U.S., Taliban resume talks to end war
KABUL, Afghanistan — A United States envoy and the Taliban resumed negotiations Thursday on ending America’s longest war.
A Taliban member familiar with, but not part of, the talks that resumed in Qatar said U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad also met one-on-one Wednesday with the Taliban’s lead negotiator, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The Taliban member spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk with reporters.
Baradar is one of the Taliban’s founders and has perhaps the strongest influence on the insurgent group’s rank-and-file members. Some in Afghanistan fear that Taliban fighters who reject a deal with the U.S. could migrate to other militant groups such as the brutal local affiliate of the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Kabul wedding over the weekend that killed at least 80 people.
The U.S. and the Taliban have held several rounds of negotiations in the past year on issues including a U.S. troop withdrawal, a cease-fire, intra-Afghan negotiations to follow and Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan will not be a launch pad for global terror attacks.
Previously, Khalilzad has said the intra-Afghan negotiations will be the occasion to work out thorny issues such as constitutional changes, the fate of the country’s many militias and even the name for Afghanistan, as the Taliban still refer to it as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Panama hosts regional-security meeting
PANAMA CITY — Officials from the United States, Central America and Colombia agreed at a meeting Thursday in Panama on drugs and migrant-trafficking to adopt increased controls to combat people-smuggling as part of a regional effort.
The three-page joint declaration did not give concrete measures on how authorities intend to ramp up efforts to dismantle international criminal organizations, but said that “each country should take the initiative to adopt greater controls to counteract trafficking.”
Acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan described the meeting as “one of the most important engagements we have on security collaboration in the region.”
Panama has been the bridge for migrants who enter South America seeking to reach the U.S. border. Panama is also a route for cocaine moving up from South America.
Lightning kills 5 people, injures dozens
WARSAW, Poland — Lightning struck several locations across the Tatra Mountains in southern Poland and neighboring Slovakia on Thursday, killing five people, including two children, and injuring dozens more.
Witnesses said the thunderstorm came suddenly on a day that began with clear weather.
Four people were killed on the Polish side and one in Slovakia.
Some of the injured were taken by helicopter to the hospital in the Polish mountain resort town of Zakopane while others were taken elsewhere, a spokesman for the Polish air ambulance service, Kinga Czerwinska, told the news broadcaster TVN24.
The lightning hit the Giewont peak, a trekking destination popular among Polish and foreign tourists that is 6,214 feet high, and in other locations across the Tatras.
Krakow province governor, Piotr Cwik, told reporters that two children were among the dead. The number of those hurt could still rise, as people were still being carried from various places in the mountains, Cwik said.
Slovak rescue service said that a Czech tourist fell down hundreds of yards and was killed after lightning knocked him off the Banikov peak.
The Polish Tatra emergency service, known as TOPR, said it believes the lightning probably hit metal chains installed on the peak to aid tourists in their climb.
Israel to restore funds to Palestinians
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian Authority says it has reached an agreement with Israel to restore some of the much-needed tax funds withheld by Israel in recent months.
Israel began this year withholding parts of some $200 million in monthly tax transfers that the Palestinians give to families of people killed or imprisoned in fighting with Israel.
Israel says the payments encourage violence, while the Palestinians say the funds assist distressed families. In protest, they have refused to accept any funds from Israel.
Under Thursday’s agreement, the Palestinians say Israel will stop collecting about $60 million in monthly fuel taxes and allow the Palestinians to collect the funds directly.
Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayeh said the additional revenue will ease a financial crisis and allow him to slightly increase civil servants’ partial salary payments.