KABUL (AFP) – A Taleban government delegation visited Japan for the first time yesterday, in a rare diplomatic visit outside of the region.
The Afghan delegation left Kabul on Saturday, in a visit that local media said would last one week and included officials from the higher education, foreign affairs and economy ministries.
“We seek dignified interaction with the world for a strong, united, advanced, prosperous, developed Afghanistan and to be an active member of the international community,” Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Economy Latif Nazari, who is part of the delegation, tweeted on Saturday.
The Taleban government makes regular visits to neighbouring and regional countries, including in Central Asia, Russia and China.
However, it has only officially visited Europe for diplomacy summits in Norway in 2022 and 2023.
Japan’s embassy in Kabul temporarily relocated to Qatar after the fall of the previous foreign-backed government and the takeover by the Taleban in 2021.
But it has since reopened and resumed diplomatic and humanitarian activities in the country.
The Afghan delegation plans to “exchange views with Japanese government officials during their stay”, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported, citing unnamed Afghan diplomatic sources.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry could not immediately comment on the visit when contacted by AFP.
A general view shows Mt Fuji and skyscrapers in Tokyo’s Shinjuku area. PHOTO: AFP
LOUISVILLE (AP) – Harsh weather moved west yesterday as a polar vortex was expected to grip the Rockies and the northern Plains after winter storms pummeled the eastern United States (US) over the weekend, killing at least 10 people, including nine victims in Kentucky who died during flooding from heavy rains.
The National Weather Service warned of “life-threatening cold” into today, with temperatures in northeastern Montana predicted to dip as low as -42.7 degrees Celsius (oC) with wind chills down to -51oC.
Meteorologists said several states would experience the 10th and coldest polar vortex event this season. Weather forces in the Arctic are combining to push the chilly air that usually stays near the North Pole into the US and Europe.
In Kentucky, Governor Andy Beshear said on Sunday that the death toll rose to nine.
“I am sad to share some more tough news tonight, Kentucky. We just confirmed another weather-related death out of Pike County, bringing our total loss to nine people.”
A person in a snowstorm in Montreal, Canada. PHOTO: AP
Beshear had said that at least 1,000 people stranded by floods had to be rescued. President Donald Trump approved Kentucky’s request for a disaster declaration, authorising the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts throughout the state.
Beshear said most of the deaths, including a mother and seven-year-old child, were caused by cars getting stuck in high water.
“So folks, stay off the roads right now and stay alive,” he said. Parts of Kentucky and Tennessee received up to 15 centimetres of rain, said senior forecaster with the National Weather Service Bob Oravec.
“The effects will continue for awhile, a lot of swollen streams and a lot of flooding going on,” Oravec said.
In Alabama, the weather service in Birmingham said it had confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down in Hale County.
Storms there and elsewhere in the state destroyed or damaged a handful of mobile homes, downed trees and toppled power lines, but no injuries were immediately reported.
A state of emergency was declared for parts of Obion County, Tennessee, after a levee failed on Saturday, flooding the small community of Rives, home to around 300 people in the western part of the state.
GREEN RIVER (AP) – A third victim was found in the wreckage from a fiery crash inside a Wyoming highway tunnel that involved 26 cars and trucks, officials said.
At least five people were seriously injured in Friday’s accident along Interstate 80 near the small town of Green River, Wyoming.
The crash sparked a fire inside the tunnel that completely destroyed six commercial vehicles and two passenger vehicles.
Most of the wreckage had been removed, with fewer than 10 vehicles still inside the tunnel, said Sargeant Jason Roascio with the Wyoming Highway Patrol.
But snow was slowing the work of federal and state investigators as they went vehicle by vehicle trying to reconstruct the scene and determine what happened, he said.
“We’re hopeful that this is the final fatality,” Roascio said.
Further details on the three victims had yet to be released.
Charred vehicles after an accident and fire in the Green River Tunnel along Interstate 80 in Wyoming, United States. PHOTO: AP
Photos distributed on Sunday showed the charred remains of two vehicles inside the tunnel.
The crash took place in the westbound tube of the twin tunnel under Castle Rock, a sandstone formation that looms over the town of Green River in the state’s southwest region.
The wreck and ensuing fire shut down the interstate, the primary east-west road corridor through Wyoming, and traffic was rerouted through Green River.
The eastbound tunnel was expected to reopen tomorrow and handle traffic in both directions for the time being.
Engineers have been unable to estimate when the westbound tunnel will reopen.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sparked alarm by seeking access to a system with the United States (US) tax office that has detailed financial data about millions of Americans, US media reported.
Spearheaded by Musk, the world’s richest man, US President Donald Trump has embarked on a campaign to slash public spending deemed wasteful or contrary to his policies.
The Washington Post and others reported that the latest request is for DOGE officials to have broad access to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) systems, property and datasets.
This includes the Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS), access to which is usually extremely limited and which offers “instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts”, according to the IRS.
As of Sunday evening, the request had not been granted, the reports said.
But it has sparked alarm within the government and among privacy experts who say granting Musk access to private taxpayer data could be extraordinarily dangerous, according to ABC News.
“People who share their most sensitive information with the federal government do so under the understanding that not only will it be used legally, but also handled securely and in ways that minimise risks like identity theft and personal invasion, which this reporting brings into serious question,” former state privacy officer Elizabeth Laird.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – One of the victims hospitalised after a fire at a factory making costumes for Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival has died, the hospital where he was being treated said.
Fire officials had said that those affected by the blaze at the Maximus factory were working in precarious conditions in a building with combustible material.
Firefighters rescued 21 people from the site in the north of Rio de Janeiro. The Getulio Vargas hospital said that a man – one of the eight victims who was being treated there – had died.
Two men and five women remain in serious condition, a hospital statement said.
A ninth victim who is also in serious condition is being treated at another facility, according to local media.
Before the fire, people had been working around the clock to finish outfits for samba schools before Carnival parades start.
Survivors said some workers had been sleeping in the factory to save time and money by avoiding commutes to their homes.
Rio’s Carnival, famous for parades with lavish costumes and towering floats to the tune of samba music, begins on February 28 and will run until March 8.
Three samba schools were having their outfits made at the affected factory.
Firefighters move a ladder after a fire destroyed a factory that produces Carnival costumes for the lower division samba schools in Rio de Janeiro. PHOTO: AP
RENNES (AFP) – A former surgeon goes on trial later this month charged with raping or sexually assaulting almost 300 former patients, most of them children and many of them unconscious at the time, over quarter of a century across western France.
The sheer scale and horror of the allegations against Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, means his four-month trial, due to start on February 24, is likely to have an immense impact at home and abroad.
And it will have added resonance coming two months after Frenchman Dominique Pelicot was convicted of enlisting dozens of strangers to rape his heavily sedated then-wife Gisele Pelicot, a case that made her a feminist hero worldwide.
In this case, Le Scouarnec is the sole defendant accused of crimes against hundreds of victims. The trial in the city of Vannes in Brittany will be held in public but seven days of testimony from victims who were targeted while minors will be behind closed doors.
“Mr Le Scouarnec has generally acknowledged his involvement in many of the events in question” as well as his “concealment strategies”, said regional prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger.
A policeman closes the door of the court room at the Assize courthouse in Saintes, western France. PHOTO: AP
The average age of the victims is 11 but the former surgeon is also accused of raping a one-year-old and sexual assaulting a 70-year-old.
He allegedly committed the sexual violence between 1989 and 2014 when he worked at a dozen medical institutions in western France.
Le Scouarnec is being tried for 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults, aggravated by the fact that he abused his position as a doctor and mostly targeted children.
In total, 256 victims out of the 299 were younger than 15.
If convicted, Le Scouarnec faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison – French law does not allow sentences to be added together even when there are multiple victims.
The former doctor is already in prison after being sentenced in December 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces.
Many victims were traumatised when they learnt of the events, sometimes decades later. Not all of them will take part in the trial but many say they expect the proceedings to provide explanations. The authorities began investigating Le Scouarnec in 2017 after a six-year-old girl who lived in the same neighbourhood in the southwestern town of Jonzac alleged he had raped her.
The initial inquiry uncovered the assaults on his nieces and a four-year-old patient all committed in the 1990s and he was handed 15 years in prison for these crimes in December 2020.
AMORGÓS (AFP) – For three weeks Dionysia Kobaiou has been dealing with “the anxiety and stress” of her students on the Greek island of Amorgos which has felt thousands of earthquakes.
She has been teaching remotely since Greek authorities shut down all schools on Amorgos, its more famous neighbour Santorini and other nearby islands until at least until February 21.
Some children ask her whether they should hide under a bed when they feel a tremor.
“It’s like during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Kobiaou told AFP.
But in 2020-21 “we could stay home and protect ourselves (from the virus) whereas now, at any moment, we don’t know what might happen,” she added.
Between January 26 and February 13, more than 18,400 quakes were recorded off the islands in the Cyclades archipelago, according to the University of Athens (EKPA) seismology laboratory. Amorgos and three other islands are in a state of emergency until March 11.
The seismic swarm caused no casualties or significant damage, and the tremors have lessened in intensity and frequency in recent days. But they still mystify scientists.
On the rocky island, over nine hours by ferry from Piraeus in the winter, the 1,900 permanent residents have mainly stayed on Amorgos “except for a few due to professional or health reasons”, stated Mayor Lefteris Karaiskos.
Thousands have fled Santorini. The island’s cafes are closed for winter and, between the whitewashed domed chapels, only frogs and kittens give a glimpse of life in the sleepy alleys.
Many of the quakes have been too weak to be felt, but nerves were put to the test by one 5.3-magnitude tremor on February 10, that was felt as far as Athens.
That evening, Sotiris was in his kitchen.
“We rushed outside because we were scared!” recounted the man, who chose not to reveal his last name, as he hauled construction materials in his wheelbarrow.
“But you know, in Greece, we’re used to earthquakes,” he added.
The tremors have hit the island “continuously”, according to Poppi Prasinou as she set up vegetables in front of her mini-market.
Firefighters on Amorgos island look at the island of Anydros, where it was considered the epicentre of the earthquake swarm in the Aegean Sea. PHOTO: AFP
BERLIN (AFP) – Germany enters the final week of election campaigning yesterday, with the debate more heated than ever amid controversy over alleged United States (US) interference in favour of the far right.
After weeks of sparring on migration and a surge of support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the race took a new turn last week with comments by US Vice President JD Vance.
Speaking in Munich on Friday, Vance called on Germany to drop its decades-long taboo of having the far right in government, insisting there was “no room for firewalls”.
His comments brought tens of thousands of demonstrators to the streets of Berlin on Sunday and became one of the main talking points in the latest TV debate between top candidates.
“I will not allow an American vice president to tell me who I can talk to here in Germany,” said Friedrich Merz, whose party is currently leading the polls on around 30 per cent.
The conservative CDU candidate told voters he would “not tolerate such interference” in the February 23 polls or coalition negotiations.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz also rejected Vance’s comments as “unacceptable” and asserted there is “no cooperation with the extreme right”.
But the leader of the ascending AfD – which also has the support of top Washington adviser Elon Musk – on Sunday praised Vance for having “spoken out so clearly”.
“We must not build firewalls to exclude millions of voters from the outset – we have to talk to each other. He made that clear,” Alice Weidel told the TV audience.
With more TV showdowns and public rallies due, candidates are vying for every vote in the bitter campaign.
Around 30 per cent of Germans are undecided who they want to vote for, according to the latest surveys. Viewers of Sunday’s debate put Merz ahead with 32 per cent, while Scholz came second with 25 per cent, according to a poll by the RTL broadcaster.
Olaf Scholz, Robert Habeck, Friedrich Merz and Alice Weidel take part in a TV debate in Berlin, Germany. PHOTO: AFP
LONDON (AP) – Papal thriller Conclave won four prizes including best picture on Sunday at the 78th British Academy Film Awards, where genre-bending musical Emilia Pérez proved that it’s still an awards contender despite a multipronged backlash that looked to have dented its chances.
At a ceremony where no film dominated, The Brutalist equalled the awards tally of Conclave, scooping four trophies, including best director for Brady Corbet and best actor for Adrien Brody. Mikey Madison won the best actress prize for Brooklyn tragicomedy Anora.
Conclave, which stars Ralph Fiennes as a cardinal corralling conniving clergy as they elect a new pope, beat Anora, The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez and Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown to the top prize. Conclave was also named outstanding British film and took trophies for editing and adapted screenplay.
Supporting performer prizes went to Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain and Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Pérez, which also won the award for best film not in the English language.
Karla Sofía Gascón, who stars as the titular ex-cartel boss in Emilia Pérez, was a best-actress nominee but did not attend the ceremony. Gascón has withdrawn from promoting the film, which has 13 Oscar nominations, amid controversy over her social media posts.
ABOVE & BELOW: Adrien Brody poses with the leading actor award for ‘The Brutalist’; and (right) Edward Berger poses with the outstanding British film award for ‘Conclave’ at the 78th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA’s in London. PHOTO: APPHOTO: APZoe Saldana, winner of the supporting actress award for ‘Emilia Perez’. PHOTO: APMikey Madison poses with the leading actress award for ‘Anora. PHOTO: APJesse Eisenberg poses with the best supporting actor award he received on behalf of Kieran Culkin for ‘A Real Pain’. PHOTO: AP
The film’s director, Jacques Audiard, has condemned those comments, but in an acceptance speech thanked Gascón along with her co-stars Saldaña and Selena Gomez.
“I am deeply proud of what we have all achieved together,” he said.
FROM THE BAFTAS TO THE OSCARS
Stars including Cynthia Erivo, Hugh Grant, Ariana Grande, Lupita Nyong’o, Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan walked the red carpet at London’s Royal Festival Hall for the awards, known as BAFTAs. The British prizes often provide clues about who will triumph at Hollywood’s Academy Awards on March 2, in an unusually hard-to-call awards season.
They also have a distinctly British accent. The ceremony kicked off with its kilt-wearing host, Scottish actor David Tennant, leading the audience in a rousing singalong of The Proclaimers’ anthem I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).
Madison won the female acting trophy for her powerhouse performance as an exotic dancer entangled with a Russian oligarch’s son in Anora. She beat Gascón, Demi Moore for body-horror film The Substance, Ronan for The Outrun, Erivo for Wicked and Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truths.
Brody beat competition from Fiennes, Chalamet, who plays the young Dylan in A Complete Unknown, Grant for the horror film Heretic, Colman Domingo for prison drama Sing Sing and Sebastian Stan for his portrayal of a young Donald Trump in The Apprentice.
Brody, who plays a Hungarian-Jewish architect in the post-war United States, said The Brutalist carried a powerful message for our divided times.
“It speaks to the need for all of us to share in the responsibility of how we want others to be treated and how we want to be treated by others,” he said. “There’s no place any more for antisemitism. There’s no place for racism.”
The Brutalist also won prizes for its cinematography and musical score.
Saldaña won for her role as a lawyer who helps the title character in Emilia Pérez transition to a woman and out of a life of crime. She called the film “the creative challenge of a lifetime.” – Jill Lawless
BEIRUT (AP) – A woman was killed and several other people wounded when Israeli forces opened fire on a group of residents attempting to return to the village of Houla in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese state-run news agency reported.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the incident, which comes two days before the deadline for implementation of a ceasefire agreement that ended the latest war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in late November. It includes a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon.
The original deadline was in late January but Israel and Lebanon agreed to extend it to tomorrow.
Hours before they agreed to the extension on January 27, hundreds of protesters attempted to enter villages still occupied by the Israeli army to demand its withdrawal, and Israeli forces opened fire in several locations, killing more than 20 people. Israel blamed Hezbollah for sending “rioters”.
It remained unclear whether Israel will fully withdraw from Lebanese territory later today. Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a televised speech that Israel “must withdraw from all of the Lebanese territory that it has occupied” tomorrow.
ABOVE & BELOW: Hezbollah supporters protest near Beirut’s international airport; and Lebanese army tear gas the protestors. PHOTO: APPHOTO: AP
“There can be no excuses, no five points or other details under any pretext or any title. This is the agreement,” he said.
Kassem was referring to a proposal put forward by Israel that its forces would remain in five border points after the deadline.
Lebanese officials have so far rejected this.
Kassem said it was “the primary and exclusive responsibility of the Lebanese state at this stage to apply all political pressure” to ensure that Israel withdraws fully.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that an Israeli airstrike hit a bulldozer that was attempting to open roads that had been blocked by the Israeli military near the village of Marwahin. No casualties were reported.
The Israeli army said in a statement that it had conducted “precision, intelligence-based strikes on a number of military sites in Lebanese territory containing rocket launchers and weapons, where Hezbollah activity had been identified.”
The Lebanese army, which has taken control of areas that the Israeli forces have withdrawn from, in a statement warned citizens not to try to enter areas where Lebanese troops have not yet deployed.
