Category World News

Khas Kunar, Afghanistan – When the ground shook beneath Andarlachak village in the Diwa Gul Valley on August 31, the already precarious lives of its residents collapsed along with the walls of their homes.

“Our houses now have huge cracks or collapsed walls. We can’t stay in our homes. The beams have cracked,” said Abdul Wahid, a 33-year-old English teacher. “All our homes are uninhabitable. We all moved to different camps around the valley.”

Thousands of others across eastern Afghanistan now face an uncertain future as they live in  makeshift tents pitched in the valley.

The magnitude 6 quake destroyed more than 5,000 homes and killed at least 2,200 people, according to officials. The United Nations estimated that half a million people have been affected.

For some, the earthquake turned already challenging lives into desperate journeys. From Aireth, a mountain village in Nurgal, Mohamed Khader walked for more than six hours with his family and neighbours to reach safety.

“Our village is very remote, high up in the mountains, and the earthquake was very powerful. There is no place to shelter there. There was no roof left on any home. A human cannot live there any more,” he said. “But if the government will help us rebuild, we will definitely go back to our village.”

Authorities said emergency efforts are under way. Trucks left behind by United States soldiers in their hurried 2021 withdrawal from the country are now being used to ferry supplies from a former US base in Khas Kunar converted into a government coordination centre.

Najibullah Haqqani, Kunar’s provincial director for the Ministry of Information and Culture, said the government is following a three-step plan: evacuating those at risk; providing food, shelter and medical care in camps; and eventually helping families rebuild or find permanent housing.

But villagers said tents will not protect them from the long, harsh winter.

Azim Khan, a 37-year-old farmer from Gagezu village in the Diwa Gul Valley, said every home in his community was damaged.

“We still have aftershocks, and the houses are in danger of collapsing,” he said. “We cannot rebuild on our own. We are all poor farmers. We ask our government and the international community to help us rebuild or help us with more permanent shelter. Inside a house, we can light a fire to keep warm in winter. How will we keep warm in a tent?”

Kunar Governor Mawlawi Qudratullah said cash donations are being directed towards reconstruction with promises of more support from NGOs and private donors.

“For the third phase of reconstruction, we require the support of the international community and NGOs. We have discussed with them already. Some NGOs have started some surveys, and after they will do their feasibility studies. They have made commitments to help with healthcare, reconstruction, education, water supply and other services needed,” he said.

The United Kingdom is set to roll out the royal red carpet for United States President Donald Trump’s second state visit to the country, with an extraordinary show of pomp and pageantry unfolding entirely behind closed doors, far from planned protests in London.

King Charles III will host Trump at Windsor Castle on Wednesday before trade talks the next day with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Chequers, the British leader’s rural retreat.

Trump’s visit to London coincides with critical trade negotiations between the US and many of its key trading partners, including the UK. During his stay, both countries plan to announce several deals on technology and civil nuclear energy, and British leaders hope to finalise an agreement on metal tariffs.

If the UK authorities’ goal was to make Trump feel most welcome, it appeared to be working, as he arrived by helicopter at the US ambassador’s official residence in London on Tuesday night with First Lady Melania Trump.

“A lot of things here warm my heart,” said Trump, whose mother hailed from Scotland and who has two golf courses in the UK. He described Charles, 76, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, as “my friend”.

This state visit is “certainly unprecedented”, said Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic, reporting from Windsor Castle, about 40km (25 miles) west of central London.

“The UK government hopes that all the glitter and glamour of a state visit and all that entails, mixing with the royals, the pomp and the pageantry, will put Donald Trump in a good mood and make him more malleable to perhaps negotiate on trade” and more willing to heed Starmer on certain foreign policy matters, said Veselinovic.

The US president’s day will begin with heir to the throne Prince William and his wife Catherine welcoming the Trumps to Windsor Castle, the home of the British royals for nearly a millennium.

King Charles and Queen Camilla are then due to join them for a carriage procession through the grounds of Windsor estate towards the castle – again behind closed doors.

The Trumps will lay a wreath on the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II, who died in 2022.

Trump will also witness a military band ceremony, ending with a flypast by US and British F-35 military jets and the Royal Air Force’s Red Arrows display team. This is the first joint flypast by US and UK fighter jets at an event of its kind, and the largest guard of honour at a state visit, featuring 120 horses and 1,300 troops.

The president and Charles will wrap up the day with a white-tie state banquet, where they are due to give speeches.

The visit comes at an awkward time for US, UK leaders

Starmer faces political troubles at home, after sacking his UK ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, over the ongoing furore involving the diplomat’s connection to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019.

Trump has also been dragged into its quadmire, riling his MAGA base, while insisting it is a “hoax”.

The lavish state and royal welcome, however, stands in contrast to public opinion in the UK, where polls show Trump remains a deeply unpopular figure.

On Tuesday, dozens of protesters from the Stop Trump Coalition gathered outside Windsor Castle to demonstrate against Trump’s visit. Four people were arrested on suspicion of malicious communications after they projected images of Trump and Epstein onto the nearly 1,000-year-old castle, according to Thames Valley police.

Large protests are also planned in London on Wednesday.

In an opinion piece written for the UK daily The Guardian before Trump’s visit, London’s Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan, who Trump has repeatedly insulted and denigrated, accused Trump of doing more than anyone else to “fan the flames of divisive, far-right politics around the world in recent years”.

Khan said that while he recognised the practical reasons for maintaining strong ties with the US, the UK should not be afraid to criticise Trump.

The so-called special relationship between the UK and US, Khan said, “includes being open and honest with each other”, adding: “At times, this means being a critical friend and speaking truth to power.”

Khan also publicly clashed with the US president during his first state visit in 2019.

Trump has “publicly endorsed” and called Nigel Farage, head of the far-right anti-immigration Reform party, a friend, said Veselinovic.

Farage has said the party’s policies regarding immigration were “partly inspired or at least echo Donald Trump’s own deportation programmes in the US”, said Veselinovic.

The UK’s primary goal with the state visit “is to try to get more favourable terms with the US in the existing UK-US trade deal… It is looking like that may perhaps not happen for Keir Starmer during this visit,” said Veselinovic. “Critics have said that perhaps he [Starmer] was too fast to extend this unprecedented second invitation for a state visit, that he should’ve dangled it as an award for more favourable treatment.”

During Thursday’s visit, Starmer is also expected to discuss foreign affairs with Trump.

Starmer has tried to use his influence to maintain US support for Ukraine, with limited results. Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he hosted in Alaska last month, but has not made good on threats to impose new sanctions on Russia for shunning peace negotiations.

This summer was one of the hottest on record in Europe, with temperatures soaring above 46 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit), triggering wildfires and causing the deaths of thousands of people, particularly among the elderly.

Climate change is likely to be responsible for 68 percent, or about 16,500, of additional heat-related deaths, according to new research from the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment in London, United Kingdom.

This is partly because rising temperatures triggered by human-caused climate change are the main cause of the intense wildfires that ravaged parts of the continent this year. Four times as much land area as the usual annual average was burned in Spain at 380,000 hectares (940,000 acres) – more than five times the size of Singapore. In Portugal, 280,000 hectares (690,000 acres) of land was burned – larger than the area of the country of Luxembourg and two-and-a-half times the annual average.

Intense wildfires were also reported in France, Italy, Greece, Albania and Turkiye this year. But Spain bore the brunt of the heat this year with more than 1,100 deaths blamed on a 16-day heatwave in August, according to the Madrid-based Carlos III Health Institute.

Elderly people with underlying health conditions were particularly vulnerable to overheating of indoor environments, the study found.

What did the study find?

The Grantham Institute study, which examined 854 European cities, found that the average rise in temperature by approximately 3.6C (6.48F) was responsible for 68 percent of the 24,400 estimated heat-related deaths this summer.

The analysis of the data gathered across European cities was carried out by researchers at the Imperial College of London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The two institutions warned that the result is only “a snapshot” of the real death toll linked to extreme heat, as the cities studied represent only a third of Europe’s population. It stated that extreme heat is the “deadliest type of weather” and that the officially reported heat deaths in Europe remain “significantly underestimated”.

The results of the research “underscore why extreme heat is known as a silent killer”, the report’s authors said.

Which countries were worst affected?

Additional heat-related deaths as a result of climate change were reported as follows:

• Italy – 4,597
• Spain – 2,841
• Germany – 1,477
• France – 1,444
• UK – 1,147
• Romania – 1,064
• Greece – 808
• Bulgaria – 552
• Croatia – 268

In capital cities, climate change led to an additional 835 deaths in Rome; 630 in Athens; 409 in Paris; 387 in Madrid; 360 in Bucharest; 315 in London; and 140 in Berlin.

Among the 30 European capitals covered, Rome, Athens and Bucharest had the highest estimated excess mortality per population this summer.

What caused the rising temperatures in Europe?

According to the study, cities are highly vulnerable to heatwaves because of the presence of “large amounts of concrete and asphalt surfaces”, which trap and hold heat. Transport systems and energy use in cities also tend to generate “even more, intensifying dangerous urban temperatures”.

In addition, an intense heatwave in August, caused by both a “heat dome” and a “heat plume” – the rising of hot air masses from North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula – affected the entire Mediterranean region of Europe, especially the Iberian Peninsula, the study found.

Who were most likely to be affected by the increasing heat?

According to the report, people aged 65 and above made up 85 percent of the excess deaths, highlighting how hotter summers “will become increasingly deadly for Europe’s ageing population”, the report stated.

This is because underlying health conditions more common among the elderly can be exacerbated by the rapid heating of indoor environments, it explained. Air pollution is also known to play an “important role” in heat-related deaths.

The study added that the majority of heat-related deaths go unreported as being linked to rising temperatures, “while official government figures can take months to appear, if they are released at all”.

What is the solution?

The study’s authors recommended that cities should expand “green” and “blue” spaces, which are known to decrease the urban heat island effect by providing “crucial cooler spaces that can be lifelines for people in heatwaves”, especially those who do not have access to air conditioning systems.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), green spaces refer to all urban areas “covered by vegetation of any kind”. That includes gardens, parks, ponds and green roofs among other spaces.

Blue spaces are defined by the National Library of Medicine as those dominated by a watery element, such as a lakeside, river or coast.

The study also recommended that early-warning systems and timely advice to the public must be put in place to limit the number of casualties.

It also recommended the adjustment of working conditions and activities during periods of extreme heat.

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – A distraught Javid Ahmad Bhat fears he may lose the entire year’s earnings from the apples he grows.

Two trucks bearing his apples worth more than $10,000 are among rows of stranded carriers that stretch for miles along a key highway connecting his city, Baramullah, in Indian-administered Kashmir to the remainder of India. Their tarpaulin covers bulge with crates of fruits that have begun to blacken and collapse under the weight of rot.

“All our hard work for the entire year has gone to waste. What we painstakingly nurtured since the spring is lost. No one will buy these rotten apples, and they will never reach New Delhi. We are left with no choice but to throw away both truckloads along the highway,” Bhat told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

The Jammu–Srinagar national highway – the only all-weather road connection in the Himalayan region – has been repeatedly blocked since August 24 after rain-triggered landslides damaged a section of it. For more than a month, the region has been battered by a severe monsoon fury, killing at least 170 people and causing extensive damage to properties, roads, and other infrastructure.

Blockade during peak harvest season

Horticulture forms the backbone of Indian-administered Kashmir’s economy, with the valley producing about 20–25 million metric tonnes of apples every year – roughly 78 percent of India’s total apple output, according to data Al Jazeera collected from fruit growers’ associations.

The highway blockade coincides with the peak harvest season in Kashmir, locally called “harud”, during which apples, walnuts and rice are gathered from thousands of orchards and fields across the valley.

“It’s not just me or my village – this crisis [road closure] is hitting all of Kashmir’s apple growers. Our entire livelihood depends on this harvest,” said Bhat, calling it a second blow to the region’s economy this year after the Pahalgam attack in April, when suspected rebels killed 28 people, severely disrupting tourism – another key sector in the valley.

A local government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said about 4,000 trucks have been stranded on the highway at Qazigund area in southern Kashmir’s Anantnag district for two weeks, and the fruit loaded on them has begun to rot, resulting in estimated losses of nearly $146m.

In protest, growers shut down fruit markets across Kashmir on Monday and Tuesday as they condemned the government’s inability to clear the key road.

“If the highway stays blocked for even a few more days, our losses will skyrocket beyond imagination,” Ishfaq Ahmad, a fruit grower in Sopore town, told Al Jazeera.

Sopore in Baramulla district, about 45km (28 miles) from Srinagar, is home to Asia’s largest fruit market. But the sprawling complex was a scene of despair on Tuesday. Fresh apple crates remained piled up in an endless wait, as each passing day reduced their value, or worse, brought them closer to rotting. Some estimates said the price of an apple box had already fallen from 600 rupees ($7) to 400 rupees ($5).

“We have stopped bringing more apples to the market here. We are forced to leave them at the orchards because there is no space left, and the trucks that left earlier are still stranded on the highway,” said Ahmad.

‘Nothing is moving’

Fayaz Ahmad Malik, president of the Kashmir fruit growers’ association, said about 10 percent of the trucks left for New Delhi on Tuesday after a 20-day standstill on the highway, but thousands remain stuck.

“Our preliminary estimates already run into crores [millions],” he said, adding that the government failed to take prompt action when the highway closure first began, worsening the crisis.

To address the crisis, Manoj Sinha, the region’s top official appointed by New Delhi, on September 15 launched a dedicated train from Budgam station in the central part of Indian-administered Kashmir to New Delhi to transport the fruit, claiming the move would “significantly reduce transit time, increase income opportunities for thousands of farmers, and boost the agricultural economy of the region”.

“It’s essentially a parcel coach linked to a passenger train, not a full-fledged goods train,” a railway official told Al Jazeera, on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, adding that the train can carry about 23-24 tonnes of produce each day.

But farmers say the measure offers only limited relief to growers in Kashmir, who produce nearly two million tonnes of apples every year.

“It [the special train] is a positive move, but with such capacity, it will only carry roughly one truckload of apples per day, which is far less than what the growers need,” Shakeel Ahmad, an official at a fruit market in Shopian district, told Al Jazeera.

As anger and frustration over the stalled trucks mount, the region’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who has limited administrative powers in a region controlled directly by New Delhi, on Tuesday said if the federal government cannot keep the highway operational, its control should be handed over to him.

“We have been patient, waiting for daily assurances that the restoration would be completed, but nothing has been done. Enough is enough,” Abdullah said, speaking to reporters on September 15 in Srinagar, the region’s largest city.

Meanwhile, in a post on X on September 16, Nitin Gadkari, the federal minister for road transport and highways, said more than 50 earthmovers have been deployed in a round-the-clock operation to clear and repair the Jammu-Srinagar highway.

“We are determined to restore this vital national highway to full strength at the earliest, ensuring safety and convenience for all road users,” he wrote.

But the minister’s assurances provide little comfort to Shabir Ahmad, a truck driver at Qazigund, who climbs into his van every morning to inspect the apple boxes.

“We have been stranded here for 20 days, and the government has shown no urgency in restoring the road. The losses are beyond imagination,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the authorities should have understood it was the peak harvest season and acted swiftly.