Politics
48 hours of confusion in Afghanistan during internet blackout
Paralysed banks, grounded planes and chaotic hospitals: for two days, life ground to a halt in Afghanistan after the Taliban unexpectedly cut off the internet and phone networks.
Authorities had for weeks been restricting broadband access in several provinces to prevent “vice” on the orders of the Taliban’s supreme leader.
But no one in Kabul was prepared for a nationwide shutdown.
Young Kabulis first travelled to high points in the mountainous capital, phones raised skyward, hoping to catch a signal. Then they tried buying SIM cards from different operators — before giving up.
For Afghanistan’s 48 million people, it became impossible to send news to their relatives or receive precious remittances from abroad to pay their bills.
Some residents of Herat and Kandahar travelled to border towns to pick up signal from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan.
But for the rest of the country, with no news from the outside world, rumours swelled to the rhythm of helicopters.
“The Americans are going to retake Bagram Air Base!” whispered the streets, after US president Donald Trump’s recent calls to have the US-built facility returned.
Others wondered, incorrectly, that the reclusive Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and loyalists had replaced Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who advocates a pragmatic approach to running the country.
As of Thursday, the Taliban authorities had still yet to comment on the shutdown.
‘A return to candlelight?’
Across the country, one of the poorest in the world, banking systems stopped functioning and the informal money exchange system used by much of the nation also broke down.
“Cash withdrawals, card payments, fund transfers — everything relies on the internet. We can’t do anything without it,” a private bank manager told AFP.
For Afghans, there was no choice but to survive on whatever cash they had on hand.
In the half-deserted streets, Taliban security personnel communicated via walkie-talkies.
“I’ve worked in security for 14 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said on condition of anonymity.
“What next? Are we going to cut off the electricity and go back to candlelight?” added another civil servant, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Domestic and international flights were also grounded, but with no way to be warned, passengers continued to flock to airports.
Hospital emergency rooms lacked both staff and patients — as many Afghans were too frightened to travel.
Doctor Sultan Aamad Atef, Afghanistan’s only neurologist, saw a 30% drop in visits.
“Without online appointments, patients have to show up spontaneously and hope I can take them, or wait, sometimes for nothing,” he told AFP.
Wedding day drama
Overnight, two million Afghan women were deprived of online courses, according to the Malala Fund.
“I was so scared this would last and I wouldn’t be able to get my bachelor’s degree… studying remotely is all I have left,” a 20-year-old student told AFP on Wednesday.
Her parents refused to send her younger brother to school without a mobile phone.
Restaurants without delivery services, the post office, travel agencies and shops all told AFP they had suffered heavy economic losses.
Weddings — often involving a lifetime of savings and up to 2,000 guests — became an “unmanageable situation”, a wedding hall boss in the capital Kabul told AFP.
“We plan weddings well in advance, but we can’t get any confirmation that the bride and groom, and their guests will even show up,” he told AFP, hours before the blackout ended on Wednesday night and the wedding went ahead.
“Ten years wouldn’t be enough to compensate for the economic losses of the last two days,” laments Khanzada Afghan, a grocery store manager in eastern Jalalabad, who sent his employees home.
ATHENS: Fraudulent messages promising safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for cryptocurrency have been sent to some shipping companies whose vessels are stranded west of the waterway, Greek maritime risk management firm MARISKS has warned.
The US has maintained its blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran has lifted and then re-imposed its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed before war broke out in the Middle East.
Amid ceasefire talks, Tehran, which controls the chokepoint, has proposed tolls on vessels to safely transit.
MARISKS on Monday issued an alert warning shipowners that unknown actors, claiming to represent Iranian authorities, had sent some shipping companies a message demanding transit fees in cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin or Tether, for “clearance”.
“These specific messages are a scam,” the firm said, adding the message was not sent by Iranian authorities.
There was no immediate comment from Tehran.
Hundreds of ships and about 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Gulf.
On April 18, when Iran briefly opened the strait subject to checks, ships tried to pass but at least two of them, including a tanker, reported that Iranian boats had fired shots at them, forcing the vessels to turn around.
MARISKS said that it believed that at least one of the vessels, which tried to exit the strait on Saturday and was hit by gunfire, was a victim of the fraud.
Reuters was not able to verify the information or track companies that had received the message.
“After providing the documents and assessing your eligibility by the Iranian Security Services, we will be able to determine the fee to be paid in cryptocurrency (BTC or USDT). Only then will your vessel be able to transit the strait unimpeded at the pre-agreed time,” said the message cited by MARISKS.
The UN Security Council on Monday condemned the recent killing of a French peacekeeper in Lebanon, whose death France has blamed on Hezbollah.
The Frenchman was killed and three others wounded when their unit was ambushed on Saturday as it headed to a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) outpost cut off from the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.
“The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the attack…(and) reaffirmed their full support for UNIFIL” a statement from the UN body said.
TOKYO: At least six people were reported injured on Tuesday, a day after a powerful quake rattled northern Japan, but there appeared to be no major damage from the tremor that also triggered tsunami waves up to 80 centimetres (31 inches).
However, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) also warned of an increased risk of a megaquake — a tremor with a magnitude of 8.0 or stronger — hours after Monday’s 7.7 magnitude quake in Pacific waters off northern Iwate prefecture.
The jolt was so intense that it shook large buildings in the capital Tokyo, hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre.
Six people were reported injured by 8am (2300 GMT Monday), two seriously, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency (FDMA) said in a statement.
There were no reported fire outbreaks or damage to important facilities, it said.
Japan issued a warning for tsunami waves of up to three metres (10 feet) but it was lifted hours after an 80-centimetre (31-inch) wave hit a port in Kuji in Iwate, one among a series of small waves that hit elsewhere in northern Japan.
The JMA said that “the likelihood of a new, huge earthquake occurring is relatively higher than during normal times”.
Municipalities in the affected region issued non-compulsory evacuation directives to more than 182,000 residents, the FDMA said.
Japan is one of the world’s most seismically active countries, sitting on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”.
The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, typically experiences around 1,500 jolts every year and accounts for about 18 percent of the world´s earthquakes.
The vast majority are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to their location and the depth below the Earth´s surface at which they strike.
Japan is haunted by the memory of a massive 9.0 magnitude undersea quake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that killed or left missing around 18,500 people and caused a devastating meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
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