%, an analysis of data collected in Britain’s ZOE Covid study showed. For the AstraZeneca vaccine, effectiveness fell from 77% to 67% after four to five months. The study was based on data from more than a million app users, comparing self-reported infections in vaccinated participants with cases in an unvaccinated control group. More data is needed in younger people because participants who had their shots up to six months ago tended to be elderly, the study said. Under a worst-case future scenario, protection could fall below 50% for older people and health workers by the winter, Tim Spector, ZOE co-founder and principal investigator, said.