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French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was in the UAE on Monday to oversee a massive airlift from Afghanistan using the Gulf nation as a staging post.
Mr Le Drian said he believes it is necessary to continue Afghan evacuations beyond Washington's August 31 deadline for troop withdrawal after the Taliban's takeover of the capital Kabul on August 15.
France, one of several nations rushing to help vulnerable people, is seeking to evacuate more than 1,000 Afghans who are fleeing the country.
"We are concerned about the deadline set by the United States on August 31. Additional time is needed to complete ongoing operations," Mr Le Drian said at a UAE air base, where France has set up an air bridge for people evacuated from Kabul.
France said it had "sheltered" nearly 1,200 people leaving Afghanistan between August 17 and 22, including about 100 French nationals and 1,000 vulnerable Afghans, as well as dozens of other nationalities.
Mr Le Drian said that access to Kabul airport was the main issue facing evacuation operations.
"We still need to increase our co-ordination locally, with the United States and with our partners present on site," he said.
French Defence Minister Florence Parly said Paris had a approved plan to protect its citizens and French-allied Afghans.
"We started planning airlift operations before the fall of Kabul," she said.
Ms Parly had earlier thanked the UAE for helping French citizens to leave Afghanistan.
Mr Le Drian and Ms Parly are scheduled to meet diplomats, military personnel, police officers and "all the staff working under extremely difficult conditions to enable evacuation operations from Kabul", an official French statement said.
US President Joe Biden set an August 31 deadline for ending his country's mission in Afghanistan, but has left the door open to an extension.
Since August 14, about 25,100 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan aboard aircraft flown by the US and its allies, according to a White House estimate.
On Monday, Britain said it would urge the US at an online G7 summit to extend the end-of-the-month deadline to complete evacuations of Western citizens and Afghan colleagues from Kabul.
But a spokesman for the Taliban, Suhail Shaheen, told Sky News that the hardline group would not agree to any extension of the deadline, calling it a "red line", with any delay viewed as "extending occupation".
VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
War 2
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana
Rating: 2/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
RESULTS
West Asia Premiership
Thursday
Jebel Ali Dragons 13-34 Dubai Exiles
Friday
Dubai Knights Eagles 16-27 Dubai Tigers
