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(WASHINGTON) — It’s been nearly one month since the U.S. withdrew all U.S. troops from Afghanistan on President Joe Biden’s order to leave by Aug. 31, ending a chaotic evacuation operation after the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized the capital Kabul.

Top Pentagon leaders are appearing before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday amid bipartisan criticism of the chaotic withdrawal and on the failure to anticipate the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country.

In their appearance Tuesday — the leaders’ first before Congress since the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan — Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, candidly admitted that they had recommended to Biden that the U.S. should keep a troop presence there, appearing to contradict his assertions to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:

Oct 08, 10:04 am
Suicide bombing during Friday prayers kills scores

A suicide bombing at a mosque in the city of Kunduz, about 200 miles north of Kabul, has left scores of people dead or wounded.

According to Kunduz provincial spokesman Matiullah Rohani, the attack was carried out during Friday prayers while the mosque was packed with worshippers.

At least 60 people were killed and 100 injured, officials said, though the exact number was not immediately clear and is expected to climb. A health official at the Kunduz provincial hospital told ABC News that it had received 26 bodies.

-ABC News’ Aleem Agha

Oct 05, 3:18 pm
UK officials meet senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan

United Kingdom officials have traveled to Afghanistan to meet senior Taliban members, the U.K. Foreign Office said Tuesday.

“The Prime Minister’s High Representative for Afghan Transition, Sir Simon Gass, and Chargé d’Affaires of the UK Mission to Afghanistan in Doha, Dr Martin Longden, traveled to Afghanistan today to hold talks with the Taliban,” the UK Foreign Office said in a statement. “They met senior members of the Taliban, including Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund and Mawlawi Abdul-Salam Hanafi.”

The statement said the diplomats “discussed how the UK could help Afghanistan to address the humanitarian crisis, the importance of preventing the country from becoming an incubator for terrorism, and the need for continued safe passage for those who want to leave the country. They also raised the treatment of minorities and the rights of women and girls.”

“The government continues to do all it can to ensure safe passage for those who wish to leave, and is committed to supporting the people of Afghanistan,” it added.

-ABC News’ Sohel Uddin

Oct 03, 12:54 pm
5th Qatari evacuation flight, with Americans onboard, takes off from Kabul

The Qataris have confirmed to ABC News that there were Americans on board the fifth evacuation flight from Kabul since the U.S. troop withdrawal.

“The State of Qatar is pleased to have worked with a number of parties on the ground as well as its international partners to make this flight possible,” a senior Qatari government official said in a statement to ABC News.

The government said the flight carried 235 passengers, which is the second-largest Qatari passenger evacuation flight since the Aug. 31 deadline.

The majority of passengers onboard were Afghan citizens, while there were also citizens from several other countries, the official said. The number of Americans onboard the flight is not yet known.

“Upon arriving to Qatar, the passengers will be transported to the compound facility currently hosting Afghan civilians and other evacuees,” the official said. “There, they will be able to take a COVID-19 test, rest and remain in Doha until departing to their final destinations.”

-ABC News’ Sohel Uddin

Sep 29, 2:50 pm
House hearing adjourned

The House Armed Services Committee hearing has adjourned with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, closing out a second day of questions from congressional lawmakers on the U.S. military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan.

Several Republicans dug into Milley and McKenzie saying they had recommended leaving approximately 2,500 troops behind as a residual force in Afghanistan, appearing to contradict Biden’s comments to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that the opinion of his military advisers was “split” and that he didn’t recall being told 2,500 troops would allow for a “stable” situation.

Austin repeated his acknowledgments of “uncomfortable truths” about the two-decade-old U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, of which he is a veteran, but was careful not to contradict the president.

Sep 29, 1:30 pm
GOP lawmaker, an Air Force veteran, blasts Biden for alleged ‘falsehood’ on residual troops

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, nearly choked up when speaking in the House hearing on Afghanistan and offered some harsh words for Biden and the committee, which he said under both Democrat and Republican presidents cautioned against a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“I think most veterans feel heartbroken knowing the blood and the treasure spilled ended up in a ‘strategic failure,'” Bacon said, quoting witness Gen. Mark Milley. “I think we’re enraged by it.”

“Then to have the president come out and say that this was a success, and he had no regrets — this does not break our hearts, that makes us mad as hell,” Bacon continued.

“The fact that President Biden on ABC said that no one that he can recall advised him to keep a force of about 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, it’s not true. We heard yesterday, and we’ve heard today that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the CENTCOM commander advise differently,” he said. “I have no other view to see this as a lie. A falsehood from our president — that makes us mad as hell too.”

Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., pushed back on Bacon’s interpretation of Biden’s interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, by focusing on the world “stable.”

“He was asked, could they stay there in a stable environment. That is the option he said wasn’t on the table, not because it wasn’t offered, but because it didn’t exist,” Smith said.

Sep 29, 12:57 pm
Defense secretary says he ‘did not support staying in Afghanistan forever’

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing he wouldn’t absolutely rule out sending troops back into Afghanistan, and added, “If we do, the military will provide good credible options to be able to do that and to be effective.”

While maintaining that he wouldn’t talk about his recommendation to President Biden on leaving a residual force, Austin said he “did not support staying in Afghanistan forever” and that keeping a presence there would have required more troops for force protection if the Taliban started attacking the U.S. military as it had promised to do.

“Let me be clear that I support the president’s decision to end the war in Afghanistan. I did not support staying in Afghanistan forever. And let me also say we’ve talked about the process that we used to provide input to the president,” Austin said.

“I will always keep my recommendations to the president confidential but I would say that in my view there is no, was no risk-free status quo option. I think that the Taliban had been clear that if we stayed there longer, they were going to recommence attacks on our forces,” Austin added.

“I think while it’s conceivable that you could stay there, my view is that you would have had to deploy more forces in order to protect ourselves and accomplish any missions we would have been assigned. It’s also my view, Mister Chairman, the best way to end this war was through a negotiated settlement and sadly that did not happen.”

Sep 29, 11:21 am
GOP links failed drone strike to ‘over-the-horizon’ capabilities

Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, raising the August U.S. drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children, took direct issue with the U.S. military’s ability to conduct “over the horizon” drone strike capabilities in Afghanistan.

“What we know from your prior statements is that you did not know who it was, who was in the car, whose house it was,” Turner said. “This greatly concerns me as we look to the over horizon claims that the administration has of its ability for counterterrorism.”

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told House lawmakers he took “full responsibility” for the strike.

“That strike was a mistake and I take full responsibility for that strike. I was under no pressure from any quarter to conduct the strike,” McKenzie said.

“While in many cases we were right with our intelligence and forestalled ISIS- K attacks, in this case we were wrong, tragically wrong,” he added.

“Over-the-horizon” capabilities are a cornerstone of the U.S. military’s counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan. The top Pentagon commanders said the U.S. will continue to investigate the intelligence that led to the August strike and will be transparent with their findings.

Sep 29, 10:47 am
Milley praises Afghanistan War veterans, defends calls to China

Echoing Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in his opening testimony that lawmakers can debate the decisions surrounding the Afghanistan withdrawal but that the courage of U.S. service members is not up for debate.

“Over the course of four presidents, 12 secretaries of defense, seven chairmen, 10 CENTCOM commanders, 20 commanders in Afghanistan, hundreds of congressional delegation visits, and 20 years of congressional oversight, there are many lessons to be learned,” Milley said.

“One lesson we can never forget: every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine who served there for 20 years, protected our country against attack by terrorists, and for that we all should be forever grateful, and they should be forever proud,” he said.

Milley again took the chance to push back on recent characterizations of phone calls to China’s top military official in the final days of former President Donald Trump’s presidency.

“At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself into the chain of command. But I am expected to give my advice and ensure that the president was fully informed on military affairs,” he said.

Sep 29, 10:18 am
Defense secretary delivers opening testimony for House lawmakers

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, facing a House panel on Wednesday, repeated his opening testimony given to Senate lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing, in which Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, appeared to contradict Biden by saying they recommended keeping a residual force of 2,500 troops behind in Afghanistan.

Austin again defended leaving Bagram Airfield, saying it would have required at least 5,000 troops and would have “contributed little” to the mission of protecting the embassy in Kabul, which ultimately fell to Taliban control.

“Staying in Baghram even for counterterrorism purposes meant staying at war in Afghanistan, something that the president made clear that he would not do,” Austin said.

He again walked through some “uncomfortable truths” about the two-decade U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, of which he is a veteran.

“We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation. The fact that the Afghan army that we and our partners trained simply melted away, in many cases without firing a shot, took us all by surprise and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise,” he said.

Sep 29, 10:12 am
Heated House hearing underway with residual force in focus

House Armed Services Chair Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., opened Wednesday’s hearing on Afghanistan with a defense of Biden for ending America’s longest war — and with a preemptive strike on the panel’s Republicans, who he said would spend the day trying to get the military leaders to contradict the commander in chief.

“The option of keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan in a peaceful and stable environment did not exist,” Smith said, opening the hearing.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, face a second day of questions from congressional lawmakers on the U.S. military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan.

Ranking Republican member Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said he “could not disagree more” with Smith and called Biden “delusional” before the leaders gave their opening testimonies.

Sep 29, 9:22 am
Top military leaders face more questions in House hearing

The nation’s top military leaders are back on Capitol Hill at 9:30 a.m. before the House Armed Services Committee — where Republicans are expected to seize on their comments from Tuesday that they recommended Biden keep a residual force of 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, appearing to contradict the president’s comments to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, candidly admitted in a Senate hearing on Tuesday — their first appearance before lawmakers since the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan — that they had recommended the U.S. keep a small troop presence there, with Milley openly advising presidents not to assign complete withdrawal dates without conditions.

In the six-hour hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Milley also characterized that the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan as “a strategic failure” and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that it was time to acknowledged some “uncomfortable truths” about the two-decade U.S. military mission there. House lawmakers are expected to follow up on the revelations on Wednesday.

Sep 28, 3:53 pm
1st Senate hearing with top commanders on Afghanistan adjourns

After nearly six hours of testimonies and tough questions, the Senate Armed Services Committee has adjourned its hearing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command — their first since the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Senators sunk into Milley and McKenzie saying they had recommended leaving 2,500 troops behind as a residual force in Afghanistan ahead of the chaotic evacuation effort. Several GOP senators called on the leaders to resign, to which Milley offered a powerful rebuttal.

“It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken,” Milley said. “My dad didn’t get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, during the hearing, defended Biden’s interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in which the president said the views of his advisers were “split,” saying, “There was no one who said, ‘Five years from now, we could have 2,500 troops, and that would be sustainable.’”

“That was not a decision the president was going to make,” Psaki added. “Ultimately, it’s up to the commander in chief to make a decision. He made a decision it was time to end a 20-year war.”

It’s been nearly one month since Biden withdrew all U.S. troops, ending a chaotic evacuation operation after the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized the capital Kabul.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(OSLO, Norway) — Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is responsible for selecting the Nobel Peace Prize recipients each year, decided to award this year’s prize to both Ressa, of the Philippines, and Muratov, of Russia, “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

Along with the notoriety, they will receive gold medals and share a cash award of 10 million Swedish krona, or about $1.14 million.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Ressa and Muratov for being “representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions.”

“Maria Ressa uses freedom of expression to expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines,” the committee said in a statement Friday. “Dmitry Muratov has for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia under increasingly challenging conditions.”

Ressa, 58, co-founded the Philippines-based online news site Rappler in 2012. As a journalist and Rappler’s CEO, she “has focused critical attention” on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial policies, including his “murderous anti-drug campaign,” according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

“The number of deaths is so high that the campaign resembles a war waged against the country’s own population,” the committee said. “Ms. Ressa and Rappler have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse.”

Ressa has been the target of multiple arrests and an online hate campaign after publishing articles critical of the Duterte regime. She was named a 2018 Person of the Year by TIME magazine.

In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in 2019, Lebanese-British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney described Ressa, her client, as “a Filipino journalist who stands at 5 foot 2 but stands taller than so many of us in her courage and personal sacrifice for the cause of telling the truth.”

Muratov, 59, co-founded the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta in 1993. He has been the paper’s editor-in-chief since 1995. Novaya Gazeta, with Muratov at its helm, “is the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power,” according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

“The newspaper’s fact-based journalism and professional integrity have made it an important source of information on censurable aspects of Russian society rarely mentioned by other media,” the committee said. “Since its start-up in 1993, Novaja Gazeta has published critical articles on subjects ranging from corruption, police violence, unlawful arrests, electoral fraud and ‘troll factories’ to the use of Russian military forces both within and outside Russia.”

For years, Novaya Gazeta has been one of the few national news publications in Russia to report critically on Russian President Vladimir Putin, conducting in-depth and dangerous investigations into the regime’s alleged human rights abuses and corruption. In 2007, Muratov won an International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists for his work as the “driving force” behind Novaya Gazeta.

Both Muratov and his Novaya Gazeta are seen as bastions of Russia’s besieged free press. Since the newspaper’s founding, six of its journalists have been killed, including investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Putin’s birthday in 2006. Novaya Gazeta’s journalists continue to receive threats for their coverage.

“Despite the killings and threats, editor-in-chief Muratov has refused to abandon the newspaper’s independent policy,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. “He has consistently defended the right of journalists to write anything they want about whatever they want, as long as they comply with the professional and ethical standards of journalism.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov congratulated Muratov on winning the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.

“He has consistently worked in accordance with his ideals, he has adhered to his ideals, he is talented and brave,” Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Friday. “It’s a high appraisal and we congratulate him.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said freedom of expression and freedom of information are “crucial prerequisites for democracy and protect against war and conflict,” and that the award of the prestigious prize this year to Ressa and Muratov “is intended to underscore the importance of protecting and defending these fundamental rights.”

“Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” the committee added. “Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament and a better world order to succeed in our time.”

Members of the press have been Nobel Peace Prize recipients since as early as 1907, when Italian journalist Ernesto Teodoro Moneta won “for his work in the press and in peace meetings, both public and private, for an understanding between France and Italy.” The prize that year was also given to French jurist Louis Renault “for his decisive influence upon the conduct and outcome of the Hague and Geneva Conferences.”

Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the World Food Program, the food-assistance branch of the United Nations, “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”

Peace was the fifth and final prize category that Swedish inventor and scholar Alfred Nobel mentioned in his last will and testament. He left most of his fortune to be dedicated to the series of awards, the Nobel Prizes.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded annually to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses,” as described in Nobel’s will.

All Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, except for the Nobel Peace Prize, which is presented in Oslo, Norway.

To date, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate is Malala Yousafzai, who was 17 years old when awarded the 2014 Peace Prize. Of the 107 individuals awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, just 17 are women.

Only one person has declined the Nobel Peace Prize: Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho, who was awarded the prize in 1973 with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for negotiating the Vietnam peace agreement.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — As the debate on masking in classrooms rages in the U.S, England, as with its risky move to fully reopen society in July, is chartering its own course. Despite competing scientific advice, in September millions of mostly unvaccinated children returned to school — with new government guidance. Masks, in the English classroom, are no longer recommended.

Part of the calculation stems from the success of the U.K.’s vaccination program — and the belief that parents who could potentially catch the virus from their children are mostly protected from two doses, which has led to criticism from some scientists.

More than 45 million people in the U.K. have received two doses of coronavirus vaccines, which amounts to 82.5% of the population over 16, according to government data.

Children aged 12 to 17 are now eligible for a first shot of the vaccine, and all people above 18 are encouraged to get both shots.

Since July, the weekly average of daily coronavirus cases has not fallen below 20,000. However, that has not been as bad as early predictions — Health Secretary Sajid Javid previously warned that with a full reopening cases could reach 100,000 a day, heights which have not been reached. Deaths have risen too, but the success of the vaccination rollout has prevented a return to the worst days of the pandemic, with 8,627 deaths recorded between July 1 and Oct. 1.

Yet with cases remaining high, parents have expressed concern about their children returning to school.

According to the most recent government guidance,: “As COVID-19 becomes a virus that we learn to live with, there is now an imperative to reduce the disruption to children and young people’s education – particularly given that the direct clinical risks to children are extremely low.” Pupils who test positive are still expected to self-isolate, but face coverings are not advised, as with other public spaces, with the emphasis instead on improved ventilation and hygiene.

However the government has not ruled out a reversal on this guidance in the case of increased outbreaks in schools. Asked by Sky News on Thursday if some of the contingency plans in case of outbreaks would include a return to mask mandates, the Secretary of State for Education, Nadhim Zahawi, said he was considering a range of options including masking.

The risk of death in unvaccinated children, according to the U.K. government’s vaccine surveillance reports, remains very low. In one study published in July by researchers from University College London, and the Universities of Liverpool, Bristol and York during the first 12 months of the pandemic, 25 under 18-year-olds died from COVID in England, which amounts to a mortality risk of 2 in a million.

However, a study in the U.S. found that masking in classrooms significantly decreases the risk of COVID outbreaks.

Experts across the U.K. disagree even on the effectiveness of masks to protect kids from getting the virus. Professor Calum Semple, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, recently told BBC Radio 4 that ventilation was in fact the best measure to prevent infection.

“If I had to invest in a single activity to improve the environment both for the children and the adults, I’d be looking at improving the ventilation… improving air exchanges,” he said, adding “that would be a much more effective way to reduce transmission in schools.”

Dr. Deepti Gurdasani, an epidemiologist and senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, told ABC News that too little is known about the long-term risks in children to allow high exposure to schools in COVID, and that the government’s laissez-faire approach has been “reckless.”

“These sort of policies are essentially fueling transmission in the name of reducing education disruption and in fact making that education disruption worse,” Gurdasani said.

Many schools have continued to encourage mask-wearing, she said, despite the central policy that they are now compulsory.

“The measures are so basic and simple,” Gurdasani said, adding, “it’s extremely important to keep schools open. But if you want to keep them open, you cannot be anti-mitigation and anti-vaccine because that is the only way to keep them open.”

Although 99.9% of U.K. state-funded schools are now open, recent reports suggest more students have missed school for COVID-related reasons in September.

Just over 2% of pupils — 186,000 students — across all state-funded schools were out of school on Sept. 30 because of suspected or confirmed COVID infections, according to government data.

“We have to make our own risk assessment as parents or grandparents and we have to decide if we are comfortable with our children going to school and if we’re not why are we not,” said David Heymann, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “And if it’s because of the fear of getting infected ourselves, then we should get vaccinated. If it’s a fear about children not wanting to wear a mask, then we should find out whether children really do or don’t want to wear a mask.”

According to the information currently available, Heymann said, there appears to be greater risks in areas like nightclubs, which are now fully open in the U.K., but more data is needed on transmission in schools.

“The best way to be evaluating this is to look at children in school and their families, and if you could test students once a week and test their parents once a week and see if there is any increased transmission in them as compared to the general community,” he said. “Now there’s lots of ways of doing this, it’s just that we are so early on, it’s only 18 months and we don’t have all the data we need because of the lockdown of last year.”

 

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping will hold a virtual meeting before the end of this year, according to a senior U.S. administration official.

That’s the key outcome of six hours of meetings Wednesday between two of their top aides – national security adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi, director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs.

The virtual summit comes amid high tension in the critical relationship between the world’s two largest economies, including over trade and regional challenges like Taiwan. China has sent scores of military planes into Taiwan’s air defense zone in recent days, raising concerns about potential conflict.

The two men and their delegations met in Switzerland, where they had what the senior administration official described as a “more meaningful and substantive engagement than we have had to date below the leader level.”

They attributed that to the long phone call Biden and Xi had last month, saying Sullivan and Yang had been “empowered directly” by their leaders to have a more honest back-and-forth, away from cameras and off talking points, per the official.

There had been hopes that Biden and Xi could meet in person on the sidelines of the COP26 climate conference or the G20 summit this fall – but Xi will not attend either in person.

So far, there are no other details confirmed about the meeting – one of several tasks ahead of the two leaders’ advisers after these engagements.

This is a developing story. Please check back in for updates.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — From Texas to Tehran, women have been fighting to protect their right to have an abortion — some by taking over the streets and others by taking over social media.

While a Texas law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy sparked protests across the United States, a letter from an official judicial body in Iran has mandated that local laboratories report on women with positive pregnancy tests to prevent “criminal abortions.”

The letter, issued by the crime prevention deputy at the judiciary in Iran’s Mazandaran province, was leaked on Twitter by health and medical journalist Mahdiar Saeedian.

“One of the ways to prevent abortion is … by connecting laboratories and the clinical centres to introduce mothers with positive pregnancy test results,” the letter states.

On social media, women reacted to the letter by protesting what they say is an attempt to control their bodies.

“I think we are outpacing ‘The Handsmaid’s Tale.’ Protecting patients’ privacy is meaningless,” one Twitter user wrote.

In Iran, abortion is illegal unless there’s proof that giving birth would endanger the life of the mother or child, or pregnancy screening tests show the child will have serious physical or mental disabilities. This law only applies to pregnant women who are legally married. Women who get pregnant from extramarital affairs have no legal options for abortion in Iran. While some 9,000 legal abortions are performed annually in Iran, a country of 82 million people, more than 300,000 illegal abortions are also performed there each year, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.

Now, conservatives in Iran are trying to restrict abortions even further by requiring a medical team’s diagnosis as well as the approval of two “faqihs” — or religious experts — and a judge. The controversial bill has yet to be ratified.

“Just imagine a woman who has got pregnant in an extramarital affair. They would never dare refer to a lab for a pregnancy test if they know their information is being reported,” an Iranian women’s rights activist told ABC News, under the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Sima, who asked ABC News to use a pseudonym to protect her privacy and security, said she was a 29-year old engineer who had just started a new job when she got pregnant from an affair she had with her boss three years prior.

“I managed to illegally get some pills to terminate pregnancy,” Sima told ABC News. “I took them, and I started to bleed severely and could not abort. Despite my friends’ insistence, I was afraid to go to the hospital for the fear of arrest.”

Sima’s friend ultimately took her to an underground abortion center for help, which was unsupervised.

“I was even afraid of telling my boss about it. He might have fired me,” she said, explaining how helpless women can feel when they seek an abortion.

In response to the backlash on social media, the official Mazandaran IRIB News published an interview with the crime prevention deputy of the provincial judiciary, saying the command in the letter was just to prevent “unprofessional abortions.”

The Iranian women’s rights activist told ABC News that the letter shows the “perspective” of what officials plan.

“Our experience proves that denials are just to soothe the backlash,” she added. “Consider the internet restriction plan — they say it is not in practice, but we see every day that our VPNs stop working one after another. So, this official denying the letter cannot put our minds in peace. They have serious plans to have more control on pregnancies.”

She said such laws show the Islamic Republic’s desire to maintain control over women’s bodies, while enforcing policies aimed at increasing the population of the country.

According to data from the Statistical Center of Iran, the country’s population growth rate between 2011 and 2016 was 1.24%. That has since dropped to 1.15%, according to data collected by the World Population Review.

“The solution to overcome a low population rate is not policing people’s relations and affairs, or their access to safe abortion or contraceptives,” the activist said.

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(MOSCOW) — Russia’s state censor has threatened to block YouTube in the country in retaliation for the Google-owned video platform deleting two German-language channels belonging to the Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT for allegedly publishing misinformation around COVID-19.

The Russian censor, Roskomnadzor, sent a letter to Google warning that if it did not swiftly restore the two RT YouTube channels, then it faced a complete or partial block, according to Russian state news agencies that published parts of the letter Wednesday.

YouTube this week deleted the two RT channels, RT DE and Der Fehlende Part, for posting what it said was misinformation on the coronavirus pandemic. YouTube in a statement said RT DE had initially received a week-long suspension, blocking it from uploading videos, because it had violated misinformation rules.

But the platform said RT DE then tried to circumvent the restriction by using the other channel, Der Fehlende Part, to upload videos, a violation of YouTube’s user terms, which resulted in both channels being permanently banned.

Russia’s government has responded with fury and a torrent of threats to retaliate. The Russian foreign ministry on Tuesday called the deletions an “act of unprecedented information aggression” and asked the state censor to take actions against YouTube and German media in Russia.

RT’s editor in chief, Margarita Simonyan, claimed the bans amounted to a “true media war” by Germany on Russia and said she was “looking forward” to Russia banning the main German public television broadcasters, ARD, ZDF and Deutsche Welle.

Germany’s government on Wednesday said it had no involvement with YouTube’s decision to delete the RT channels and and criticized Russia’s threats to retaliate against German media.

“I want to say in crystal-clear terms that this is a decision by YouTube, and the German government, or representatives of the German government, have nothing to do with this decision,” Steffan Seibert, the German government’s spokesman told reporters, according to Euronews.

Seibert said anyone calling for retaliation against German media “doesn’t show a good relationship with press freedom, from our point of view.”

Russian authorities have sought to pressure German state news media in Russia over the past two years amid a broader crackdown on free media. Russian officials have previously publicly threatened to withdraw the accreditation of Deutsche Welle, the foreign-focused public news agency, that has a Russian-language service.

The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday said that in blocking the RT channels, “there are signs” YouTube had “grossly” violated Russian laws.

He told reporters that if Russian law enforcement agencies concluded the same then it couldn’t be excluded that measures might be taken to “oblige this platform to fulfil our laws.”

The threats to block YouTube come amid an escalating campaign by Russian authorities to pressure American tech companies, as the Kremlin seeks to take tighter control over Russia’s internet.

Just over a week ago, Google and Apple bowed to Kremlin demands to remove some content relating to a tactical voting campaign promoted by the jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny during Russia’s parliamentary elections.

Google removed an app as well as two videos from YouTube related to the campaign, called Smart Voting.

The move was seen as the biggest concession the tech giants have made to Kremlin demands to delete content from opponents and it has alarmed liberal Russians that it is a step toward the companies accepting broader censorship in Russia.

Apple and Google have largely declined to comment on the matter, except to indicate they were following local laws.

Russia’s government has pressed Google, Facebook and Twitter for years to remove more content critical of president Vladimir Putin’s rule, imposing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines on the companies. But the Kremlin had stopped short of blocking the platforms, partly because it lacked the technical capacity to do so and because it feared a backlash at home and internationally.

Some experts believe that calculus has shifted though, and that the government is now prepared to take a hard line. Since earlier this year, Roskomnadzor has slowed down Twitter, causing videos and photos to load poorly.

Google, in particular, has faced increased pressure in recent weeks. In the days before the company deleted the Navalny voting content, bailiffs visited its Moscow office to demand unpaid fines imposed by the censor. Google and Apple representatives were also summoned before a committee of the Russian senate, where the companies were accused of enabling “election interference.” The New York Times reported that Google deleted the Navalny materials after Russian authorities threatened to prosecute specific employees at its Moscow office.

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(LONDON) — Prince William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are hiring.

The Cambridges are searching for a personal assistant to add to their team, according to a new job listing.

The full-time position is based at Kensington Palace, where William and Kate live with their three young children.

The personal assistant role would provide an up-close look at William and Kate’s lives. The role is responsible for managing the royals’ schedules, arranging meetings, drafting letters and emails and assisting with events and travel, according to the listing.

“Excellent organization and communication skills are essential, as is attention to detail and a willingness to undertake a wide variety of tasks,” the listing reads. “The ability to maintain confidentiality and exercise discretion at all times is essential.”

The job listing does not include a salary for the role.

The personal assistant would join what the listing describes as a “busy team” supporting William and Kate, the future king and queen.

In just the last two days alone, William and Kate have attended a global movie premiere and traveled to Ireland.

The Cambridges walked the red carpet Tuesday night alongside William’s father, Prince Charles, and his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, at the premiere of the latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die.

The next morning, William and Kate traveled to Northern Ireland.

In their first-ever visit to Derry-Londonderry, the royals met with nursing and medical students at a local university and visited a rugby club that is working to bridge divides among people of different religious backgrounds.

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(WASHINGTON) — It’s been nearly one month since the U.S. withdrew all U.S. troops from Afghanistan on President Joe Biden’s order to leave by Aug. 31, ending a chaotic evacuation operation after the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized the capital Kabul.

Top Pentagon leaders are appearing before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday amid bipartisan criticism of the chaotic withdrawal and on the failure to anticipate the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country.

In their appearance before Congress on Tuesday — their first since the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan — the leaders candidly admitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee that they had recommended to Biden that the U.S. should keep a troop presence there, appearing to contradict his assertions to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:

Sep 29, 11:21 am
GOP links failed drone strike to ‘over-the-horizon’ capabilities

Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, raising the August U.S. drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children, took direct issue with the U.S. military’s ability to conduct “over the horizon” drone strike capabilities in Afghanistan.

“What we know from your prior statements is that you did not know who it was, who was in the car, whose house it was,” Turner said. “This greatly concerns me as we look to the over horizon claims that the administration has of its ability for counterterrorism.”

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told House lawmakers he took “full responsibility” for the strike.

“That strike was a mistake and I take full responsibility for that strike. I was under no pressure from any quarter to conduct the strike,” McKenzie said.

“While in many cases we were right with our intelligence and forestalled ISIS- K attacks, in this case we were wrong, tragically wrong,” he added.

“Over-the-horizon” capabilities are a cornerstone of the U.S. military’s counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan. The top Pentagon commanders said the U.S. will continue to investigate the intelligence that led to the August strike and will be transparent with their findings.

Sep 29, 10:47 am
Milley praises Afghanistan War veterans, defends calls to China

Echoing Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in his opening testimony that lawmakers can debate the decisions surrounding the Afghanistan withdrawal but that the courage of U.S. service members is not up for debate.

“Over the course of four presidents, 12 secretaries of defense, seven chairmen, 10 CENTCOM commanders, 20 commanders in Afghanistan, hundreds of congressional delegation visits, and 20 years of congressional oversight, there are many lessons to be learned,” Milley said.

“One lesson we can never forget: every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine who served there for 20 years, protected our country against attack by terrorists, and for that we all should be forever grateful, and they should be forever proud,” he said.

Milley again took the chance to push back on recent characterizations of phone calls to China’s top military official in the final days of former President Donald Trump’s presidency.

“At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself into the chain of command. But I am expected to give my advice and ensure that the president was fully informed on military affairs,” he said.

Sep 29, 10:18 am
Defense secretary delivers opening testimony for House lawmakers

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, facing a House panel on Wednesday, repeated his opening testimony given to Senate lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing, in which Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, appeared to contradict Biden by saying they recommended keeping a residual force of 2,500 troops behind in Afghanistan.

Austin again defended leaving Bagram Airfield, saying it would have required at least 5,000 troops and would have “contributed little” to the mission of protecting the embassy in Kabul, which ultimately fell to Taliban control.

“Staying in Baghram even for counterterrorism purposes meant staying at war in Afghanistan, something that the president made clear that he would not do,” Austin said.

He again walked through some “uncomfortable truths” about the two-decade U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, of which he is a veteran.

“We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation. The fact that the Afghan army that we and our partners trained simply melted away, in many cases without firing a shot, took us all by surprise and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise,” he said.

Sep 29, 10:12 am
Heated House hearing underway with residual force in focus

House Armed Services Chair Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., opened Wednesday’s hearing on Afghanistan with a defense of Biden for ending America’s longest war — and with a preemptive strike on the panel’s Republicans, who he said would spend the day trying to get the military leaders to contradict the commander in chief.

“The option of keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan in a peaceful and stable environment did not exist,” Smith said, opening the hearing.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, face a second day of questions from congressional lawmakers on the U.S. military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan.

Ranking Republican member Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said he “could not disagree more” with Smith and called Biden “delusional” before the leaders gave their opening testimonies.

Sep 29, 9:22 am
Top military leaders face more questions in House hearing

The nation’s top military leaders are back on Capitol Hill at 9:30 a.m. before the House Armed Services Committee — where Republicans are expected to seize on their comments from Tuesday that they recommended Biden keep a residual force of 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, appearing to contradict the president’s comments to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, candidly admitted in a Senate hearing on Tuesday — their first appearance before lawmakers since the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan — that they had recommended the U.S. keep a small troop presence there, with Milley openly advising presidents not to assign complete withdrawal dates without conditions.

In the six-hour hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Milley also characterized that the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan as “a strategic failure” and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that it was time to acknowledged some “uncomfortable truths” about the two-decade U.S. military mission there. House lawmakers are expected to follow up on the revelations on Wednesday.

Sep 28, 3:53 pm
1st Senate hearing with top commanders on Afghanistan adjourns

After nearly six hours of testimonies and tough questions, the Senate Armed Services Committee has adjourned its hearing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command — their first since the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Senators sunk into Milley and McKenzie saying they had recommended leaving 2,500 troops behind as a residual force in Afghanistan ahead of the chaotic evacuation effort. Several GOP senators called on the leaders to resign, to which Milley offered a powerful rebuttal.

“It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken,” Milley said. “My dad didn’t get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, during the hearing, defended Biden’s interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in which the president said the views of his advisers were “split,” saying, “There was no one who said, ‘Five years from now, we could have 2,500 troops, and that would be sustainable.’”

“That was not a decision the president was going to make,” Psaki added. “Ultimately, it’s up to the commander in chief to make a decision. He made a decision it was time to end a 20-year war.”

It’s been nearly one month since Biden withdrew all U.S. troops, ending a chaotic evacuation operation after the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized the capital Kabul.

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(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Over one month into Taliban control of Afghanistan, fears for women’s and girl’s rights and education have only grown — fueled further Tuesday by a top Taliban official’s comments that “women will not be allowed to come to universities or work.”

The tweets from the Taliban-appointed chancellor of Kabul University set off a fresh firestorm, prompting a clarification and a complaint about media coverage, before the outspoken chancellor deleted his Twitter account.

It’s a strange episode that says as much about the Taliban’s acute awareness of international perceptions as it does about what the future of Taliban rule holds for half of Afghanistan’s nearly 40 million people — its women and girls.

While the U.S. and other Western countries have called on the Taliban to respect women’s and girls’ rights, especially access to education, the Taliban have already taken steps to restrict them, including announcing earlier this month that certain subjects may be off limits and female students would be barred from studying with males. That could mean they’ll be excluded entirely, given the limited resources at Afghanistan’s schools and universities.

Already, the militant group has named an all-male cabinet and prohibited women from returning to work, saying there were security concerns that temporarily prevented it. A handful of women-led protests against Taliban rules have faced violent crackdowns in Kabul and other cities.

When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they largely barred women and girls from public life without a male relative and excluded them from schools and universities entirely.

Kabul University chancellor Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat suggested a return to that policy Tuesday, tweeting, “As long as a real Islamic environment is not provided for all, women will not be allowed to come to universities or work. Islam first.”

After media outlets reported on his comments, he issued a second tweet, criticizing the New York Times in particular for what he called a “bad misunderstanding” of his comments.

“I haven’t said that we will never allow women to attend universities or go to work, I meant that until we create an Islamic environment, women will have to stay at home. We work hard to create safe Islamic environment soon,” wrote the 34-year old, who was named to his role earlier this month.

Hours later, his Twitter account was deleted entirely.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, spun Ghairat’s statement, seemingly keen to ease Western concerns about women’s education, even without denying it was true.

“It might be his own personal view,” Mujahid told the New York Times, according to the paper, which added that he would not give assurances about when the ban on women would be lifted. He only said the militant group was working on a “safer transportation system and an environment where female students are protected.”

Asked about Ghairat’s comments, a State Department spokesperson told ABC News, “Any government should demonstrate respect for and inclusion of women and girls, in all their diversity, including supporting their education. Equal access to higher education on the basis of merit for all individuals is one of the principles codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

But it’s unclear what steps the U.S. or other government would be willing to take to ensure that equal access. The spokesperson didn’t address that issue, saying instead in their statement the U.S. “will continue to support Afghan women and girls.”

The Taliban is already under heavy international sanctions, and the former Afghan government’s U.S. assets, worth billions of dollars, remain frozen by the U.S., while the World Bank and International Monetary Fund suspended funding.

There’s growing pressure from Taliban leaders as well as some Afghan civilians to release those funds as the country’s economy teeters on collapse and millions are desperate for international aid.

During the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, there were enormous gains for women and girls, especially in education. The female literacy rate nearly doubled in a decade to 30% in 2018, according to a UNESCO report this year, and the number of girls in school went from nearly zero in 2001 to 2.5 million in 2018, making up nearly half of all primary students.

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(WASHINGTON) — Top White House climate negotiator John Kerry said in an interview with ABC News Live that every country needs to act to reduce emissions and address climate change faster than ever before, especially after warnings the upcoming climate summit in November could be a failure if more countries don’t increase their commitments to the Paris Agreement.

Kerry said Mother Nature “did a hell of a job whipping up enthusiasm to get something done” after the extreme events and record-high temperatures around the world this past year and said leaders are starting to feel the anticipation for the upcoming COP26 summit where countries will re-examine what they need to do to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees Celsius.

“Every country has to go faster. None of us can say we’re really fast,” Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said in an interview with ABC News Live. “There are very few countries, you can get them on one or two hands, that are in keeping with the Paris numbers.”

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said there’s a “high risk of failure” from the COP26 climate summit in November if countries don’t drastically increase commitments to reducing emissions.

The latest report from the United Nations found the world is on track to warm an average of 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, failing the goals of the Paris Agreement and triggering consequences from global warming like more extreme heat waves, droughts that would increase impacts on agriculture in some parts of the world and intensifying severe weather events. Even with every country’s current efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they’re expected to increase 16% by 2030, according to the U.N. report.

“The 191 countries that have all put in their plans together, whether they’ve changed them, improved them or kept them the same, that 191 result in a 16% increase in emissions,” Kerry told ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Zee.

“That is a big F — that fails, it fails for everybody,” he added.

Kerry was appointed to the role as special envoy for climate by President Joe Biden to help re-establish the country’s role as a leader in international climate negotiations after former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.

Kerry, who previously served as secretary of state under President Barack Obama and for 28 years as a senator, has traveled to countries like India and China, which generates about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, to speak with leaders about increasing their commitments to reducing the use of fossil fuels.

During the U.N. General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the country will stop financing new coal power projects abroad and will provide more financial support for developing countries to build renewable energy infrastructure. Kerry said that is a good start, but he acknowledged it sends a mixed message when the country continues to use fossil fuels and build new coal power plants inside the country.

“I think now there’s a growing awareness in China,” said Kerry, who recently returned from his second trip to speak with leaders there. “And I think President Xi is personally very invested in this issue. And my hope is that President Xi is going to help us all to come together around certain choices we can each make. It is possible that China could do more to peak earlier or to reduce coal.”

Kerry said he understands frustration from climate activists like Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who recently tweeted that “whatever our so-called leaders are doing, they’re doing it wrong.”

“A lot of them have failed, but I think it’s unfair. I think it’s a little much of a reach to say that, ‘so-called leaders,’ there are a lot of real leaders around and they are trying very, very hard to move this process,” he told ABC News.

Kerry said he understands Thunberg’s frustration and anger, and he is also angry that some people are getting in the way of action on climate change.

“What we need to do is behave like adults and get the job done. And she’s absolutely right to be pressing the urgency of our doing that. But there are leaders out there trying to get some things done, just too slowly in some cases, and we’ve got to speed it up,” he said.

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