The water levels of the Paraná river, the second-longest in South America after the Amazon, are at their lowest since 1944.
The river is key to commercial shipping and fishing but also provides 40 million people with drinking water.
A drought in the region means water levels have dipped so low that fishers’ livelihoods are at risk.
Environmentalists fear that the drought has been made more severe by deforestation and climate change.
The Paraná is 4,880km (3,032 miles) long and flows south from south-east Brazil through Paraguay and Argentina.
It merges with the Paraguay and Uruguay rivers to form the Río de la Plata Basin.
“The Paraná is the largest, most biodiverse and the most important socio-productive wetland in Argentina,” geologist Carlos Ramonell told the AFP news agency.
Southern Brazil, where the Paraná’s source is located, has seen three years of below-average rainfalls.
The Paraguay river is also running very low
As a result, the Paraná’s flow rate has dropped from an average of 17,000 cubic meters a second to just 6,200.
The low water levels are causing problems for energy production with the hydroelectric plant that spans the Parana river between Argentina and Paraguay running at only 50%.
On Wednesday, Brazil’s Vice-President Hamilton Mourão warned that the drought could also lead to energy rationing in Brazil.
It is also hampering the transport of goods with ships not able to load up fully in case they run aground.
The Paraná is a key waterway for the transport of grains and the situation is forcing exporters to consider using land routes.
Forecasters say the drought could last until 2022.
A state of emergency has been declared in New York City after it was hit by record rainfall and flash flooding as a result of Tropical Storm Ida.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city was “enduring an historic weather event” with “brutal flooding” and “dangerous conditions” on the roads.
Footage on social media showed water pouring into subway stations and people’s homes, and flooded roads.
New Jersey also declared an emergency and reported at least one death.
A person drowned in Passaic, New Jersey, the local mayor said, A tornado also destroyed at least nine homes in Mullica Hill, in the same state.
The roof of a postal building collapsed in Kearny, New Jersey, with people inside at the time, police said. Rescue crews are on the scene, but it’s not clear how many injuries there might be.
The National Weather Service said it had recorded 3.15 inches (8cm) of rain in New York’s Central Park in one hour.
New York police have urged people to stay off the roads and the fire department has said it is responding to calls from across the city.
The city’s subway has mostly closed, and many train services and flights out of New York and New Jersey are suspended.
image sourceReuters
image captionSocial media footage shows flooding in Williamsburg area of Brooklyn (Photo credit: Credit: Jaymee Sire)
The remnants of Hurricane Ida have been pushing north across the east of the country, having hit Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday.
Hundreds of thousands of homes in Louisiana remain without power and New Orleans is under a night-time curfew.
Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely.
The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.
American and Afghan allies left behind in Afghanistan have entered a fraught and uncertain period of limbo following the definitive conclusion of U.S. military evacuations out of the country.
Advocates estimate roughly 150,000 vulnerable Afghans remain in the country after a U.S. evacuation effort ended early Tuesday, while those who assisted the U.S. military who may now wish to leave with their families could add another 100,000.
Many who remain have gone into hiding over fear of violent retribution by the Taliban, likely targeted for work alongside American and coalition forces who battled and killed members of the Islamic fundamentalist group over two decades of war.
Many of these people face overwhelming confusion and fear over how to leave the country, from practical matters of appropriate travel documents and questions over when airports will reopen and how they will function to the uncertainty of whether the Taliban will respond to international pressure to ensure safe passage.
“The last few months have been incredibly challenging and disappointing for our clients, whose risk has increased exponentially with the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan,” Adam Bates, policy counsel with the International Refugee Assistance Project, told reporters, noting that “the majority of our clients were not able to leave Afghanistan on an evacuation flight.”
Out of more than 500 clients the group was trying to get out of the country, only about 130 were able to make it onto flights. Just a few dozen have made it onto U.S. soil.
“The immense joy that we felt for those few clients of ours who’ve managed to escape — primarily through sheer luck and their own perseverance and not the action of us — that joy has been overshadowed by the pain and frustration we feel for those hundreds of thousands who remain trapped,” he added.
Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO of the refugee resettlement organization Jewish Family Service, said that group has 127 people on the ground in Afghanistan — 23 families that qualify for Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) to the U.S. that were left behind in the evacuations.
“Many of them have all of their visa paperwork in hand and ready,” he said in an interview with The Hill. “Others, frankly, the U.S. Embassy took their passports in order to issue them a visa, and then when Kabul fell, they closed the embassy, and they never were able to get their passports back, so they are in a particularly dire situation.”
The organization is gaming whether people can evacuate over land routes but is distraught over whether access to cash and communication may be cut off at any moment. They have advised the people to stay in hiding over the next few days as the situation unfolds.
“The reality on the ground is, it’s exceedingly fluid. What’s true now may be false in 20 minutes. There’s no guarantee,” he said. “They’re all people that served with coalition forces, so they’re both targeted — but also our country promised to evacuate them to safety, and we haven’t upheld our promise, and so to me, the blood is on our hands.”
The Biden administration is stressing that it has built international consensus to pressure the Taliban to ensure safe travel for Americans left behind — whose numbers range between 100 and 200 — and Afghans who want to leave the country.
“More than half the world’s countries have joined us in insisting that the Taliban let people travel outside Afghanistan freely,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech Monday.
The administration succeeded in evacuating more than 124,000 people from Afghanistan, but it’s unclear how many Afghans remain who qualify for Special Immigrant Visas to the U.S. or other priority refugee status and how the administration will help them leave the country.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) has asked the State and Defense departments to deliver within a week a breakdown of each vulnerable group the administration evacuated and those remaining in Afghanistan.
A number of groups have joined the chorus of criticism over their partners being left behind during what eventually became chaotic evacuation efforts out of Kabul.
The New York-based Women for Afghan Women was unable to secure evacuation for 500 of its most vulnerable staff. This group qualified for evacuation and refugee status for their association with a U.S. government-funded organization.
“Not a single person was evacuated,” Sunita Viswanath, co-founder of the group, wrote in an email to The Hill.
“We are incredibly demoralized and feel let down by America. How could the highest risk of the largest women’s organization — one funded by the U.S. State Department — not have been one of the most urgent groups to get out? Women just weren’t a priority,” she added.
Also left in Afghanistan are an estimated 150 journalists working for the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty media outlets funded by the American government. That group numbers 500 people including their families, according to a congressional aide.
“We are incredibly disappointed that our efforts over the past few weeks to get our colleagues safe passage out of Afghanistan have been unsuccessful,” acting VOA Director Yolanda López said in a statement.
“We have been working day and night, pursuing every available option, only to hit countless obstacles and roadblocks. These men and women are part of our VOA family and we will not be deterred by these setbacks. We remain committed to continuing to do everything we can to help all of our journalists and their families who wish to leave the country and get them to safety,” she added.
Experts say the pool of those wishing to leave trumps the earlier estimates from the administration.
Research from the Association of Wartime Allies conducted in conjunction with American University last week found a conservative estimate of those who worked in some capacity for the American government or nongovernmental organizations or who served in the Afghan National Army along with their families could number 145,000.
Meanwhile, the report estimated that those who assisted U.S. military efforts for at least three years and who may now wish to leave with their families add another 30,000 to an SIV pipeline already numbering past 80,000.
“This is looking at the total potential pool of people who are desperate to get out of the country to save their own lives — not just those that have already filed applications but those who were caught up in bureaucratic denials,” said Adam Malaty-Uhr, a board member with the association who served nine months in Afghanistan.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which will help resettle Afghan evacuees, said America’s obligation doesn’t end with those who have already been evacuated.
“History will not just remember our nation by how many people evacuated in the eleventh hour but by how many people we leave behind,” she said.
Also unclear are the nuts and bolts of facilitating travel, from identity documents to finding safe areas of transit.
“This is an area of limbo that is extraordinary. If you chase any of the trails, it goes into an area you can’t even imagine,” a former senior State Department official told The Hill.
“The United Nations can offer a stateless person a passport, but they’re not geared up to do any of that right now,” the official continued. “Then what we have are people trying to leave by land borders, where there might be a few more options, including in all of these cases bribery. There are people making money off of this misery right and left.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. had assessed that Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport can support resuming commercial operations.
But up in the air is how the Taliban will go about assigning responsibility for security and technical operations, possibly with the assistance of Qatar and Turkey.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, which had been handling travel documents for SIVs and other Afghans at risk, has moved its operations to Doha, Qatar, but it’s unclear how it will communicate with Afghans on the ground.
“The Doha office will perform as many functions as possible akin to what was done in our now-suspended Embassy Kabul,” Price said in a briefing with reporters on Tuesday.
The overriding question is how the Taliban will behave, with U.S. defense officials describing the group as “pragmatic and very businesslike” in helping facilitate evacuations for American citizens alongside the U.S. military, under threat of intense retaliation. Such promises are not guaranteed for Afghan citizens looking to flee without the presence of the U.S. military for the first time in 20 years.
NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS –The Department of Education is preparing for the start of the 2021/2022 school year on Nevis which will commence on September 06, 2021.
However, Ms. Zahnela Claxton, Principal Education Officer in the department told the Department of Information on August 31, 2021, that changes regarding the opening of school can be expected.
“September 6th is our start date and we will put information out to each school and their specific starting protocols. Some schools will have a rolling start and some schools will start in full on Monday but in relation to our early childhood centres, we will start in full on September 6th.
“Our primary schools, as I said, we will put that information out as to who is expected to come out on the 6th and the rolling dates after that, and for our secondary schools we will also put that information out and share with you and provide an update but we wanted to ensure that parents are aware that we are expecting, we are ready for our start of the new school year on September 6th 2021,” she said.
Meantime, the Principal Education Officer noted that the department is actively engaging in several activities ahead of schools reopening, including preparing parents to ensure a better parent/teacher relationship in the interest of the students’ educational development.
“This week most parents for our pre and primary schools have been called to be a part of the ‘Meet the Teacher’ activity.
“It is a thrust by the Department of Education to increase parental engagement to help parents to see where students are currently academically after some form or semblance of learning loss. We also know that it would give our teachers a metre stick, an idea of where our students are currently so that they can know where to start,” she said.
Ms. Claxton stated that the exercise is not expected to bring about perfection, and urged parents not to view it as an exam in which students would be graded.
“During the assessments we just want to see the areas for improvement, where we can help your child, and where we need to start. So this is a no-pressure activity. It is supposed to be fun, an opportunity for you the parents to also interact with your child’s teacher, and so we want to encourage you to come along. to bring your child, to be on time, to follow all the protocols to keep our children safe.
“It is by appointment only, so your school should have already contacted you. If they haven’t, reach out so that they can tell you when you are expected to be there, when is your appointed time. Please make it a date. Don’t be late. Ensure that you are there to be part of our “Meet the Teacher” activity 2021,” she said
For more news out of Nevis visit www.nia.gov.knyour window into Nevis.
MELBOURNE BEACH, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is facing resistance from a growing number of Republican-leaning counties over his handling of the recent surge in COVID-19 infections, in a rare bipartisan rebuke of the governor’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic.
A number of school districts have moved to implement mask mandates for students in recent weeks in defiance of a July executive order from DeSantis that barred school officials from putting such requirements in place. And while most of those mandates originated in more liberal parts of the state, a handful of conservative-leaning areas have joined in.
Ron DeSantis
At the same time, DeSantis is still locked in a battle with Florida’s lucrative cruise industry over a ban on so-called vaccine passports as a growing number of major cruise lines announce plans to require passengers to provide proof of vaccination.
The backlash underscores the political perils posed by the pandemic, even for a rising Republican star like DeSantis, who is up for reelection next year and is seen as a possible contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Florida is experiencing one of its darkest moments since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year as the more contagious delta variant tears its way across the state.
As of Sunday, Florida was averaging more than 21,000 new infections each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid Data Tracker. More than 16,000 people are currently hospitalized, according to a Friday update from the Florida Hospital Association that showed a slight downward trend.
“Fingers crossed, we may be seeing the beginning of a downward trend in COVID-19 hospitalizations, but new cases remain near all-time highs, so it is much too early to declare victory,” said Florida Hospital Association President and CEO Mary Mayhew.
COVID-19 cases have surged in Florida despite a major push by the state for vaccinations. Florida currently ranks 20th among all 50 states and the District of Columbia in residents who have received at least one dose of a vaccine. More recently, DeSantis has taken to promoting a COVID-19 antibody treatment sold by the pharmaceutical company Regeneron as a way to fight the delta variant.
“COVID is going to be with us. You have tools to be able to best protect yourself,” he said at a news conference on Monday touting the antibody treatment. “Obviously, from a prevention perspective, the vaccination. But then if you are infected, particularly if you’re high risk, then what do you do? And this has just got to be something that everyone knows about.”
Still, DeSantis, who has been lauded by conservatives for his resistance to some of the strictest COVID-19-related measures, has largely gone with a hands-off approach to the outbreak. He backed legislation earlier this year effectively preempting local governments from imposing their own pandemic restrictions.
But the fight over pandemic-related rules and mandates has played out most prominently in the state’s public schools. DeSantis signed an executive order late last month banning school districts from implementing mask mandates — a move that has been the subject of increasing resistance from school boards, superintendents and many parents.
Roughly a dozen of the state’s 67 school districts have bucked DeSantis on the mask mandate ban. In recent days, more conservative counties have begun to make moves of their own.
On Monday, school board members in Brevard County — an area that DeSantis carried by nearly 17 points in the 2018 gubernatorial election — voted 3-2 to institute a 30-day mandatory mask policy.
The meeting came after a Friday ruling by a Florida judge allowing school districts to impose strict mask mandates, dealing a blow to DeSantis, who had argued that such decisions should be left up to individual parents.
One Brevard School Board member, Misty Belford, had previously voted against a mask policy before joining two other members in approving the mandate on Monday. She said that while she expects the DeSantis administration to appeal the judge’s ruling, the decision gave school board members “a small window to try to interrupt the spread” of the virus.
“We have a very serious crisis on our hands,” Belford said. “I think that we have a very small window of opportunity to do something to break this cycle and get some relief.”
Also on Monday, the superintendent of the school district in Lee County, a deep-red part of southwest Florida, announced a 30-day mask mandate for all students and staff beginning on Wednesday.
The decisions out of Brevard and Lee came on the same day that public schools in two other Republican strongholds, Sarasota County and Indian River County, began enforcing similar mask mandates for students. In each of the counties, students are able to opt out of the requirements with a signed note from a medical professional.
The DeSantis administration hasn’t taken the resistance to the governor’s executive order lying down. Despite the judge’s ruling, the Florida Department of Education on Monday followed through on a threat to withhold funds from two school districts — Broward County and Alachua County — that imposed mask mandates.
“We’re going to fight to protect parent’s rights to make health care decisions for their children,” state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said in a statement. “They know what is best for their children.”
To be sure, DeSantis remains well-liked among Florida Republicans more broadly. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found his approval rating among GOP voters at an overwhelming 87 percent, while only 8 percent said they disapprove of his job performance.
And the recent COVID-19 surge doesn’t appear to have hurt DeSantis’s fundraising capabilities. Friends of Ron DeSantis, the governor’s political committee, raised nearly $5 million between Aug. 1 and Aug. 27.
By comparison, the two main Democrats challenging DeSantis in next year’s gubernatorial election, Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) and state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, have raised just over $3.2 million this year combined.
But the Quinnipiac poll also suggests some trouble for DeSantis, with his overall approval rating falling below the 50 percent mark to 47 percent. That’s still better than the 41 percent approval he notched in a July 2020 Quinnipiac survey, but it’s still well below his pre-pandemic high of 59 percent in March 2019.
When it comes to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, however, DeSantis’s approval rating drops even lower to 46 percent, while he gets 44 percent approval for his handling of Florida’s public schools. The poll also found that 60 percent of Floridians support masking requirements for students, teachers and school staff.
DeSantis’s administration is also caught in another high-profile battle against the cruise industry as a growing number of cruise operators unveil vaccination requirements for passengers.
The Republican-controlled state legislature passed a measure earlier this year at DeSantis’s urging prohibiting businesses from requiring patrons to provide proof of vaccination. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings sued over the law, and a federal judge handed down a ruling earlier this month allowing the company to require vaccinations for its passengers.
DeSantis’s office has vowed to appeal the ruling. But that hasn’t stopped other cruise operators in the state from implementing their own requirements.
So far Disney, Royal Caribbean, Carnival and MSC Cruises have announced vaccine requirements. Those decisions were influenced by an emergency order by the Bahamas effectively barring cruise ships from stopping in the country unless all eligible passengers are vaccinated.
The Quinnipiac University poll released last week found that a majority of Floridians — 63 percent — support vaccine requirements for cruise ship passengers.
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MODERNA STARTS DATA SUBMISSION FOR BOOSTER SHOT
Moderna said it has begun submitting data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine.
The data submitted is for the use of a booster dose of its authorized two-shot vaccine at the 50 microgram dose, the company said.
The company said neutralizing antibodies had waned “significantly” prior to boosting approximately six months after the second dose.
The Biden administration announced last month that boosters would be available the week of Sept. 20 to most people fully vaccinated eight months earlier.
Context: The announcement comes after the U.S. authorized third doses of both Moderna and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines for immunocompromised people last month, but boosters for the general public are not yet authorized.
More than 1 million people have since received a third dose according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though the agency does not distinguish if the people were immunocompromised.
What’s next: Shortly after the announcement from Moderna, FDA scheduled a key meeting of its outside advisory committee on vaccines. The group will meet Sept. 17 to discuss data from the Pfizer-BioNTech booster application — just three days before the Biden administration’s self-declared start date. It’s not clear if the scientists will follow the administration’s plan, though their recommendations are non-binding.
New Orleans officials have imposed a citywide curfew as large parts of Louisiana and Mississippi remain without power following Hurricane Ida.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the curfew would last from 20:00 to 06:00 and police said there had been “several” incidents of looting in the city.
Energy companies are working to restore power but residents are being warned it could take weeks in some areas.
Meanwhile water services and infrastructure have also been hit.
Two people were killed and at least 10 injured after a section of highway collapsed near Lucedale, Mississippi on Monday.
Several cars were reported to have fallen into a hole that was 50 to 60ft (15 to 18m) long and 20 to 30ft deep, according to highway police.
Local authorities believe that some of the drivers may not have been able to see the road properly because of the heavy rains. The highway remains closed.
Over eight inches (20cm) of rain fell in the area during Ida, which reached the US mainland as a Category 4 storm on Sunday.
Residents urged not to return home
While Ida’s speed has slowed, authorities continue to warn of storm surges and heavy rains across the southern US.
By Tuesday afternoon, Ida was in Tennessee, soaking the area with intense rain and prompting flash flood warnings.
image sourceReuters
image captionNew Orleans and large parts of the region are without lights and power
Local officials have urged evacuated residents to delay their return home as more than one million homes and businesses remain without power, including most of New Orleans.
Mayor Cantrell said that she was hopeful “that we should have some level of transmission” by Wednesday but “that does not mean we will immediately see all the lights on in the city.”
Federal officials say that some 441,000 people in 17 parishes across the region have no water, and a similar number may be without power for up to a month.
It comes as heat advisories have been issued, with some areas expected to reach 95F (35C), according to weather officials say.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said some 25,000 line workers were working to restore power but admitted: “There are an awful lot of unknowns right now.”
Meanwhile Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Bill Nungesser has warned the death toll from Ida will likely rise in the coming days.
In addition to the two killed during the highway collapse, at least two other people have been reported dead during the storm.
In Louisiana, a man died while attempting to drive across a flooded area of New Orleans. Another man died after being struck by a tree near Baton Rouge.
“Knowing that so many people stayed behind in places like Grande Isle and Lafitte where flood waters have devastated those areas, we expect there will be more people found who have passed,” Mr Nungesser said.
Ida is expected to move next to the US northeast, with rain and threat of floods stretching from the Tennessee to the mid-Atlantic.
Washington, DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia are among the cities now under flash flood watches.
Joe Biden has said he takes responsibility for the bloody, often chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and said it should mark a new era in US foreign policy, relying less on military muscle.
Addressing the nation from the White House 24 hours after the last US soldier left Kabul, Biden sought to confront his critics about the handling of the withdrawal. He celebrated the evacuation of 124,000 civilians in the 17 days following the fall of the Afghan capital and said it was time to “turn the page” on the US role abroad, pointing to a less interventionist future.
“This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries,” the president said.
Facing reporters in the state dining room, Biden looked into the camera and said he took responsibility for what he insisted was a “wise” decision. He admitted that his administration had not anticipated the speed of the Afghan army’s collapse, but also made clear there was plenty more blame to go around, singling out his predecessor and the former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani.
He pointed out he had inherited the Doha agreement from Donald Trump’s departing administration. That accord, signed with the Taliban a year earlier, did not make the promised US withdrawal on 1 May contingent on any political settlement inside Afghanistan, and it allowed the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners. Biden said those released fighters “including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders, among those who just took control of Afghanistan”.
“By the time I came to office the Taliban was in its strongest military position since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country,” Biden said.
“So we’re left with a simple decision: either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren’t leaving and commit tens of thousands more troops, going back to war.”
“I was not going to extend this forever war,” he said.
In that fundamental decision, Biden has solid support. A Pew Research Center poll published on Tuesday showed 54% of US adults agreeing that the decision to pull out was the right one. But there was limited enthusiasm for the way Biden went about it. Just over a quarter of those polled said the administration had done an excellent or good job while 42% said it had performed poorly.
Biden admitted that the assumption that the Afghan security forces would be able to hold out for some time following the US withdrawal “turned out not to be accurate”. But he suggested the biggest mistake was putting faith in Ghani, who abandoned Kabul and fled the country as the Taliban closed in.
He said that the Afghan people “watched their own government collapse and the president flee amid corruption and malfeasance, handing over the country to their enemy, the Taliban, and significantly increasing the risk to US personnel and our allies”.
Hours before Biden spoke, Reuters news agency published excerpts from the last telephone conversation between Biden and Ghani, on 23 July, in which it was clear that neither leader had any clue military disaster was so close at hand.
“You clearly have the best military,” Biden told Ghani, who is now believed to be in the United Arab Emirates. “You have 300,000 well-armed forces versus 70-80,000 and they’re clearly capable of fighting well.”
In the call, Biden pressed Ghani to address what he called the Afghan government’s “perception problem”.
“I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” Biden said. “And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”
Afghanistan’s neighbours offered millions in aid to harbour refugees
Republican leaders in Congress focused their line of attack on Tuesday on the fact that a few hundred US nationals had not evacuated, claiming the Biden administration had left them “stranded”.
The president, whose tone was defensive for much of the half-hour speech, said that sticking to the deadline of 31 August and cutting off the evacuation was the “unanimous recommendation of my civilian and military advisers”.
“Their recommendation was that the safest way to secure the passage of remaining Americans and others out of the country was not to continue with 6,000 troops on the ground in harm’s way in Kabul but rather to get them out through non-military means,” he said.
Biden noted that over 5,500 American civilians had been evacuated.
US troops disembark in Kuwait on Tuesday as the last American soldiers leave Afghanistan. Photograph: US Air Force/ZUMA Press Wire Service/REX/Shutterstock
“Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave,” he said. “Most of those who remain are dual citizens, longtime residents, who earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan.”
“For those remaining Americans, there is no deadline,” the president promised, saying US diplomacy would now focus on finding a way out for them.
Biden took particular issue with suggestions that a small US military contingent could have remained in Afghanistan propping up the Ghani government. He implied that such ideas come easily to those, the overwhelming majority, who do not have to bear the brunt of repeated deployments in America’s “forever wars”.
“I don’t think enough people understand how much we’ve asked of the 1% of this country who put that uniform on, willing to put their lives on the line in defence of our nation,” he said, in the most emotive passage of the speech, in which Biden invoked his son Beau, who had served in Iraq and died in 2015 of a brain tumour.
“A lot of our veterans and their families have gone through hell,” he said. “Deployment after deployment, years away from their families, missed birthdays, anniversaries, empty chairs at holidays, financial struggles, divorces, loss of limbs, traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress.”
He said 18 veterans took their own lives every day in America, although experts argue that it is unknown how many of those suicides can be attributable to military service. The veterans affairs department told the Daily Beast that calls to the veterans crisis helpline had risen significantly since Kabul’s fall.
“There’s nothing low grade, or low risk, or low cost about any war,” Biden said.
“We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan. After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refused to send another generation of America’s sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago,” he said.
‘People are broken’: Afghans describe first day under full Taliban control
It was time to learn from the mistakes of Afghanistan, the president declared. He laid out the tenets of what is increasingly seen as a “Biden doctrine” in foreign policy.
“First, we must set missions with clear, achievable goals, not ones we will never reach. And second, we must stay clearly focused on the fundamental national security interest of the United States of America,” he said.
One of the biggest mistakes of the US war in Afghanistan, the president argued, was the relentless drift in objectives, from stopping al-Qaida from attacking the US to building a nation.
“Moving from that mindset, from those kinds of large-scale troop deployments, will make us stronger and more effective and safer at home,” he said.
Even as he talked about military retrenchment, however, Biden balanced it with threats against the Islamic State (IS), believed to have carried out last Thursday’s devastating bomb attack outside Kabul airport.
“We are not done with you yet,” he said. To those who wished America harm, Biden’s message was: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and you will pay the ultimate price.”
The relentless pursuit of vengeance through military means has led the US into “forever wars” in the past. Biden insisted that would not happen on his watch, but recent history suggests it is a hard habit to break.
Eleven years to the day before Biden’s speech, Barack Obama announced the end of the “combat mission” in Iraq. Four years after that, Obama ordered US forces back into country, to fight IS.
The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a Level 4 Travel Health Notice for Saint Lucia due to COVID-19, indicating a very high level of COVID-19 in the country.
“Avoid travel to Saint Lucia. If you must travel to Saint Lucia, make sure you are fully vaccinated before travel. Because of the current situation in Saint Lucia, even fully vaccinated travellers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants.”
Tourists are advised against travelling to Saint Lucia due to the high rate of COVID-19 on the island.
The advisory was updated on August 30, 2021. Switzerland, Puerto Rico, North Macedonia, Guam, Estonia and Azerbaijan were all raised to Level 4 in the latest batch of updates as well.
Saint Lucia is currently experiencing a fourth wave of the virus, for the first time also dealing with the confirmed presence of the more contagious Delta variant on island, forcing the government to tighten COVID-19 protocols including imposing stricter curfews.
The Ministry of Health gave an update on the current situation stating, “From July 25, 2021, we note 2,583 cases at an average of 74 cases per day. Over the last 14 days we note five COVID-19 deaths and we have 1,970 active cases in country. The daily infection rate for the past week was 72.9 per 100,000 per day and an average of 132.0 cases per day.
In relation to this new wave, from July 25, 2021, 2,583 persons were positive. 51% are in the age group 25-49 years. 59% of the cases are female. The majority of the cases are from Castries, Gros- Islet, Babonneau and Dennery. Based on contact tracing data, the majority of the cases diagnosed are related to social activities. To date, from the positive cases diagnosed in country, 1.66% have been fully vaccinated.”
The ministry continued, “The response last weekend was not encouraging as the report from the enforcement agency included numerous breaches to curfew, large mass crowd activities at bars, beaches and private parties. We continue to ask the public to work with us and exhibit responsible behavior to manage this fourth COVID-19 wave.
This past week, the Ministry of Health and Wellness has continued collaboration with the Minibus Association. These meetings were aimed at discussing and strengthening collaborations and efforts in order to reduce the COVID-19 risk and to manage the spike in cases.
We continue to note positive cases related to this sector. We advise that the minibus drivers carry 10 or less passengers per load and that everyone keeps their mask on during the journey. Also, regular sanitation after every trip. It is important that the transmission risk be minimized to all who uses this valuable service.
At present we have available both the Pfizer and Astra Zeneca vaccine free of charge in country at the various wellness centers. Vaccination remains the most effective public health measure in managing infectious diseases. These vaccines have been proven to be safe and effective in protecting persons from developing COVID-19, its severe forms, complications, hospitalizations and death.
We continue to urge the public to access the various sites to get immunized at the soonest. Encourage your family and friends to get immunized so we can all be protected. We continue to advise the public to remain vigilant as increased transmission and risk of the Variants of Concerns is present. Let us all adhere to the protocols that are put in place to keep us safe. These include regular hand washing, use of face mask in public places, avoiding crowds and persons with respiratory symptoms and keeping frequently touched surfaces clean.”
Curfew hours for the immediate future are as follows:
Monday, 30th August 2021 to Friday, 3rd September 2021, from 7:00 pm to 4:00 am, with businesses, establishments, or offices ceasing operation at 6:00 pm
Saturday, 4th September 2021, from 4:00 pm to 4:00 am, with businesses, establishments, or offices ceasing operation at 3:00 pm
Sunday, 5th September 2021, twenty-four (24) hour curfew (4:00 am Sunday to 4:00 am Monday);
Monday 6th September 2021 from 7:00 pm to 4:00 am with businesses, establishments, or offices ceasing operation from 6:00 pm
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LIMA, Aug 31 (Reuters) – A bus driving along a main highway in the Peruvian Andes plunged into an abyss and killed at least 29 passengers in the early hours of Tuesday, authorities said.
The incident happened near the town of Matucana, along Peru’s Central Highway, a corridor that connects the capital Lima to much of the central Andes. The bus was carrying 63 passengers, a police official told local news outlet Canal N.
The accident is the second involving a bus plunging from a road in Peru in a matter of days, after a bus carrying mining workers in a different part of the Andes also fell off a cliff and killed 16 on Friday.
The two incidents are unrelated, although bus plunges are not uncommon in Peru, especially in the Andes. The mountain range traverses the length of the country and its highways are often dangerous, overlooking tall cliffs.
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