GLOBAL REPORT
1 AFGHANISTAN
Taliban triumphant as last US plane leaves Kabul
The Taliban held full control of Kabul’s international airport on Tuesday after the last US plane left its runway, marking the end of America’s longest war and leaving behind a now-quiet airfield and Afghans outside still hoping to flee the insurgents’ rule.
Vehicles raced back and forth along the Hamid Karzai International Airport’s sole runway on the northern, military side of the airfield. Before dawn broke, heavily armed Taliban fighters walked through hangars on the military side, passing some of the seven CH-46 helicopters the State Department used in its evacuations before it had rendered them unflyable.
After a night when Taliban fighters had fired triumphantly into the air, bleary-eyed guards kept out the curious and those who still hoped to somehow catch a flight out.
“After 20 years we have defeated the Americans,” said Mohammad Islam, a Taliban guard cradling a Kalashnikov rifle at the airport. “They have left and now our country is free.
“It’s clear what we want. We want sharia [Islamic law], peace and stability.”
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2 UNITED STATES
Covid hospitalisation toll reaches grim milestone
The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 in the US has risen above 100,000 for the first time since the start of the mass vaccination campaign in
