Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 10, 2021, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 I SLAMABAD — The Taliban on Sat-urday ruled out co-operation with the United States to contain extrem- ist groups in Afghanistan, staking out an uncompromising position on a key issue ahead of the first direct talks be- tween the former foes since America withdrew from the country in August. Senior Taliban officials and U.S. rep- resentatives are meeting this weekend in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Officials from both sides have said issues in- clude reining in extremist groups and the evacuation of foreign citizens and Afghans from the country. The Taliban have signaled flexibility on evacua- tions. However, Taliban political spokes- man Suhail Shaheen told The Associat- ed Press there would be no co-operation with Washington on containing the in- creasingly active Islamic State group in Afghanistan. IS has taken responsibil- ity for a number of recent attacks, in- cluding a suicide bombing Friday that killed 46 minority Shiite Muslims and wounded dozens as they prayed in a mosque in the northern city of Kunduz. “We are able to tackle Daesh in- dependently,” Shaheen said, when asked whether the Taliban would work with the U.S. to contain the Islamic State affiliate. He used an Arabic acro- nym for IS. IS has carried out relentless assaults on the country’s Shiites since emerging in eastern Afghanistan in 2014. It is also seen as the terror group that poses the greatest threat to the United States for its potential to stage attacks on Amer- ican targets. The weekend meetings in Doha are the first since U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in late August, end- ing a 20-year military presence as the Taliban overran the country. The U.S. has made it clear the talks are not a pre- amble to recognition. The talks also come on the heels of two days of difficult discussions between Pakistani officials and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sher- man in Islamabad that focused on Af- ghanistan. Pakistani officials urged the U.S. to engage with Afghanistan’s new rulers and release billions of dollars in international funds to stave off an eco- nomic meltdown. Pakistan also had a message for the Taliban, urging them to become more inclusive and pay attention to human rights and minority ethnic and reli- gious groups. Later on Saturday, Doha-based Al- Jazeera English reported the talks had kicked off. The news outlet cited Ameer Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban-appointed foreign minister for Afghanistan, as saying the Taliban had asked the U.S. to lift its ban on the reserves of the Af- ghan central bank. There was no immediate word from Washington on the talks. Following Friday’s attack, Afghan- istan’s Shiite clerics assailed the Tali- ban, demanding greater protection at their places of worship. The IS affiliate claimed responsibility and identified the bomber as a Uyghur Muslim. The claim said the attack targeted both Shi- ites and the Taliban for their purported willingness to expel Uyghurs to meet demands from China. It was the deadli- est attack since U.S. and NATO troops left Afghanistan on Aug. 30. Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center, said Friday’s attack could be a harbinger of more violence. Most of the Uyghur militants belong to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which has found a safe haven in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghan- istan for decades. “If the (IS) claim is true, China’s con- cerns about terrorism in (Afghanistan) — to which the Taliban claims to be receptive — will increase,” he tweeted following the attack. Meanwhile, the Taliban on Saturday began busing Afghans who had fled from the insurgents’ blitz takeover in August and were living in tents in a Kabul park back to their homes in the country’s north, where threats from IS are mounting following the Kunduz at- tack. A Taliban official in charge of refu- gees, Mohammed Arsa Kharoti, said there are up to 1.3 million Afghans dis- placed from past wars and that the Tali- ban lack funds to organize the return home for all. He said the Taliban have organized the return of 1,005 displaced families to their homes so far. Shokria Khanm, who had spent sever- al weeks in one of the tents in the park and was waiting Saturday to board the Taliban-organized bus back home to Kunduz, said she isn’t concerned about the growing IS threat in the northern province. “At least there we have four walls,” she said but added that she was nervous about the future after fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government troops had destroyed her house. “Winter is on the way. There is no firewood. We need water and food,” she said. During the Doha talks, U.S. officials will also seek to hold the Taliban to their commitment to allow Americans and other foreign nationals to leave Afghanistan, along with Afghans who once worked for the U.S. military or government and other Afghan allies, a U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the of- ficial was not authorized to speak on the record about the meetings. The Biden administration has fielded questions and complaints about the slow pace of U.S.-facilitated evacua- tions from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal. — The Associated Press A 4 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2021 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS I CANADA / WORLD ABDULLAH SAHIL / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Relatives and residents pray during a funeral ceremony for victims of a suicide attack at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan, Saturday. No co-operation against IS KATHY GANNON Taliban won’t work with U.S. to contain Islamic State AUSTIN, Texas — Texas clinics on Sat- urday cancelled appointments they had booked during a 48-hour reprieve from the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., which was back in effect as weary providers again turn their sights to the Supreme Court. The Biden administration, which sued Texas over the law known as Senate Bill 8, has yet to say whether it will go that route after a federal appeals court re- instated the law late Friday. The latest twist came just two days after a lower court in Austin suspended the law, which bans abortions once cardiac ac- tivity is detected, usually around six weeks, before some women know they are pregnant. It makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. The White House had no immediate comment Saturday. For now at least, the law is in the hands of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which allowed the restrictions to resume pending further arguments. In the meantime, Texas abortions pro- viders and patients are right back to where they’ve been for most of the last six weeks. Out-of-state clinics already inundated with Texas patients seeking abortions were again the closest option for many women. Providers say others are being forced to carry pregnancies to term, or waiting in hopes that courts will strike down the law that took effect on Sept. 1. There are also new questions — in- cluding whether anti-abortion advo- cates will try punishing Texas phys- icians who performed abortions during the brief window the law was paused from late Wednesday to late Friday. Texas leaves enforcement solely in the hands of private citizens who can col- lect $10,000 or more in damages if they successfully sue abortion providers who flout the restrictions. Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, created a tip line to receive reports of violators. About a dozen calls came in after U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman suspended the law, said John Seago, the group’s legis- lative director. Although some Texas clinics said they had briefly resumed abortions on patients who were beyond six weeks, Seago said his group had no lawsuits in the works. “I don’t have any credible evidence at the moment of litigation that we would bring forward,” Seago said Saturday. Texas had roughly two dozen abor- tion clinics before the law took effect. At least six clinics resumed performing abortions after six weeks of pregnancy during the reprieve, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. At Whole Woman’s Health, which has four abortion clinics in Texas, presi- dent and CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller said she did not have the number of abortions her locations performed for patients beyond six weeks but put it at “quite a few.” She said her clinics were again complying with the law. “Of course we are all worried,” she said. “But we also feel a deep commit- ment to providing abortion care when it is legal to do so, we did.” Pitman, the federal judge who halted the Texas law Wednesday in a blister- ing 113-page opinion, was appointed by President Barack Obama. He called the law an “offensive deprivation” of the constitutional right to an abortion, but his ruling was swiftly set aside — at least for now — in a one-page order by the 5th Circuit that on Friday night. That same appeals court previously allowed the Texas restrictions to take effect in September, in a separate law- suit brought by abortion providers. This time, the court gave the Justice Depart- ment until 5 p.m. Tuesday to respond. What happens after that is unclear, including how soon the appeals court will act or whether they will request more arguments. Texas is asking the appeals court for a permanent injunc- tion that would allow the law to stand while the case plays out. In the meantime, Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproduct- ive Rights, urged the Supreme Court to “step in and stop this madness.” Last month, the high court allowed the law to move forward in a 5-4 decision, al- though it did so without ruling on the law’s constitutionality. A 1992 decision by the Supreme Court prevented states from banning abortion before viability, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, around 24 weeks of pregnancy. But Texas’ version has outmaneuvered courts due to its novel enforcement mechanism that leaves enforcement to private citizens and not prosecutors, which critics say amounts to a bounty. – The Associated Press Texas clinics cancel appointments after abortion law reinstated PAUL J. WEBER BELGRADE, Serbia — When Russian regulators approved the country’s own coronavirus vaccine, it was a moment of national pride, and the Pavlov family was among those who rushed to take the injection. But international health authorities have not yet given their blessing to the Sputnik V shot. So when the family from Rostov- on-Don wanted to visit the West, they looked for a vaccine that would allow them to travel freely -- a quest that brought them to Serbia, where hun- dreds of Russian citizens have flocked in recent weeks to receive Western-ap- proved COVID-19 shots. Serbia, which is not a member of the European Union, is a convenient choice for vaccine-seeking Russians because they can enter the allied Balkan nation without visas and because it offers a wide choice of Western-made shots. Or- ganized tours for Russians have soared, and they can be spotted in the capital, Belgrade, at hotels, restaurants, bars and vaccination clinics. “We took the Pfizer vaccine because we want to travel around the world,” Nadezhda Pavlova, 54, said after re- ceiving the vaccine last weekend at a sprawling Belgrade vaccination center. Her husband, Vitaly Pavlov, 55, said he wanted “the whole world to be open to us rather than just a few countries.” Vaccination tour packages for Rus- sians seeking shots endorsed by the World Health Organization appeared on the market in mid-September, ac- cording to Russia’s Association of Tour Operators. Maya Lomidze, the group’s executive director, said prices start at US$300 to US$700, depending on what’s included. Lauded by Russian President Vladi- mir Putin as world’s first registered COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V emerged in August 2020 and has been approved in some 70 countries, including Serbia. But the WHO has said global approval is still under review after citing issues at a production plant a few months ago. On Friday, a top World Health Organ- ization official said legal issues holding up the review of Sputnik V were “about to be sorted out,” a step that could re- launch the process toward emergency use authorization. Other hurdles remain for the Rus- sian application, including a lack of full scientific information and inspections of manufacturing sites, said Dr. Mari- angela Simao, a WHO assistant direc- tor-general. Apart from the WHO, Sputnik V is also still awaiting approval from the European Medicines Agency before all travel limitations can be lifted for people vaccinated with the Russian for- mula. The long wait has frustrated many Russians, so when the WHO announced yet another delay in September, they started looking for solutions elsewhere. “People don’t want to wait; people need to be able to get into Europe for various personal reasons,” explained Anna Filatovskaya, Russky Express tour agency spokeswoman in Moscow. “Some have relatives. Some have busi- ness, some study, some work. Some sim- ply want to go to Europe because they miss it.” Serbia, a fellow-Orthodox Christian and Slavic nation, offers the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Chinese Sinopharm shots. By popular demand, Russian tourist agencies are now also offering tours to Croatia, where tourists can re- ceive the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, without the need to return for a second dose. “For Serbia, the demand has been growing like an avalanche,” Fila- tovskaya said. “It’s as if all our com- pany is doing these days is selling tours for Serbia.” The Balkan nation introduced vac- cination for foreigners in August, when the vaccination drive inside the country slowed after reaching around 50 per cent of the adult population. Official Serbian government data shows that nearly 160,000 foreign citizens so far have been vaccinated in the country, but it is unclear how many are Rus- sians. In Russia, the country’s vaccina- tion rate has been low. By this week, almost 33 per cent of Russia’s 146 mil- lion people have received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, and 29 per cent were fully vaccinated. Apart from Sputnik V and a one-dose version known as Sputnik Light, Russia has also used two other domestically designed vaccines that have not been internation- ally approved. Amid low vaccination rates and re- luctance by the authorities to reimpose restrictive measures, both Russia and Serbia have seen COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations reach record levels in the past weeks. Russia recorded a new record- high daily death toll from COVID-19, continuing a persistent rise that has brought new records almost daily in October. The national coronavirus task force reported Saturday that 968 people in Russia died of COVID-19 over the past day — about 100 more daily deaths than were recorded in late September. The task force said more than 29,000 new infections also were confirmed in the past day. In Serbia, the daily death toll of 50 people is the highest in months in the country of 7 million that so far has con- firmed nearly 1 million cases of infec- tion. — The Associated Press Russians flock to Serbia for Western-made vaccines JOVANA GEC AND DARIA LITVINOVA A_04_Oct-10-21_FP_01.indd A4 10/9/21 11:22 PM ;