Afghanistan
The UN today sounded an alarm over a lightning advance by the Taliban in Afghanistan, which has seen it take dozens of towns and districts. UN special envoy Deborah Lyons told the Security Council that the Taliban had taken control of 50 out of 370 districts since last month. Today, it overran and seized the country’s main border crossing with Tajikistan, prompting some Afghan soldiers to abandon their posts and flee over the border. Violence has surged in Afghanistan since it was announced in April that US and NATO troops would withdraw by September. Peace talks between the government and the Taliban have ground to a halt.
More from BBC here.
Philippines
“If you don't want to get vaccinated, I'll have you arrested then I'll inject a vaccine into your buttocks.” - President Rodrigo Duterte.
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has threatened to jail anyone who refuses to get vaccinated against COVID-19. “There is a national emergency,” a visibly irate Duterte said during his weekly TV show. “Don’t force my hand into it, and use a strong-arm method. Nobody wants that.” Just 1.95 percent of the country’s 110 million population have been vaccinated, according to a local vaccine-tracking effort.
More from Rappler here. And Al Jazeera here.
China
A row broke out today between Chinese and Canadian envoys at a UN Human Rights Council meeting. Canada had presented a statement signed by 41 Western nations calling for Beijing to allow independent observers full access to its Xinjiang region, where rights groups say more than one million Uighur Muslims are being held in what amount to concentration camps. China’s envoy shot back that the UN should investigate Canada’s treatment of its indigenous population. The exchanges underscored growing impatience from China when Western powers press it on human rights violations, and its willingness to make accusations of its own.
More from the Associated Press here.