The British government is considering plans to release beavers back into the wild across England some four centuries after the dam-building mammals became extinct in Britain. The proposals, described as a cautious step toward establishing a native beaver population, would see the animals allowed to be introduced if strict criteria were met along with an assessment of their impact on the surrounding land and other species. It comes after a successful five-year trial on the River Otter in Devon, a rural county in southwest England, concluded a family of beavers had a beneficial effect on the local ecology in what was the first legally sanctioned reintroduction to England of an extinct native mammal. “Today marks a significant milestone for the reintroduction of beavers in the wild,” environment minister George Eustice said on Wednesday at the start of a 12-week consultation on the plans. “But we also understand that there are implications for landowners, so we are taking a cautious approach to ensure that all potential impacts are carefully considered.” The government said beavers could play a hugely significant role in helping to restore nature, creating dams from trees, mud and rocks, which raise water levels and create wetland habitats that support the recovery of a wide range of native species. The semi-aquatic vegetarian mammals were hunted to extinction in Britain about 400 years ago because people wanted their meat, fur and castoreum, a secretion that was used in medicine and perfumes. The government said it also planned to make it an offense to capture, kill, disturb or injure beavers or damage their breeding sites. 
 
…

U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria say they are increasingly concerned about a wave of Turkish drone attacks against their commanders in northeast Syria.Turkey reportedly carried out dozens of airstrikes last week, including several with unmanned aerial vehicles, against positions belonging to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led military alliance that has been a major U.S. partner in the fight against the Islamic State group, also known as IS or ISIS.Turkey views the SDF and its main element, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), as an extension of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group given a terrorist designation by Washington and Ankara. The U.S., however, makes a distinction between the two Kurdish groups.”Turkey has recently increased its drone attacks against our military points and commanders throughout northeast Syria, in places like Kobani, Tell Tamer and most recently in Qamishli,” said Shervan Darwish, a spokesperson for the SDF-affiliated Manbij military council.”The current political climate doesn’t help Turkey to wage a large-scale ground operation, so instead they use drones and airstrikes to expand their operations,” he told VOA.The SDF said a Turkish drone strike killed one of its high-ranking commanders near the city of Qamishli on Sunday. Several other SDF commanders were targeted last week in another reported Turkish drone attack on the SDF-held town of Tell Tamer.FILE PHOTO: A police officer stands next to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) during Teknofest airshow at the city’s new airport in Istanbul on Sept. 22, 2018.US ‘deeply concerned’On Monday, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told VOA on background that “the United States is deeply concerned about reports of increased military activity in northeast Syria,” adding that Washington supports the “maintenance of the current cease-fire lines and urge(s) all parties to de-escalate.”In a bipartisan letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month, 27 members of the U.S. Congress expressed concern over Turkey’s plans to develop its armed drone industry.Turkey’s use of drones “has destabilized multiple regions of the globe and threatens U.S. interests, allies, and partners,” the letter said.”Over the last year, Turkish drones have been deployed by Azerbaijan against Armenian civilians in Artsakh, Syria; against Kurdish forces that have partnered with the U.S. in the war against ISIS; and in Libya’s civil war,” it added.Seth Frantzman, author of the recent book Drone Wars, says drones are a weapon system that is “ideally suited” for the Middle East.”You can use drones over areas that are part of a conflict or contested area where maybe there is no governing authority,” he told VOA. “You can fly the drones, attack people, and then the drones go away. There’s no risk to your own pilots, and if you make a mistake, you can blame it on someone else. So a lot of countries in the region love drones.”Frantzman said Turkey’s drone campaign and overall posture in Syria also complicates ongoing counterterrorism efforts against remnants of IS in the war-torn country.”The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are fighting ISIS. Meanwhile, Turkey is trying to destabilize the same area by carrying out airstrikes and drone attacks on the SDF or groups linked to the SDF, and that destabilizes the region that may inadvertently or advertently end up helping the ISIS cells.”VOA’s Nike Ching, Saleh Damiger and Ezel Sahinkaya contributed to this story from Washington. 
…

Poland’s prime minister said Tuesday that Belarus was purposely encouraging migrants from the Middle East to enter Poland to destabilize the European Union.”Our eastern neighbor is trying systematically, and in an organized way, to destabilize the political situation,” Mateusz Morawiecki said during a visit to the eastern town of Kuznica.About 3,000 migrants, some of them from Iraq and Afghanistan, have attempted to enter Poland from Belarus this month, The Associated Press reported. Poland is denying them entry and on Monday said it would build a fence to keep them out.The Polish government said Tuesday that it had provided tents, blankets and power generators to the migrants, who remain on Belarusian territory.On Tuesday, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, called for Poland to provide medical and legal support to the migrants.Morawiecki said Belarus’ efforts would fail because “Poland’s border will be very well protected.”Other criticsPoland is not alone in accusing Belarus. Other Baltic states have also said Minsk is pushing migrants toward them. They say it is in retaliation for EU sanctions against Belarus following government crackdowns against those protesting the disputed reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko in August 2020. The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, said it was monitoring the situation.”We firmly reject attempts to instrumentalize people for political purposes,” spokesman Christian Wigand said in Brussels. “We cannot accept any attempts by third countries to incite or acquiesce in illegal migration” to the EU. Wigand called for “orderly border management” and “full respect for migrants’ fundamental rights.”According to a BBC report, the Belarusian president on Monday accused Poland of starting a “border conflict” and violating his country’s territory.Lukashenko has warned EU members that his country will no longer prevent unauthorized migrants from crossing into EU territories after the EU imposed its sanctions, Reuters news agency has reported.Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, BBC and Reuters.
…

Charlie Watts, the self-effacing and unshakeable Rolling Stones drummer who helped anchor one of rock’s greatest rhythm sections and used his “day job” to support his enduring love of jazz, has died, according to his publicist. He was 80.Bernard Doherty said Tuesday that Watts “passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family.”“Charlie was a cherished husband, father and grandfather and also as a member of The Rolling Stones one of the greatest drummers of his generation,” Doherty said.Watts had announced he would not tour with the Stones in 2021 because of an undefined health issue.The quiet, elegantly dressed Watts was often ranked with Keith Moon, Ginger Baker and a handful of others as a premier rock drummer, respected worldwide for his muscular, swinging style as the Stones rose from their scruffy beginnings to international superstardom. He joined the band early in 1963 and remained over the next 60 years, ranked just behind Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as the group’s longest-lasting and most essential member.Watts stayed on, and largely held himself apart, through the drug abuse, creative clashes and ego wars that helped kill founding member Brian Jones, drove bassist Bill Wyman and Jones’ replacement Mick Taylor to quit and otherwise made being in the Stones the most exhausting of jobs.A classic Stones song like “Brown Sugar” and “Start Me Up” often began with a hard guitar riff from Richards, with Watts following closely behind, and Wyman, as the bassist liked to say, “fattening the sound.” Watts’ speed, power and time keeping were never better showcased than during the concert documentary, “Shine a Light,” when director Martin Scorsese filmed “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” from where he drummed toward the back of the stage.The Stones began, Watts said, “as white blokes from England playing Black American music” but quickly evolved their own distinctive sound. Watts was a jazz drummer in his early years and never lost his affinity for the music he first loved, heading his own jazz band and taking on numerous other side projects.He had his eccentricities — Watts liked to collect cars even though he didn’t drive and would simply sit in them in his garage. But he was a steadying influence on stage and off as the Stones defied all expectations by rocking well into their 70s, decades longer than their old rivals the Beatles.Watts didn’t care for flashy solos or attention of any kind, but with Wyman and Richards forged some of rock’s deepest grooves on “Honky Tonk Women,” “Brown Sugar” and other songs. The drummer adapted well to everything from the disco of “Miss You” to the jazzy “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and the dreamy ballad “Moonlight Mile.”Jagger and Richards at times seemed to agree on little else besides their admiration of Watts, both as a man and a musician. Richards called Watts “the key” and often joked that their affinity was so strong that on stage he’d sometimes try to rattle Watts by suddenly changing the beat — only to have Watts change it right back.Jagger and Richards could only envy his indifference to stardom and relative contentment in his private life, when he was as happy tending to the horses on his estate in rural Devon, England, as he ever was on stage at a sold-out stadium.Watts did on occasion have an impact beyond drumming. He worked with Jagger on the ever more spectacular stage designs for the group’s tours. He also provided illustrations for the back cover of the acclaimed 1967 album “Between the Buttons” and inadvertently gave the record its title. When he asked Stones manager Andrew Oldham what the album would be called, Oldham responded “Between the buttons,” meaning undecided. Watts thought that “Between the Buttons” was the actual name and included it in his artwork.To the world, he was a rock star. But Watts often said that the actual experience was draining and unpleasant, and even frightening. “Girls chasing you down the street, screaming…horrible!… I hated it,” he told The Guardian newspaper in an interview. In another interview, he described the drumming life as a “cross between being an athlete and a total nervous wreck.”Author Philip Norman, who has written extensively about the Rolling Stones, said Watts lived “in constant hope of being allowed to catch the next plane home.” On tour, he made a point of drawing each hotel room he stayed in, a way of marking time until he could return to his family. He said little about playing the same songs for more than 40 years as the Stones recycled their classics. But he did branch out far beyond “Satisfaction” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by assembling and performing with jazz bands in the second half of his career.Charles Robert Watts, son of a lorry driver and a housewife, was born in Neasden, London, on June 2, 1941. From childhood, he was passionate about music — jazz in particular. He fell in love with the drums after hearing Chico Hamilton and taught himself to play by listening to records by Johnny Dodds, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and other jazz giants.He worked for a London advertising firm after he attended Harrow Art College and played drums in his spare time. London was home to a blues and jazz revival in the early 1960s, with Jagger, Richards and Eric Clapton among the future superstars getting their start. Watts’ career took off after he played with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, for whom Jagger also performed, and was encouraged by Korner to join the Stones.Watts wasn’t a rock music fan at first and remembered being guided by Richards and Brian Jones as he absorbed blues and rock records, notably the music of bluesman Jimmy Reed. He said the band could trace its roots to a brief period when he had lost his job and shared an apartment with Jagger and Richards because he could live there rent-free.“Keith Richards taught me rock and roll,” Watts said. “We’d have nothing to do all day and we’d play these records over and over again. I learned to love Muddy Waters. Keith turned me on to how good Elvis Presley was, and I’d always hated Elvis up ’til then.”Watts was the final man to join the Stones; the band had searched for months to find a permanent drummer and feared Watts was too accomplished for them. Richards would recall the band wanting him so badly to join that members cut down on expenses so they could afford to pay Watts a proper salary. Watts said he believed at first the band would be lucky to last a year.“Every band I’d ever been in had lasted a week,” he said. “I always thought the Stones would last a week, then a fortnight, and then suddenly, it’s 30 years.”
…

The European Union and Britain are looking to Turkey to become a hub to process Afghan refugees seeking sanctuary in Europe. Turkey is rejecting the call.The Turkish government is dismissing calls from Europe for it to become a hub to process Afghan refugees. Government spokesman Omer Celik said Monday that with Turkey already hosting nearly five million refugees, mainly from the Syrian civil war, it can take no more.Celik says Turkey does not have a capacity to take in one more refugee. He said Turkey is not a refugee camp nor is it a transit point.Celik’s comments were in response to British media reports Sunday citing defense ministry sources, who said London was looking to countries like Turkey to create processing centers for Afghan refugees.Similar suggestions in the last few days were made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel. Those Fleeing Afghanistan Struggle to Survive in TurkeyVOA reporters meet people who say the Taliban are killing government workers and other ‘enemies’ as they take over areas of Afghanistan Under a deal with the EU, Turkey is already hosting nearly four million Syrian refugees from the civil war in exchange for billions of dollars in aid. But analyst Asli Aydintasbas says Turkish public opinion is strongly against any new deal over Afghan refugees.”We have a situation in which Turkey and the EU (are) negotiating these sorts of large sums, as a refugee deal, in which Turkey gets to keep the refugees,” Aydintasbas said. “I think there is across-the-board resentment about Europe sort of using Turkey as a refugee camp on its borders, so to speak. People are upset about this.  But it’s a huge political cost for Turkey. People simply are questioning the government’s refugee policy.”Resentment over refugee presence exploded into violence earlier this month in a suburb of the capital, Ankara, where hundreds of people attacked the homes and shops of Syrian migrants. Ankara is now stepping up efforts to secure its Iranian border, the main transit route for Afghans seeking to enter Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the construction of a barrier on the frontier would be accelerated.Additional Turkish forces are being deployed on the nearly 300-kilometer-long Iranian border, equipped with the latest surveillance equipment. Hüseyin Ediz Tercanoglu, head of Turkish security on the Iranian border, said Monday the border would be secure against any refugee surge.Tercanoglu said Turkish forces are working in places where smuggling used to be common, adding that the entire area is monitored by 360-degree rotating thermal cameras. If there’s any movement, he said, troops can be dispatched there.Displays of such force are aimed primarily at a Turkish public fatigued by the presence of millions of refugees and Europe to send a message that Turkey will not be the host of another massive influx of refugees.
…

Many survivors of an earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people in southern Haiti are worried about providing for their children, with more than half a million minors feared to be at risk from the fallout.The August 14 quake hammered infrastructure, destroying or damaging some 130,000 homes, cutting off roads and pitching thousands of families in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country into an uncertain future.When the magnitude 7.2 quake struck, Lovely Jean was resting inside the general hospital of the southern city of Les Cayes, while her 3-day-old baby, Love Shaiska, was in the neonatal ward being treated for an infection.Les Cayes was one of the areas worst hit by the quake, and as the hospital walls trembled, Jean sent her husband, Pierre Alexandre, to grab the infant while she fled the building.”The earth was shaking, and I was crying, so scared of what was happening,” the 24-year-old said, cradling her child on the porch of their damaged home in a tiny village outside the town of Camp-Perrin, northwest of Les Cayes.The three survived, though the hospital suffered damage that forced some of its departments, including the neonatal ward, to operate outside for days after the disaster.But the problems were only beginning for Jean and her husband, a subsistence farmer.Alexandre’s fields were buried by landslides during the earthquake and rain unleashed by Tropical Storm Grace, which pummeled Haiti last Tuesday. His entire potato and yuca crops are unreachable, leaving the family with barely any food to eat.More than a dozen other parents who spoke to Reuters in the quake zone expressed similar concerns about how they would cope.More than half a million children were affected by the earthquake, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said.The temblor claimed the lives of at least 2,207 people, injured 12,268 more and left 344 missing, according to Haitian authorities.Still, there are a few encouraging developments. Late on Sunday, civil protection authorities said 24 people who had been reported missing, including four children, had been found and taken by helicopter to Camp-Perrin to be looked after.Recovery efforts have been impeded by flooding and damage to roads, feeding tensions in hard-hit areas. In the past few days, residents have looted aid trucks in several towns across the south, stirring concerns about security.Deep in the mountains of Haiti’s southern peninsula, in the department of Grand’Anse, near the town of Duchity, about a hundred farmers are living in slender tents of wooden poles and bedsheets they erected along the highway. The quake destroyed their homes, crops and the deep concrete-lined holes used to collect and store rainwater.Now, with scant food and water, many of the young children suffer from hunger, fevers and infections, said Evelya Michele, a mother of five living in the encampment.At least a dozen children had broken out in rashes.”The children are very vulnerable; there is no water so we can’t even wash them to keep them clean,” Michele said.Her older children had taken off earlier that morning, walking to a nearby village in search of food.”I didn’t send them; they just left without even asking me because they are hungry,” she said.
…

Turkish women gathered outside the Afghan consulate in Istanbul to show their solidarity with Afghan women and to condemn the Taliban’s treatment of women. VOA’s Umut Colak has filed this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.Camera: Umut Colak Produced by: Umut Colak 
…

A fire on an offshore platform operated by Mexican oil and gas giant Pemex has left at least five people dead, two missing and six injured, the state-run company said Monday.The blaze led to the suspension of work at more than 100 oil wells that rely on the platform for electricity and injections of natural gas, Pemex said.The accident occurred Sunday in the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf of Mexico during maintenance work.One of the injured was in serious condition, Pemex chief Octavio Romero told a news conference.”The exhaustive search for the missing persons continues,” he said.The fire put 125 oil wells out of action, resulting in a production loss of 425,000 barrels a day, but they were expected to be restarted by Tuesday, Romero said.The company has been trying to arrest a steady decline in its oil production, which fell from an average of 3.4 million barrels a day in 2004 to 1.7 million bpd in 2020.Pemex said it had launched an investigation into the blaze, which it said was brought under control after an hour.Pemex is battling back from what it called the worst crisis in its history last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.The group lost about $23 billion in 2020 due to a slump in demand for energy that caused oil prices to briefly turn negative for the first time.A recovery in prices helped it make a profit of about $720 million in the second quarter of 2021.
…

Greece has completed the construction of a border fence along its frontier with Turkey, as European fears grow of an influx of refugees from Afghanistan. As Henry Ridgwell reports, memories of the 2015 European migrant crisis are still powerful, — but many analysts say that six years on, it is much tougher for migrants to reach Europe.Camera:  Henry Ridgwell 
…

With feather headdresses, grass skirts and body paint, thousands of indigenous demonstrators camped out in Brazil’s capital Monday to protest far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s policies and an initiative that could take away their ancestral lands.Pounding wooden tent poles into the ground, the protesters set up the “Fight for Life” camp outside the seat of power in Brasilia, near the trio of modernist buildings housing the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court.The protest camp, which opened Sunday, will hold a week of demonstrations and other activities against what the organizers, the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), call Bolsonaro’s “anti-indigenous agenda,” seeking to exert pressure ahead of a crucial Supreme Court ruling on native lands.”We’re living in a time of much oppression, of setbacks on the protections and laws the indigenous movement has fought so hard for all these years,” APIB representative Kleber Karipuna told AFP.A member of the Kayapo tribe carries bows and arrows at a protest camp in Brasilia, Brazil on Aug. 23, 2021.Indigenous groups in Brazil accuse Bolsonaro of systematically attacking their rights and trying to open their lands to agribusiness and mining.A similar protest in June erupted into clashes, with three indigenous demonstrators injured and three police wounded by arrows.The latest camp opened peacefully. Organizers said there were 4,000 indigenous protesters from 117 ethnic groups.’Case of the century’The tension has peaked with a Supreme Court case opening Wednesday on the issue of how indigenous lands are protected.The agribusiness lobby argues Brazil’s constitutional protection of indigenous lands should only apply to those whose inhabitants were present in 1988, when the current constitution was adopted.However, indigenous rights activists say native inhabitants were often forced off their ancestral lands, including under Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, which wanted to develop the Amazon rainforest.Having now returned, they should have the right to benefit from the protected status of official reservations, their lawyers argue.Indigenous men from the Krenak tribe perform a ceremony at a protest camp in Brasilia, Brazil on Aug. 23, 2021.The case centers on a reservation in the southern state of Santa Catarina but will set legal precedent for dozens of similar cases throughout Brazil.Protest organizers called it “the most important court case of the century.””If the Supreme Court accepts the so-called … ‘time frame’ argument in its ruling on land demarcation later this month, it could legitimize violence against indigenous peoples and inflame conflicts in the Amazon rainforest and other areas,” the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Francisco Cali Tzay, said in a statement.On the other hand, if the ruling goes in the indigenous groups’ favor, it could also deflate a bill before Congress that would enshrine the 1988 “time-frame argument” in law.That bill, which passed a lower house committee vote in June, is one of several that indigenous activists and environmentalists say Bolsonaro and his allies are trying to use to further the advance of agriculture and industry into Brazil’s rapidly disappearing forests.”It’s a very important case at a time when we are seeing numerous setbacks in terms of indigenous rights,” Juliana de Paula Batista, a lawyer with the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), told AFP.Surging deforestationBrazil is home to around 900,000 indigenous people. They make up less than 0.5% of the population of 212 million, but their reservations cover about 13% of the country.Environmentalists say protecting indigenous reservations is one of the best ways to stop the destruction of the Amazon, a critical resource in the race to curb climate change.Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has surged since Bolsonaro took office in 2019. In the 12 months through July, a total of 8,712 square kilometers (3,364 square miles), an area nearly the size of Puerto Rico, of forest cover was destroyed, according to official figures.
…

As the captain of Afghanistan’s wheelchair basketball team and a women’s rights activist, Nilofar Bayat fled when the Taliban took over, seeking safety in Spain where she hopes to soon be back on the court.  Speaking to reporters in the northern city of Bilbao days after arriving on a Spanish military plane, this 28-year-old athlete spoke of her shock at how quickly the Taliban swept into the capital Kabul and of her struggle to get out.  “I really want the U.N. and all countries to help Afghanistan … because the Taliban are the same as they were 20 years ago,” she said. “If you see Afghanistan now, it’s all men, there are no women because they don’t accept woman as part of society.” After a nerve-wracking escape, she and her husband, Ramesh, who plays for Afghanistan’s national basketball team, landed Friday at an airbase outside Madrid and are now starting a new life in Bilbao.   FILE – The captain of Afghanistan’s women’s wheelchair basketball team Nilofar Bayat, 2nd right, and her husband disembark from a Spanish evacuation airplane, that landed at the Torrejon de Ardoz air base, August 20, 2021.”When the Taliban came and I saw them around my home, I was scared and I started to think about myself and my family,” said Bayat after the insurgents swept into the capital on August 15.  “I’ve been in too many videos and spoken about the Taliban, about all I’ve done in basketball and working for women’s rights in Afghanistan. There can be a big case for the Taliban to kill me and my family,” she said. With the help of the Spanish embassy, she managed to secure a seat on a plane and set off for the airport where she saw the Taliban shooting and beating people to stop them from reaching the airport.  “It was a really difficult day … I’ve never seen this much danger in my country. I cried a lot, not because they beat me or my husband, but because of who had taken control of the country,” the former law student said. With the help of several German soldiers, they managed to get into the airport but spent two days there in the blazing Kabul sun with “nothing to sleep on … and not enough food” before being flown out on a Spanish military plane.  She’s acutely aware she is one of the lucky ones.  “I’m luckier than other Afghan people in that I’ve left and am here and can start a new life. But I’m just one person, others are still there,” she said.  When the Taliban were in power in the late 1990s, a rocket hit Bayat’s family home when she was 2 years old. In the attack, her brother was killed, her father was injured and she lost a leg. “They changed my life forever, they caused pain and something that I’ll carry forever in my life,” Bayat said. In a country where many people have been left with disabilities because of attacks or polio, Bayat became interested in wheelchair basketball after seeing men play, and she went on to play a key role in setting up an Afghan women’s team. “When I’m in the gym and playing basketball, I forget what’s happening in my country and also that I have a disability,” she said.She came to Spain with the help of a Spanish journalist friend and said she has received many offers to play with wheelchair basketball teams, including one from Bidaideak Bilbao BSR, with whom she hopes to start playing “as soon as possible.” 
 
…

U.S. officials are not alone in facing blame for miscalculating the speed of the Taliban offensive.  European leaders and their security advisers are also coming under mounting criticism for misjudging how rapidly events would play out in Afghanistan once President Joe Biden had decided on withdrawing American forces from the central Asian country. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his top ministers are being accused by lawmakers from their own party as well as by opposition politicians of failing to have evacuation plans ready ahead of a possible Taliban surge as U.S. and NATO troops were being withdrawn.With recriminations flying over the lack of apparent evacuation preparation and amid chaotic scenes at Kabul’s airport, a senior member of Johnson’s ruling Conservative party, Tobias Ellwood, a former British defense minister, complained Saturday of lack of coordination between NATO governments.Ellwood questioned the overall thinking which saw NATO forces being withdrawn before the evacuation of the Afghan civilians they needed to get out. “You don’t get your military out first, you get the civilians out, then you retreat yourselves?” he told “Times Radio,” a British station. “We’ve done it the other way round.””Incompetence. Poor judgment. Lack of preparedness. Untruths. Confusion. Complacency. Delay,” was the editorial judgement Sunday of Britain’s Observer newspaper on what has been unfolding at Kabul’s airport of continuing chaos.Pressure is mounting on Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to resign over the handling of Britain’s evacuation program with lawmakers infuriated that he remained on vacation with his family in Crete last week as the Taliban rolled into Kabul. Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, fumed to the BBC that Raab’s absence showed a “ministerial lack of urgency.” Keir Starmer, leader of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party, said Sunday that the response of Boris Johnson’s government has been characterized by “complete and utter complacency from start to finish.”Merkel under fire In Germany, too, which withdrew its last contingent of around 570 soldiers from Afghanistan in June, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is also facing a storm of criticism for not having finalized before the fall of Kabul evacuation plans for Afghans who worked with German forces.  German soldiers line up for the final roll call in front of a Bundeswehr Airbus A400M cargo plane after returning from Afghanistan at the airfield in Wunstorf, Germany, June 30, 2021. (Hauke-Christian Dittrich/Pool via Reuters)According to Der Spiegel magazine, top German officials started discussing in April what to do about local hires, including translators, drivers, and cooks, but for weeks disagreed about who deserved to be evacuated — whether it should be all 50,000 Afghans who had worked for the German military mission since 2013 — or only those who have worked the past two years.  There were months-long disputes about whether scheduled flights from Kabul should be used, with the evacuees paying their own way, or whether the German government should arrange charter flights, according to minutes of meetings seen by Der Spiegel.  At various times over the past two months, as more towns and districts fell to the Taliban in a quickening tempo and as the Islamists drew nearer the Afghan capital, appeals were made to Chancellor Merkel to intervene in the multi-agency disputes.   German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a protective mask during a news conference on the current developments in Afghanistan, at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany August 16, 2021 Odd Andersen/Pool via REUTERSFour weeks ago, when half of Afghanistan had already fallen under Taliban control, lawmakers, drawn from government and opposition parties, sent a joint letter to Merkel asking her to sort out evacuation plans. “We are appealing to you urgently and therefore publicly because time is very short and Germany is in danger of betraying its commitments to local hires in Afghanistan,” they wrote.  Miscalculations  The failure to finalize evacuation plans is being put down to a miscalculation — also made in Washington — at the speed of the Taliban offensive as well as misjudgments about when the Afghan government and army might give up. Like their American counterparts, European intelligence and security agencies thought they had more time.Two weeks ago, General Nick Carter, chief of Britain’s defense staff, wrote in an article in The Times newspaper that it was much too soon “to write off the country.” “There are increasing signs that the population is rallying in defiance,” he said. In late July, Germany’s intelligence service, commonly known by its German acronym BND, was also suggesting a much longer time frame for a Taliban victory, saying that it would take around three months, according to German media reports.German intelligence officials predicted Taliban fighters would besiege Kabul until the government surrendered. They did not reckon on the sudden flight of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Forty-eight hours before the Taliban seized Kabul with hardly a shot being fired, the BND changed its assessment but forecast the capital would not fall before September 11.   Intel failures  A key reason for the miscalculation is that the BND, like other Western intelligence agencies, apparently failed to pick up an infiltration strategy the Taliban had launched months earlier involving moving fighters stealthy into position in key cities ready to emerge when needed, concede some European military officials speaking, on the condition of anonymity, with VOA. In many towns, including Kabul, Taliban fighters were already on the ground.And in some cases, within the ranks of the Afghan National Army, says Ali Nazari, a spokesman for Ahmad Massoud, the son of a charismatic warlord assassinated by al-Qaida, who is forming a nascent anti-Taliban movement in the mountainous Panjshir region. He says the impression given by some Western reports of a Taliban blitzkrieg rolling across Afghanistan is wrong.FILE – Afghan National Army commando forces stand guard along a road amid ongoing fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces in the Enjil district of Herat province, Aug. 1, 2021.“There were a lot of Taliban loyalists in the army, a lot of sympathizers and supporters,” he told VOA. They just surrendered to the Taliban. “There was a conspiracy inside the army itself,” he adds.Nor were Western intelligence agencies fully aware, officials say, of the quick progress the Taliban had been making in striking since May surrender deals with tribal elders and local warlords as well as some leaders of Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities, including the country’s Hazara, who have long faced violent persecution from the Taliban because of their ethnicity and Shi’ite Muslim adherence. Another factor was the failure to appreciate the hollowness of the Afghan government and the demoralization of the country’s national army, German foreign minister Heiko Maas admitted last week. “There is no talking this up. All of us — the federal government, intelligence services, the international community — misjudged the situation,” Maas told a press conference in Berlin.  Taliban are also surprised In the defense of Western officials, American and Europe, Taliban leaders also appear to have been taken aback by the ten days that shook the world. They, too, had not anticipated such quick success with their two-month-long outside-in military strategy, which saw them slowly tightening their grip on rural districts before securing regional capitals.  FILE – Taliban fighters display their flag on patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 19, 2021.“It is an unexpected victory,” Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the Taliban leaders, said in a video message last week. Taliban leaders had been negotiating with Afghan President Ghani for a transitional arrangement that would have delayed their entry into Kabul, notes Vali Nasr, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a research institution in Washington D.C.“The Taliban were keen on that as they didn’t think they had the capacity to immediately take control of the city,” Nasr, a former senior advisor to the U.S. State Department on Afghanistan, said during an online discussion hosted by the Asia Society, a global non-profit. 
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy opened the Crimean Platform summit in Kyiv Monday to build pressure on Russia over its annexation of the Crimea territory, which is viewed as illegal by most of the world.Officials from 46 countries and blocs are taking part in the two-day summit, including representatives from each of the 30 NATO members. The U.S. delegation is headed up by Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm.Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014, following the revolution in Ukraine that saw former president and Russian ally Viktor Yanukovych ousted and the government overthrown. The annexation prompted the United States and the European Union to impose sanctions on Russia.The goal of the conference is to discuss ways of returning the Crimean Peninsula to Ukrainian government control.Speaking at the start of the conference, Zelenskiy said Crimea had turned into “a territory where most basic rights and freedoms of humans are regularly violated.”He also said the region, once a popular recreation area for Ukrainians, had become a “military base and lodgment area of Russian Federation influence on the Black Sea region.” The Ukrainian president said the occupation of Crimea casts doubt on the ability of the international community to uphold security, principles of territorial integrity and inviolability of borders. “Without restoration of confidence, any country couldn’t be sure if its territory would not be occupied,” he said.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the summit as an “anti-Russian event.” Moscow says an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted to become part of Russia in a 2014 referendum, wanting protection from what the Kremlin cast as an illegal coup in Kyiv.
…

Migrants from Latin America, Africa and Asia are flooding the streets of Necoclí, a town in Colombia across the Gulf of Urabá from the Panamanian border. More than 11,000 migrants are stranded at the port as more arrive with plans to travel north to the United States. Jair Diaz filed this report from Necoclí, narrated by Cristina Caicedo Smits.Camera: Oscar Cavadia  
David Parra also contributed to this report.
…

Scores of firefighters backed by water-dropping aircraft battled a forest fire that broke out early Monday on the southern part of Greece’s Evia island, less than two weeks after an inferno decimated its northern part.   The fire was burning near the village of Fygia where two neighborhoods have been evacuated and was moving toward the coastal tourist village of Marmari, where authorities were preparing boats to evacuate people if needed, according to Athens News Agency.   Forty-six firefighters were battling flames fanned by high winds — assisted by 20 fire engines, three water-dropping airplanes and two helicopters, the Greek fire brigade said.    Authorities have boats on standby off Marmari. Evia is northeast of the capital Athens.   The civil protection authorities had announced on Sunday a “very high risk” of fire for many areas of Greece on Monday.  Wildfires since July have ravaged the islands of Evia and Rhodes as well as forests to the north and southeast of Athens, and parts of the Peloponnese peninsula. Three people have died as a result of the fires. The government has blamed the disaster on the worst heatwave the country has seen in decades.   Climate scientists warn extreme weather and fierce fires will become increasingly common due to man-made global warming, heightening the need to invest in teams, equipment and policy to battle the flames. 
…

Josephine Baker, the famed French American dancer, singer and actress who fought in the French resistance during WWII and later battled racism, will later this year become the first Black woman to enter France’s Pantheon mausoleum.Baker will be the sixth woman to join about 80 great national figures of French history in the Pantheon after Simone Veil, a former French minister who survived the Holocaust and fought for abortion rights, entered in 2018.Baker will be honored on November 30 with a memorial plaque, one of her children, Claude Bouillon-Baker, told AFP.”Pantheonisation is built over a long period of time,” an aide to President Emmanuel Macron told AFP on Sunday, confirming a report in the Le Parisien newspaper.Jennifer Guesdon, part of a group campaigning for Baker’s induction that includes one of her sons, said they met with Macron on July 21.”When the president said yes, (it was a) great joy,” she said.The Baker family has been requesting her induction since 2013, with a petition gathering about 38,000 signatures.”She was an artist, the first Black international star, a muse of the cubists, a resistance fighter during WWII in the French army, active alongside Martin Luther King in the civil rights fight,” the petition says.The campaign has “made people discover the undertakings of Josephine Baker, who was only known to some as an international star, a great artist,” Guesdon said.But “she belongs in the Pantheon because she was a resistance fighter,” she added.From Missouri to ParisBaker, who was born in Missouri in 1906 and buried in Monaco in 1975, came from a poor background and was married twice by the age of 15. She ran away from home to join a vaudeville troupe.She quickly caught the eye of a producer who sent her to Paris, where at the age of 19 she became the star of the hugely popular “La Revue Negre,” which helped popularize jazz and African American culture in France.She became the highest-paid performer in the Paris music hall scene during the 1920s.On November 30, 1937, she married Jean Lion, allowing her to get French nationality. She would go on to divorce him and remarry twice more, adopting 12 children along the way.In 1939, she joined the French resistance, passing on information written on her musical scores.She later went on a mission to Morocco, toured the resistance movement and was appointed a lieutenant in the French air force’s female auxiliary corps.She was awarded the Croix de Guerre, a Resistance medal, and was named a Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur.”I only had one thing in mind … to help France,” she told INA archives.The Pantheon is a memorial complex for the legendary national figures in France’s history from politics, culture and science.Only the president can decide on moving personalities to the former church, whose grand columns and domed roof were inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.
…

Haitian officials reported Sunday that the death toll from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Les Cayes rose to 2,207.According to Haiti’s Civil Protection service, more than 50,000 homes have been destroyed and 344 people remain missing.22.08.21 #Sitrep8: #BilanPartielHumain| De nouveaux corps ont été trouvés dans le Sud. Le bilan humain pour les trois départements passe désormais à:✅2207 morts✅344 personnes disparues ✅12 268 blessés. ✅52 923 maisons détruites ✅77 006 maisons endommagées#Haïtipic.twitter.com/8A5KU4nWUl— Pwoteksyon sivil (@Pwoteksyonsivil) August 22, 2021More than 12,000 people were injured in last Saturday’s earthquake.The United Nations estimates that more than 1 million people were affected by the latest crisis to hit the Caribbean island country. Tens of thousands of houses have been reduced to rubble, rendering their inhabitants homeless.More Than 1 Million Haitians Affected by Quake, UN EstimatesDesperation is growing among hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors who have little or no access to reliefThe quake was centered near the town of Petit-Trou-de-Nippes, about 125 kilometers west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, at a depth of 10 kilometers, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.Aid has trickled into the area partly because of the roads and bridges damaged by the quake and the subsequent drenching by a tropical storm. But efforts to bring water, food and medical supplies have also been stymied by gangs that have attacked convoys and hijacked trucks.The country has been reeling since President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in his home July 7. His wife, Martine Moise, was injured in the attack.    
…

 The chaotic aftermath of Washington’s troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is being followed with a mix of trepidation and glee thousands of kilometers away — in Africa’s Sahel, where another foreign power, France, also vows to wind down its long-running counterinsurgency operation, at least in its present form.  As the United States continued to evacuate thousands of citizens and allies at Kabul’s airport this week, dozens of civilians and soldiers were killed in several Islamist attacks across a vast and dangerous three-border region that straddles Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. It was just another marker in a protracted fight that has killed thousands, displaced 2 million and — like Afghanistan — is considered by some as unwinnable.  FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron pays his respect in front of the flag-draped coffins of the thirteen French soldiers killed in Mali, during a ceremony at the Hotel National des Invalides in Paris, Dec. 2, 2019.If there many stark differences between America’s war in Afghanistan and France’s in the Sahel — from their size and nature to their Islamist targets — there are also haunting similarities, analysts say.  Both involve yearslong foreign involvement in countries with weak and  unstable governments.  Both operations have struggled against troop fatigue, casualties, and dwindling support at home. Both are against Islamist groups which, many say, are patiently confident they will outlast their enemy.  “If there’s any lesson to draw, it’s that indefinite military solutions aren’t sustainable,” said Bakary Sambe,  Senegal-based director of the Timbuktu Institute think tank. “Sooner or later, there’s got to be an exit,” he said.  Staying put  Unlike the U.S., France for now has no intention of withdrawing from the Sahel, a vast area below the Sahara. It will, however, soon begin decreasing its 5,100-troop Barkhane operation, the linchpin of a regional counterterrorist fight spanning five West and Central African countries.  FILE – French President Macron reacts during a joint press conference with Niger’s president in Paris, on July 9, 2021, following a video summit with leaders of G5 Sahel countries.Nor was the Sahel mentioned in French President Emmanuel Macron’s first major response to the Taliban’s swift victory. Rather, he warned against resurgent terrorism in Afghanistan and illegal migration to Europe.  Yet it may be hard to compartmentalize.   “I think the French cannot afford not to look at what’s going on in Afghanistan when preparing for the very gradual drawdown” of Barkhane forces, said University of Kent conflict expert Yvan Guichaoua.  Images of mayhem and anguish at Kabul’s airport and elsewhere “is something that certainly shocked French officials,” he said, “and maybe made them think about the circumstances in which they are going to leave.”  FILE – Taliban fighters display their flag on patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 19, 2021.Others are not so sure.  “I don’t think [the French] are drawing this kind of direct parallel,” between Afghanistan and the Sahel, said Jean-Herve Jezequel, Sahel Project director for the International Crisis Group policy group.“Maybe this is a mistake. But the French are downsizing, they’re not withdrawing. They’re still the biggest military force in the region,” he said. 
 Different — but also echoes of Afghanistan Macron announced in July France’s Barkhane operation would formally end early next year, with troops shrinking to up to half their current numbers and shifted to other anti-terrorist missions — notably forming backbone of the European Union’s fledgling Takuba force, currently aimed at helping Mali fight terrorism in the Sahel region. FILE – The France-led special operations logo for the new Barkhane Task Force Takuba, a multinational military mission in sub-Saharan Africa’s troubled Sahel region, is seen Nov. 3, 2020.Yet France’s revamped mission with its narrowed goals — counterterrorism and beefing up local forces rather than securing large tracts of territory — comes after mounting casualties, fading support at home, a spreading insurgency and growing anti-French sentiment in some Sahel nations.  Born in 2013, France’s military intervention in that region is half as old as the U.S. war in Afghanistan was, with a fraction of its scope and troop losses. Originally aimed to fight jihadist groups in Mali, it later expanded to four other vulnerable former colonies — Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania — that together now form a regional G5 Sahel counterinsurgency operation. Meanwhile, the jihadists are moving south, into parts of sub-Saharan Africa.   
While Paris pushes for greater governance and democracy — in June, Macron briefly suspended operations in Mali after its second coup in a year — the nation-building efforts seen in Afghanistan are not likely, Crisis Watch’s Jezequel said.  “It’s a failure,” he added. “But it’s a failure of the Sahel states.”  Today, some of those states, especially Mali, are watching Afghanistan’s swift unraveling with alarm, experts say, even as extremists celebrate.  The Sahel’s myriad jihadi groups lack the deep roots and experience of the Taliban, which held power in the 1990s. Yet, especially Western recognition of Afghanistan’s new rulers “will comfort the idea that the Islamist alternative is possible,” Sambe said. “It will galvanize radical Islamist groups—and that’s the fear,” he said. The European Union’s executive arm said Saturday it does not recognize the Taliban.  Moving forward For France, moving forward in the Sahel means focusing southward, where the insurgency has spread, and beefing up the Takuba Task Force. Nearly a dozen European countries, including Estonia, Italy, Denmark and non-EU-member Norway have joined or promised to take part in the military mission. But many others remain on the sidelines, including Germany. “The fear of many European countries is to commit troops and then be confronted with a fiasco or death of soldiers,” Guichaoua said.  However, he and others add, French persuasion, from raising fears of conflict-driven migration to Europe, to offering military support in other areas, appears to be working.  Not under French consideration, though, is any dialogue with extremists — an effort controversially tried with the Taliban that is earning support among some Sahel authorities, at least when it comes to homegrown groups.  “The French have considered this a red line,” Guichaoua said. “Because that would mean somewhat that French soldiers died for nothing. But it is on the agenda for Malian authorities.”  Local-level negotiations with jihadi groups have long taken place, he said — to gain access to markets, for example, or get hostages released — but not high-level ones, “and the main reason is France.” For their part, the Sahel’s extremists appear willing to wait, as the Taliban did in Afghanistan. Both, Guichaoua said, are convinced foreign powers will eventually leave, so time is on their side. 
…

Seven people were killed near Kabul’s airport Saturday as thousands gathered in a desperate effort to leave the country as the Taliban take control, the British Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.The Taliban, after a 10-day offensive, entered the Afghanistan capital just a week ago, on August 15. Since then, the airport has been a chaotic site as thousands of people have tried to flee the country, fearing a return to the harsh interpretation of Islamic law practiced when the Taliban controlled the country 20 years ago.  “Conditions on the ground remain extremely challenging but we are doing everything we can to manage the situation as safely and securely as possible,” the British Defense Ministry said in a statement.FILE – Hundreds of people gather near a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane at the perimeter of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 16, 2021.Temperatures on Saturday in Kabul reached 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit). The Associated Press reported that it wasn’t immediately clear whether those killed had been physically crushed, suffocated or suffered a fatal heart attack in the crowds.   A Sky News correspondent who was at the Kabul airport, however, said tens of thousands of Afghans turned up on Saturday with those at the front crushed against the barricades, Reuters reported. Also Saturday, U.S. citizens in Afghanistan who want to leave the country have been advised not to go to Kabul’s airport unless they have received “individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so.”  FILE – Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy leader and negotiator, and other delegation members attend the Afghan peace conference in Moscow, Russia, March 18, 2021. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via Reuters)Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban, returned to Afghanistan this week from Qatar, where he headed the group’s political office and oversaw peace negotiations with the Trump administration that culminated in the February 2020 deal that paved the way for U.S.-led allied troops to withdraw from nearly 20 years of war in Afghanistan. Biden delayed the May 1 withdrawal date that he inherited to August 31. But last week, Biden said during a national address from the White House that the U.S. may extend that deadline to evacuate Americans.   Abdullah Abdullah, coalition partner of the self-exiled President Ashraf Ghani, and former President Hamid Karzai have held repeated meetings with Taliban leaders over the past few days.     After a meeting Saturday, Abdullah said via Twitter that he and Karzai welcomed Taliban leaders at his residence.     “We exchanged views on the current security & political developments, & an inclusive political settlement for the future of the country,” Abdullah wrote.    Meanwhile, thousands of Afghans continued to swamp the Kabul airport in hopes of finding place on one of the flights the U.S. military and other countries are operating to evacuate foreign personnel and Afghans who served international forces in different capacities.    The White House said Saturday that in the last 24 hours, six U.S. military C-17s and 32 charter flights had departed the Afghan capital, evacuating about 3,800 passengers.    “Since the end of July, we have relocated approximately 22,000 people. Since August 14th, we have evacuated approximately 17,000 people,” it said.     Some information in this article came from The Associated Press, AFP and Reuters.
…

For generations, residents in the north of the Greek island of Evia have made their living from the dense pine forests surrounding their villages. Tapping the ubiquitous Aleppo pines for their resin, the viscous, sticky substance the trees use to protect themselves from insects and disease, provided a key source of income for hundreds of families. But now, hardly any forest is left. A devastating wildfire, one of Greece’s most destructive single blazes in decades, rampaged across northern Evia for days earlier this month, swallowing woodland, homes and businesses and sending thousands fleeing.  The damage won’t just affect this year’s crop, resin collectors and beekeepers say, but for generations to come. “It’s all over. Everything has turned to ash,” said Christos Livas, a 48-year-old resin collector and father of four.  Resin has been used by humans since antiquity and is found today in a dizzyingly broad array of products, from paint and solvents to pharmaceuticals, plastics and cosmetics. The north of Evia, Greece’s second-largest island, accounted for around 80% of the pine resin produced in Greece, and about 70% of the pine honey, locals say.  Satellite imagery shows the wildfire destroyed most of the island’s north. The devastation is breathtaking. Tens of thousands of hectares of forests and farmland were reduced to a dystopian landscape of skeletal, blackened trees silhouetted against a smoke-filled sky. For trees to grow back to the point where resin can be extracted will take more than two decades, and probably twice as long for the production of pine honey. “In 10 years, the forest will become green again,” Livas said. “But for tapping, it will take 20, 25 years. For me, it’s all over. Even for a 30-year-old – what’s he going to do, find a job and then come back when he’s 50, 60 to tap pines? His legs won’t even hold him.” Livas walked through the still smoldering remnants of the forest on the outskirts of his mountain village of Agdines, puffs of white and grey ash rising from beneath his boots as he surveyed the damage. “This one, I remember since I was a young boy, from 15 years old,” he said, pointing to a blackened pine, the strip of peeled bark where resin had been extracted still visible. “This must have been tapped for 32, 33 years.”  Most of his livelihood has literally gone up in smoke, lost in a horrifying roar as the giant wildfire raced toward the village.  “You could hear a rumble. … It was like an earthquake,” Livas said. The flames moved fast, leaving no time to collect the thousands of plastic bags pinned to the trees to gather the precious resin. Instead, local residents turned their attention to the village, ignoring an evacuation order and staying to save their homes.  They managed. But they couldn’t save the forest. And the villagers’ anger — at the government for not sending more firefighters sooner, for ordering evacuations when they say locals could have helped fight the flames — is palpable. Livas had been extracting resin from about 3,000 trees, producing about 9-10 tons per year at 27 euro cents (32 cents) per kilogram. Of all the trees he was tapping, just one survived. He supplemented his income by farming olive trees, raising animals and occasionally logging. But there are no trees to log now, and most of the olive trees are gone, too.  “I have nowhere left. Everywhere I’ve been, everything is burnt,” he said.  With four young children to support, the eldest just 13, Livas said he’d look for new kinds of work. But with only a primary school education and unable to read or write, he seemed overwhelmed by the thought. The forest, farming, and collecting resin, which he’s been doing since he was 15, are all he’s ever known. “What will I do now?” he said, stumbling for words. “I’ll look for a job. What will I do? Do I know what to do now?” Others were even worse off, he said. Some had several family members collecting resin, gathering around 30-40 tons a year. There were entire villages in northern Evia working almost exclusively in resin collection.  Fellow villager Antonis Natsios felt the same. He started collecting resin at the age of 12, learning the technique from his father, who had learned it from his father before him.  Now 51 and with three children, two of them in college, Natsios is unsure how he’ll make ends meet. Some of his fig trees were singed but would probably survive and produce a new crop, he said, and about 20% of his olive trees remained. But of the pine trees, his main source of income, “zero. Not even a branch.” He sees few options. “Either the state, or God, if he helps. Or migration,” Natsios said. The government has vowed to compensate all those affected by the fire. But nothing can make up for the loss of the source of their livelihoods for decades to come, the residents of north Evia say.  “We’ve lost everything for the next 30-40 years,” said beekeeper Makis Balalas, 44, who relied on Evia’s forests for pine honey each year. The forest’s destruction, he said, was far worse than the loss of any beehives. “I can create new beehives,” he said. “But this that has been lost, you can’t create that again.” For Natsios, it’s the loss of the forest he grew up in that pains him the most. “It’s not the future, it’s what we see. When you’ve been living something for 50 years and now you see this thing, this charcoal…” he trails off. “Now I, who was born in this forest, I have to breathe this blackness.” 
…

Thousands of Afghans, hoping for a better future, are trying to escape the country as the Taliban seize control. VOA’s Arif Aslan visited with 30 Afghan refugees whose long, perilous trek had taken them to eastern Turkey. This report is narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.Producer and camera: Arif Aslan.
…

Hurricane Grace pummeled Mexico with torrential rain on Saturday, causing severe flooding and mudslides that killed at least eight people, authorities said. The storm was one of the most powerful to hit the country’s Gulf coast in years. Grace was whipping up maximum sustained winds of 201 kph (125 mph), a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, when it slammed ashore near the resort of Tecolutla in Veracruz state in the early morning.The state government said eight people were killed, including six from a single family. All but one of the victims died in the state capital, Xalapa, including a young girl killed by a mudslide that hit her home, the government said.Meanwhile, an adult was killed by a collapsed roof in the city of Poza Rica farther north in the state, Veracruz Governor Cuitlahuac Garcia told a news conference.”The state of emergency has not ended,” he added.Floating coffinsLocal television showed severe flooding in Xalapa, with coffins from a local business floating down a waterlogged street. The nearby River Actopan burst its banks, shutting down a local highway, state authorities said.Grace also caused power outages and brought down trees. Images posted on social media showed damage to buildings and cars submerged by the deluge of rain the storm brought.Garcia said several rivers in Veracruz would flood and urged the local residents to take cover.A tree, uprooted when Hurricane Grace slammed into the coast with torrential rains, fell on a house, in Tecolutla, Mexico, Aug. 21, 2021.Television footage also showed flooding in Ciudad Madero in the southern reaches of the state of Tamaulipas near the border of Veracruz. Mexican state oil firm Pemex’s Francisco Madero refinery is in Ciudad Madero.Mexico City’s international airport said some flights were canceled because of the hurricane. National power utility Comision Federal de Electricidad reported 565,000 electricity users were affected by outages. Grace weakened quickly as it moved across Mexico’s mountainous interior, and by 1 p.m. CDT (1800 GMT) it was a tropical storm, with top winds of 75 kph (45 mph).Up to 18 inches of rainThrough Sunday, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center forecast Grace would dump 15 to 30 cm (6 to 12 inches) of rain over swaths of eastern and central Mexico, and up to 45 cm (18 inches) in some areas. The heavy rainfall will likely cause areas of flash and urban flooding, it said.Veracruz and its waters are home to several oil installations, including Pemex’s port in Coatzacoalcos and its Lazaro Cardenas refinery in Minatitlan in the south. Grace hit land well to the north of these cities. Earlier in the week, Grace pounded Mexico’s Caribbean coast, downing trees and causing power outages for nearly 700,000 people, but without causing loss of life, authorities said. It also doused Jamaica and Haiti, still reeling from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake, with torrential rain.
…

Tensions in Haiti were rising Saturday about a lack of aid to remote areas hardest hit by last week’s earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people in the impoverished Caribbean country. Many Haitians whose homes and livelihoods were destroyed by the magnitude 7.2 quake that struck on August 14 said they were unsure how to even start rebuilding. Exasperation over the time it is taking for aid to come through began to boil over Friday, with residents attacking aid trucks in several towns across the south of the nation. A confrontation also erupted after former President Michel Martelly visited a hospital in the city of Les Cayes, where one of his staff members left behind an envelope of money that set off a violent scramble. Former Haitian President Michel Martelly arrives at the OFATMA hospital to visit patients and medical personnel in Les Cayes, Haiti, Aug. 20, 2021.Another food delivery was cut short Saturday afternoon at a church near Les Cayes’ airport after a frustrated crowd turned hostile, prompting aid workers to abort the operation. “We are concerned about the deteriorating security situation that may disrupt our assistance to vulnerable Haitians,” said Pierre Honnorat, head of the U.N. World Food Program in Haiti. The official death toll from the earthquake stood at 2,189 people, with an estimated 332 people missing. Residents in towns across the southern rural countryside were still digging for bodies believed to lie underneath the rubble. Possible survivorOn Saturday morning, Haitian and Mexican rescue workers carefully removed layers of concrete debris from a collapsed house in Les Cayes in search of a person who might still be alive a full week after the quake. On Friday night, the team made an unlikely discovery using sonar equipment that showed signs of possible respiration or movement. “We’re hoping for a miracle,” said Luis Alva, one of the Mexican rescue workers with Rescate Internacional Topos. Tens of thousands of homes are in ruins, leaving many families with no option but to sleep outside despite torrential downpours at night. The hurricane season in the Caribbean runs until the end of November, and Prime Minister Ariel Henry has warned residents to brace for more storms. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Twitter that the USS Arlington naval vessel was heading to Haiti carrying helicopters, a surgical team and a landing craft to assist in the relief effort. Several countries, including the United States, have already dispatched aid and rescue teams. The U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, said its first shipment of 9.7 tons of medical and hygiene supplies and water arrived in the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Friday, and another 30 tons of supplies are expected to land in the coming days. Meanwhile, a search and rescue team from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) set off from Port-au-Prince on Saturday morning to help in the quake zone. Paths blockedReaching the worst-hit areas has been hindered by landslides and damage to a highway. Gang fighting has complicated travel between Port-au-Prince and southern parts of the country where crops and access to drinking water have been destroyed. Some animals kept for food were also killed. Officials and residents in small towns and rural areas continued to tally the dead and missing. For countless others, the earthquake has upended their lives in quieter but enduring ways. Manithe Simon, 68, stood in front of her collapsed home in Marceline on Friday, shocked at how quickly her honeymoon had turned into a nightmare. Only days before the quake, Simon and Wisner Desrosier had finally decided to marry in a service in the nearby Baptist church. They had been together 44 years and raised four children together. Now, the bedroom where she had posed for wedding photographs in a sleeveless white dress, flower petals decorating her bed, lay in a heap of rubble. “Our wedding was so beautiful, even though it was raining cats and dogs that day,” she said. “But now we have lost everything.” 
…

Greece has erected a 25-mile fence and installed a new surveillance system on its border with Turkey as fears mount of a surge in Afghan refugees trying to reach Europe. Greece has faced recurring refugee crises since 2015, when more than a million mainly Syrian refugees swarmed through its land and sea borders to escape conflict in their homeland. Speaking from Checkpoint One, Greece’s key border post along the country’s rugged land frontiers with Turkey, Public Order Minister Michalis Chryssochoidis sounded what he called a clear and fair warning.
 
Our borders, he said, will remain safe and inviolable. And we will not allow any indiscriminate inflow of refugees.
 
The minister’s warning sounded as he toured the checkpoint and a soaring, 25-mile, steel fence completed in recent days amid fears of a deluge of Afghan refugees fleeing for their lives after the Taliban takeover.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 7 MB480p | 10 MB540p | 13 MB720p | 26 MB1080p | 50 MBOriginal | 159 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioAfghan Refugees in Turkey Terrified at Taliban TakeoverDefense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said the Greek fence along the shallow Evros river that separates the country from Turkey is just part of a bigger plan pieced together by authorities to further shield the country against a new migration crisis.
 
We are on alert, but Greece, he said, will continue to protect itself from any threat.
 
The defense minister said special surveillance systems, including a fleet of drones and night cameras, had been installed across the new fence to watch for illegal crossings. Army bulldozers were also seen plowing across stretches of the country’s northern frontier with Bulgaria, where military trucks were unloading barbed wired to erect more fences.
 
Greece has been on the front line of Europe’s migration woes since about 1.2 million refugees from Syria streamed through in 2015, sparking the biggest migration push to the European continent since the Second World War.
 
Greece has repeatedly complained to the European Union about doing too little to support hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees trapped in the country for six years, as neighboring states and other European nations, including Germany, turned a blind eye, sealing their borders to keep them away.
 
The United Nations is now making appeals for countries in the region to not do the same to fleeing Afghanis.  But the government in Athens says it won’t sit passively.In fact, in a surprise move. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis placed an urgent telephone call to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday trying to drum up support and a common strategy on how to deal with a potential migration crisis in the region.
 
Details of the meeting or any decision between the two men were not released. But no sooner had the call ended than Erdogan warned Europe he too would not allow Turkey to become what he called a refugee warehouse.
 
Turkey is already hosting 3.6 million Syrian refugees and more than 300,000 Afghans.
 
In Greece, meanwhile, humanitarian groups, Afghan refugees and leftist parties are now up in arms about the border fence and the government’s controversial plan of deterrence.  Those groups say the plan completely disregards human rights and the right to asylum to those fleeing danger and bloodshed.
…