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A guy walks into a bar, which still isn’t allowed in Texas.But Jeff Brightwell owns this bar.Two months into an indefinite shutdown, he’s just checking on the place — the tables six feet apart, the “Covid 19 House Rules” sign instructing drinkers not to mingle. All the safeguards that didn’t keep the doors open, because Dot’s Hop House & Cocktail Courtyard is a bar under Texas law. And bars, in a pandemic? “Really not good,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s infectious disease expert, told Congress in June.But some governors are warming up to the idea of opening bars again. Thousands of bars forced to close after massive virus outbreaks swept across the U.S. this summer could be starting to see a glimmer of hope as cases drop off and the political will for continuing lockdowns fades. For some states, it is a gamble worth trying, only a few months after a rush to reopen bars in May and June ended in disaster.”Our governor waved the magic wand, put us out of business and offered us nothing,” said Brightwell, whose Dallas bar typically employs around 50 people. He says his industry has been scapegoated.Bars remain under full closure orders in more than a half-dozen states, including hard-hit ones like Texas but also Connecticut, which has one of the nation’s lowest positivity rates. And even in states already letting bars operate, restrictions vary from one county to the next. The rules can tighten or loosen abruptly, reflecting the unease among governors.Arkansas has one of the highest infection levels in the U.S. and is letting bars operate at partial capacity. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s defense: No spread has been linked to bars.Experts say outbreaks nationwide have proved otherwise. Even in recent weeks, new outbreaks tied to college students returning to campus have resulted in bars shutting down again from Alabama to Iowa, undermining confidence that the time is right.Still, governors are looking for a way. California began letting some bars in a few small counties reopen, though not in cities where the vast majority of the population lives. Next might be Florida, where bars have been closed since June and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a top ally of President Donald Trump, has mused whether bar closings even work since restaurants are serving alcohol anyway.”Everything’s open except the nightclubs and the pubs, and that’s something we’re going to address,” DeSantis said recently.In Texas, where 3 in 4 of the state’s 13,400 deaths blamed on COVID-19 have occurred since July, the infection rate has dipped below the 10% positivity rate that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has set as one criteria for letting bars back in business. He has teased that an another announcement about next steps in reopening could come early as this week, which won’t come soon enough for the right wing of his party, which for months has blasted him over the lockdowns and a statewide mask mandate.The decision is dicey for governors who, pressure from bar owners aside, have faced less blowback from keeping bars shut than other sectors. Polls showed about half of Americans favored requiring bars and restaurants to close when cases surged, and experts say the risks of bars are by now proven — the combination of cozy spaces, loud music forcing people to lean in close and rounds of drinks relaxing even the best intentions to social distance.Videos of crowded clubs have made bars symbols of rowdy rule-breakers, the ones ruining a return to normal for the rest of us.”It’s way too soon. And it’s going to be too soon until we have a vaccine,” said Esmeralda Guajardo, the public health administrator in Cameron County on the Texas border, where hard-partying booze cruises on South Padre Island this summer drew fury from local officials.For months, bar owners have protested outside state capitols, sued their governors and even sold alcohol in open defiance of closing orders. None have led to bars reopening any sooner. Hundreds in Texas have ramped up kitchens in order to legally operate as restaurants.It hasn’t spared thousands of bars from ruin. More than 5,400 bars nationwide went dark in July, according to Yelp, which tracks the status of businesses on their website. More than 40% were permanent closures.Mark McClellan, former head of the Food and Drug Administration who has been advising Abbott on Texas’ reopening, said the first reopening of bars in Texas was too soon, but he can see a case to be made that waiting for a vaccine is too long.”This is part of our economy and there are jobs at stake,” he said. “It’s hard to reopen dance clubs and night clubs for similar kinds of reasons. If we’re going to try it, we need to learn what went wrong from the June reopening.”McClellan said more enforcement of rules at bars is one step. Last month, some Texas bars hired a lobbying group and pledged to screen the temperature of every patron at the door, a step that would go further than restaurants.”I’ve been to restaurants and seen my customers,” said Greg Barrineau, who runs two bars in San Antonio called Drink Texas. “They haven’t stopped drinking.”
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Several thousand people protested Sunday for the independence of Hungary’s University of Theatre and Film Arts following the imposition of a government-appointed board, which they say will undermine its autonomy.The management of the school, which nurtured many of Hungary’s most famous directors and filmmakers, resigned Monday in protest over the changes, which have also prompted several top theater directors to quit their teaching roles.Attendants of the rally formed a chain in the streets of central Budapest before the crowd gathered at a main square outside Parliament, demanding autonomy for the school and freedom for artistic endeavor and education.Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s supporters have long argued that it was time for a shift in culture towards conservative values to end what they call the domination of the arts in Hungary by liberals and left-wingers.”For a university to be able to operate autonomously is the foundation of democracy,” said Marta Barbarics, who attended the rally. “If a university cannot teach in a way as its citizens deem appropriate then there are serious problems, and the leadership of a university does not quit for no reason.” 
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Days after he crossed the country to start college, Ryan Schmutz received a text message from Utah State University: COVID-19 had been detected at his dorm.  Within 10 minutes, he dropped the crepes he was making and was whisked away by bus to a testing site.”We didn’t even know they were testing,” said Schmutz, who is 18 and from Omaha, Nebraska. “It all really happened fast.”Schmutz was one of about 300 students quarantined to their rooms last week, but not because of sickness reports or positive tests. Instead, the warning bells came from the sewage.  Colleges across the nation — from New Mexico to Tennessee, Michigan to New York — are turning tests of waste into a public health tool. The work comes as institutions hunt for ways to keep campuses open despite vulnerabilities like students’ close living arrangements and drive to socialize. The virus has already left its mark with outbreaks that have forced changes to remote learning at colleges around the country.The tests work by detecting genetic material from the virus, which can be recovered from the stools of about half of people with COVID-19, studies indicate. The concept has also been used to look for outbreaks of the polio virus.Sewage testing is especially valuable because it can evaluate people even if they aren’t feeling sick and can detect a few cases out of thousands of people, experts say. Another wastewater-flagged quarantine of around 300 students at the University of Arizona, for example, turned up two cases. Both were students who were asymptomatic, but they could potentially still have spread the virus.  “That’s just tremendously valuable information when we think about the setting of a college dorm, and how quickly this disease can spread through that population,” said Peter Grevatt, CEO of The Water Research Foundation, which promotes studies of water and wastewater to ensure water quality and service.Wastewater tests also flagged the possible presence of the virus at University of Colorado residence halls.Utah has used the method more widely, including to track an outbreak at a meatpacking plant. The British, Italian and Dutch governments have also announced similar monitoring programs, and the Massachusetts-based company Biobot tests wastewater from cities around the country.The method remains imprecise, though. It can spot infection trends, but it can’t yet pinpoint how many people have the virus or the stage of infection. That means it’s not yet quite as useful on a larger scale in cities, which don’t always have a university’s scientific resources or ability to require people to get tested.  The technology is being closely studied, though, and it is evolving rapidly, Grevatt said, adding that it’s best used along with other methods like contact tracing.  It’s not a panacea for colleges either. Utah State, for example, can only closely monitor sewage from the relatively small portion of students who live on campus — not the thousands of other people who come and go every day. The university has an enrollment of about 28,000.  And this week, Utah State’s positive wastewater test could be narrowed only as far as four residence halls that share the same sewer system. The test came back positive late Aug. 29, and the quarantine started the next day. Students were required to stay in their rooms, eating meals delivered by a “COVID care” team and barred from walking more than a few steps outside the residence hall.The buildings are laid out in apartment-style suites, and students were released from quarantine in small groups if every roommate in a suite tested negative. The tests had turned up four coronavirus cases as of Thursday.  Schmutz, who tested negative along with his roommates, didn’t miss much in-person class time during his four-day quarantine.  But he’s a little disconcerted that he and his family weren’t told about the sewage testing.  “It felt like we were kind of out of the loop on everything. It’s definitely hard to process,” he said.  Utah State has heard from parents and students similarly frustrated, though many others are grateful, spokeswoman Emilie Wheeler said.  “They see it as a noninvasive early detection system,” she said.  The program is relatively inexpensive, too. The school takes samples daily to monitor several living areas, and the tests are run by a team of students.  “Wastewater has a story to tell about the public health status of communities,” Grevatt said. “There’s so many folks working on this right now. It’s just remarkable to see how quickly it has moved forward.”
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Greece is beefing up land patrols to stem a rising tide of illegal migrants trickling in from neighboring Turkey. With tensions between the two NATO allies at their highest in years, Athens fears Ankara may move to weaponize refugees, sparking a fresh migration crisis on top of a lingering energy dispute. Greek authorities say they are mobilizing scores of special border guards to scour sprawling fields and marshland along the Evros region that divides Greece and Turkey.Hundreds more will also be deployed on Greece’s Aegean islands to stop illegal sea crossings.United Nations statistics show that illegal land entries into Greece from Turkey, have doubled in the last month alone, stoking concerns of a new migration crisis as tensions between the feuding countries have flared over energy rights in eastern Mediterranean Sea.Migration Minister Notis Mitarachis explains the Greek position.”We want Turkey to conform to agreements it has signed to stem the flow of illegal immigration,” he said. “Any attempt to weaponize the suffering of refugees for geopolitical interests will not be tolerated.” FILE – Migrants walk in Edirne at the Turkish-Greek border, Monday, March 9, 2020.Greece fended off a major migration push from Turkey earlier this year after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan temporarily lifted his country’s border controls, allowing refugees and migrants to make their way freely into Europe. Greece claimed to have thwarted what it called “an enemy invasion” of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers into the country earlier this year and has kept its defenses on alert in the Evros region since then.The border reinforcement also comes amid a flurry of media reports saying that Turkey was withdrawing 40 tanks from Syria, moving them instead to the Greek-Turkish border.Turkey has not explained the deployment but Kostas Lavdas, a professor of international relations at Panteon University in Athens, says Greece must be ready for war.It may be a simple rotation of forces, he said, because Turkey has several military fronts open. Regardless the reason, he said, Turkey has repeatedly shown that it wants to be ready for all scenarios relating to Greece, including war.Greece, he said, may want to avoid that but it also needs to be prepared for it.FILE – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks with Turkish drilling ship, Fatih, in background, in Istanbul, Aug. 21, 2020.Relations between the two countries have deteriorated dangerously in the past month as Turkey has sent an exploration ship near a cluster of Greek islands, to hunt for undersea oil and gas in a patch of the eastern Mediterranean which Athens says only it has the right to survey.Turkey rejects the claims, saying islands are not entitled to what is known as an exclusive economic zone …. Ankara instead believes it has the right to explore the oil and mineral rich East Mediterranean seabed after a recent maritime agreement it concluded with Libya.Erdogan has agreed to engage in talks with Greece to over decades-old differences over air and sea rights but said this weekend he would do anything to defend his country’s interests.He said, either Athens will heed to diplomacy or it will re-live bitter memories of war.Greece has sought recourse with the United Nations, submitting what it called a bulky dossier of alleged violations by Turkey in recent weeks. The United Nations has made no response. 
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Protesters once again took to the streets of Belarus Sunday, the latest in nearly a month of demonstrations following disupted elections that left longtime president Alexander Lukashenko in power. Tens of thousands took to the streets of Minsk Sunday in numbers comparable to previous weekends, waving red and white opposition flags and chanting slogans. Human rights groups have said at least 70 protesters were detained Sunday. A police barricade with two water cannons is set blocking a street during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 6, 2020.Lukashenko, in power since 1994, claimed victory in elections August 9. Opposition parties, along with the United States and the European Union, say the poll was heavily rigged.     More than 7,000 protesters have been arrested, and widespread evidence of abuse and torture has been reported. At least four people were reported to have died during the demonstrations.  FILE – Belurus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya takes part in an U.N. General Assembly online debate from Vilnius, Lithuania, Sept. 4, 2020.Belarus’ main opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has been in Lithuania since the election for what she says is her own safety. In an interview with VOA, Tsikhanouskaya said she is working to organize new elections despite Lukashenko’s refusal to do so. “Our plan is absolutely clear. It’s organization of new elections, fair and transparent,” she said. 
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An experimental, reusable Chinese spacecraft returned to its designated landing site Sunday after two days in orbit, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.The agency described the flight as successful, adding that it “marked the country’s important breakthrough in reusable spacecraft research” that could offer low-cost round trips to space for peaceful purposes.Chinese state media have not yet published images or video footage of the launch or landing of the spacecraft. They have not provided details on the technologies tested, either.Chinese social media and some commentators have compared the craft to the U.S. Air Force X-37B, an autonomous, Boeing spaceplane that can stay in orbit for long periods of time before returning to Earth on its own.The Chinese spacecraft was launched into orbit Friday from the northwestern Jiuquan Satellite Center with a Long March 2F, the type of rocket that has been used to put crewed and uncrewed Shenzhou spacecraft into orbit.   
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A strict coronavirus lockdown in the Australian city of Melbourne is being extended by two weeks. The Victoria state capital has been at the center of a second wave of infections. Authorities have said the restrictions will be eased in the months ahead if rates of new infections continue to fall.Melbourne is living through Australia’s toughest coronavirus lockdown. It was reimposed in July and is being extended because the number of new COVID-19 cases has not dropped enough. The lockdown will stay in place until the end of the month.Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews warned that without these strict measures the state risks a “third wave” of infections.He said a cautious approach is the only way forward.“We cannot run out of lockdown,” he said. “We have to take steady and safe steps to find that COVID-normal and make sure that in opening up, we can stay open.”There will be some minor easing of regulations in Melbourne, a city of 5 million.A nighttime curfew will start an hour later, playgrounds will reopen, and more outdoor exercise will be allowed. Bigger changes will only come in the months ahead if the number of new daily COVID-19 cases continues to fall. Officials say if they drop to below five by October 26, the curfew would be ended.Outside Melbourne, the rest of Victoria state will have restrictions eased slightly more quickly.Dozens of people were arrested Saturday at anti-lockdown protests in Australia’s major cities. The demonstrations were driven largely by fringe groups promoting virus-related conspiracy theories.Their actions have been described by the authorities as “selfish.” The Victoria government says obeying the restrictions is “the only option” to ultimately bringing the lockdown to an end.Victoria is at the center of Australia’s coronavirus crisis, accounting for three-quarters of total infections and 90% of all fatalities.The pandemic, and the closure of many businesses during lockdowns across the country, has sent the Australian economy into recession for the first time since 1991. Unemployment is rising, and the authorities are warning that the recovery could take years.Australia has recorded about 26,000 COVID-19 cases, and more than 750 deaths.  
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Thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Jerusalem again Saturday demanding the prime minister’s resignation.The protesters convened outside Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence, decrying alleged corruption and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.”I came here in order to make Bibi Netanyahu go away,” said Shlomit Cohen, a protester from the Galilee, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “We are tired; that’s enough. We don’t want him anymore.”The demonstrations against Netanyahu have continued for more than a month, and Saturday’s rally came as Israel is dealing with record numbers of coronavirus infections.“Now here it’s a protest against the government, and a lot of people are coming here for different reasons,” said protester Reut Peretz, 23. “Some people are coming here to protest the police violence, some people are coming here to protest the corruption, Bibi corruption. But the thing that unites everyone is the government — that everyone wants the government to change because there is a lot of unemployment in the country and because of the handling of the coronavirus.”Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and has dismissed the protesters as “leftists” and “anarchists,” accusing Israeli media of encouraging them.Police intervened to clear the protesters near the official residence of the prime minister and arrested at least a dozen of them, including a man who police said “was dressed up as a woman in a provocative way.”According to Johns Hopkins University data, Israel has more than 129,000 coronavirus cases and more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths. The country, with a population of 9 million people, is in a recession and unemployment has spiked to above 20%.
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New York’s attorney general on Saturday moved to form a grand jury to investigate the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died earlier this year after Rochester police placed a hood over his head and held him down.“The Prude family and the Rochester community have been through great pain and anguish,” Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement about Prude’s death, which has sparked nightly protests and calls for reform. She said the grand jury would be part of an “exhaustive investigation.”Prude’s death after his brother called for help for his erratic behavior in March has roiled New York’s third-largest city since video of the encounter was made public earlier this week, with protesters demanding more accountability for how it happened and legislation to change how authorities respond to mental health emergencies.“This is just the beginning,” Ashley Gantt, a protest organizer, said by email after James’ announcement. “We will not be stopped in our quest for truth and justice.”Protesters gathered Saturday for a fourth night on the street where Prude, naked and handcuffed, was held face-down as snow fell. Policy body camera video shows officers covering Prude’s head with a “spit hood,” designed to protect police from bodily fluids, then pressing his face into the pavement for two minutes.Prude died March 30 after he was taken off life support.Demonstrators clash with police officers a block from the Public Safety Building in Rochester, N.Y., Sept. 4, 2020, after a rally and march protesting the death of Daniel Prude.The Monroe County medical examiner listed the manner of death as homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” Excited delirium and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP, were contributing factors, the report said.A police internal affairs investigation cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing, concluding in April that their “actions and conduct displayed when dealing with Prude appear to be appropriate and consistent with their training.”James’ office opened its investigation the same month. Under New York law, deaths of unarmed people in police custody are often turned over to the attorney general’s office, rather than handled by local officials.Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this week called on James to expedite the probe.“Today, I applaud Attorney General Tish James for taking swift, decisive action in empaneling a grand jury,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Justice delayed is justice denied and the people of New York deserve the truth.”Advocates say Prude’s death and the actions of the seven now-suspended Rochester police officers demonstrate how police are ill-equipped to deal with people suffering mental problems.Having police respond can be a “recipe for disaster,” The National Alliance on Mental Illness said in a statement Friday.Prude’s death “is yet another harrowing tragedy, but a story not unfamiliar to us,” the advocacy group said. “People in crisis deserve help, not handcuffs.”Stanley Martin, an organizer of Free the People Rochester, told reporters: “We do not need violent workers with guns to respond to mental health crises.”Activists have marched nightly in the city of 210,000 on Lake Ontario since the police body camera footage of the encounter with Prude were released by his family Wednesday.Friday night’s protest resulted in 11 arrests, police said. As they had the night before, officers doused activists at police headquarters with a chemical spray to drive them from barricades around the building.As the night wore on, demonstrators were pushed further back, as police fired what appeared to be pepper balls. Fireworks were shot off and a bus stop was set on fire.Prude’s family has said he appeared to be spiraling into crisis in the hours before his encounter with police.“You’re trying to kill me!” the 41-year-old man is heard saying.A police union has defended the officers involved in the encounter, saying they were strictly following department training and protocols, including using the mesh hood. 
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More than 410,000 Americans could die from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, by January 1, 2021, according to the latest model by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.The United States reported more than 188,500 deaths as of Saturday and more than 6,200,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. If the IHME model, released Friday, is correct, that would mean an estimated 222,000 more deaths over the next 3½ months.“We expect the daily death rate in the United States, because of seasonality and declining vigilance of the public, to reach nearly 3,000 a day in December,” the institute, which bills itself as an independent research center, said in an update of its periodic forecasts.It previously projected 317,697 deaths by December 1.FILE – Kellie Dick, left, a University of Oklahoma senior from Shawnee, and Abhi Nath, a senior from Norman, voice concerns about OU’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic during a demonstration, Sept. 3, 2020, in Norman, Okla.However, the researchers at IHME said, if the use of face masks became nearly universal, the predicted 222,000 deaths could be reduced by half. Conversely, if restrictions are eased, the toll could be much higher by New Year’s.“Increasing mask use to the levels seen in Singapore would decrease the cumulative death toll to 288,000, or 122,000 lives saved compared to the reference scenario,” it said.”If a herd immunity strategy is pursued, meaning no further government intervention is taken from now to Jan. 1st, the death toll could increase to 620,000,” according to IHME’s briefing.Other predictionsThe IHME model is one of the more aggressive of the 35 models used to forecast COVID-19 deaths. The ensemble forecast by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which came out Thursday, predicted 211,000 U.S. deaths from COVID-19 by September 26.The model’s outlook for the world was even more dire, with deaths projected to triple to 2.8 million by January 1, 2021.FILE – A man trims his beard while others bathe in the Hooghly River in Kolkata, India, Sept. 3, 2020. India has been reporting the highest single-day coronavirus caseload in the world every day for more than three weeks.India reported 86,432 new COVID-19 cases Saturday, taking its total infections to 4,023,179, according to Johns Hopkins University.The U.S. and Brazil are the only countries that have more cases than India.The U.S. leads the world in COVID infections with 6,243,849, while Brazil has 4,092,832, according to Johns Hopkins.The coronavirus has brutalized some locations in Mexico so badly that local governments have run out of death certificates.Mexican officials say a million new forms have been printed.Mexico has recorded 66,851 COVID-19 deaths, placing it only behind the U.S, Brazil and India in the number of pandemic deaths on the Johns Hopkins listing.The U.S. has recorded 188,507 deaths, Brazil has 125,521 and India has 69,561, Johns Hopkins said.FILE – A city health worker takes a resident’s blood sample, part of a program that aims to administer 20,000 COVID-19 tests in Rio de Janeiro’s poor neighborhoods, at Morro da Providencia favela, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 3, 2020.Toll on health workersAmnesty International said this week that 1,320 health workers in Mexico had died from the coronavirus pandemic, the worst in any country in the world.Amnesty’s report highlighted the deadly toll COVID-19 has had on frontline workers. Overall, at least 7,000 health workers have died of the virus.According to a Reuters analysis of data from the Mexican government, health care workers in that country are four times more likely to die than that sector’s workers in the U.S.New cases continue to pop up in South Korea, which at one time had seemed to quash the virus. Authorities said Saturday that 115 of the 168 new cases were in metropolitan Seoul.New Zealand said Saturday that it had recorded its 24th COVID-19 death. Joseph Williams, a doctor and the former prime minister of the Cook Islands, was the 24th victim.
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Afghanistan’s warring factions are set to begin their first direct peace talks early next week in Qatar amid U.S.-led international calls for them to seize the “historic opportunity” to end the country’s long war.The U.S.-brokered dialogue, known as intra-Afghan negotiations, will bring to the table in Doha representatives of the Afghan state and the Taliban insurgency, which runs its political office in the capital of the Gulf nation.The Taliban announced on Saturday the names of their 21-member negotiating team, led by Mawlavi Abdul Hakim, a hardline insurgent cleric and a close confidant of the Taliban’s reclusive chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada. Hakim has been heading the Islamist group’s own judicial system enforced in Taliban-held Afghan areas.“We have formed a strong and inclusive team for intra-Afghan negotiations. It mostly comprises members of the Rehbari Shoura [Taliban leadership council], and the Islamic Emirate’s [Taliban] chief justice has been appointed as the team leader,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA.Officials said the negotiating teams would try to agree on a permanent cease-fire and a political power-sharing arrangement to govern Afghanistan.The peace process stems from a February agreement Washington sealed with the Taliban to extricate American troops from the country and close the longest U.S. war. The landmark accord was negotiated and signed in Doha on February 29.Afghan Minister of Economy Mustafa Mastoor told an online forum Saturday evening that Kabul’s negotiating team was “fully ready” to depart to Doha “most probably tomorrow [Sunday].”Cease-fireAn insurgent cease-fire is a priority for Kabul, but it may not come up in the inaugural interaction with the Taliban, the minister told the forum organized by the Pakistan-based Jinnah Institute think tank.”The first meeting definitely is to break the ice and just to meet each other and then start with the easier issues and going towards the difficult ones,” Mastoor said.FILE – Stefano Pontecorvo talks to The Associated Press in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 4, 2019.Stefano Pontecorvo, NATO’s civilian representative to Afghanistan, in his address to the forum cautioned that the dialogue would not be easy and that both sides would need to show “flexibility, good faith and determination” to end the deadly conflict.”First and foremost, a significant reduction in violence must top the negotiation agenda to give people confidence in the process and its outcome. Popular support is essential for a durable outcome,” Pontecorvo said.“This moment for peace is unique, and the stakes are high. The Afghan people and the world are watching. They will not forget or forgive whoever loses this occasion,” the NATO envoy warned.’Political disunity’Pontecorvo noted with concern that political differences among leaders in Kabul could undermine the work of the state negotiating team.”There is no doubt whatsoever that the perceived political disunity of Afghan leadership is a concern for all of us, for NATO and for the international community, as it also impacts on the cohesiveness of the team,” he said.Meanwhile, U.S. peace envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, who signed the deal with the Taliban, was traveling to Doha to advance ongoing efforts to promote the immediate start of the negotiations.FILE – Washington peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad attends the inauguration ceremony for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 9, 2020.“The Afghan people are ready for a sustainable reduction in violence and a political settlement that will end the war. Afghan leaders must seize this historic opportunity for peace. … Now is the time to start,” said a pre-visit State Department announcement.Began after 9/11The war in Afghanistan began with the U.S.-led military invasion of the country to punish and remove the Taliban from power days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America that al-Qaida leaders plotted from sanctuaries in Afghanistan.Since then, more than 150,000 people, including Afghan civilians and local as well as foreign military troops, are estimated to have been killed and millions left homeless in the poverty-stricken country.The U.S.-Taliban deal requires Washington to withdraw all American and allied troops from Afghanistan by July 2021 in return for insurgent counterterrorism assurances. The Taliban have also pledged to seek political reconciliation with other Afghan factions to end decades of hostilities in the country.The U.S. has reduced the number of its troops in the country from around 13,000 to 8,600 since signing the deal with the Taliban. President Donald Trump said last month that the number of troops would be reduced to between “4,000 and 5,000″ by the November U.S. Election Day.The intra-Afghan talks were originally scheduled for March 10, but months of delays over a prisoner swap between the Taliban and the Kabul government, as stipulated in the deal, hampered U.S. diplomatic efforts to kick-start the dialogue.
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