than 20 lives with dozens of people still missing more than 15 inches of rain has fallen. queuing to reach snowdon s summit walkers are urged to respect the mountain as the number of visitors soars. good afternoon and welcome to bbc news. britain and america have hours not weeks to evacuate people from afghanistan, according to the defence secretary. pressure s growing on us presidentjoe biden to delay the withdrawal of american troops beyond his august 31 deadline. we will have continuing coverage now on the crisis in afghanistan. welcome to a country turned upside down by this sudden and surprising turn of events, just one week ago here in kabul the taliban took over and one week on, they are still trying to consolidate their control across the city. afghans across the country are still coming to terms with the country turned upside down and their lives turned inside out. we spent the last 2a hours at the international airport in kabul where some of these scenes are
in the uk, all 16 and17 year olds have been offered their first coronavirus vaccine, as a campaign is launched to encourage teenagers to getjabbed warning of the effects of long covid. are you a young person suffering with long covid? tell me what it s been like for you by tweeting me, using the hashtag #bbcyourquestions. in an emotional interview, a widow tells the bbc how her husband took his own life after relapsing into a gambling addiction i looked out of the window and. two policemen got out the car and the way they walked in, i knew what they were going to say. the tokyo paralympics starts tomorrow. we ll be speaking to a sports psychologist who s been helping athletes prepare ahead of the games. and the british boxing olympic silver medallist ben whittaker achieves his dream becoming mayor of wolverhampton for a day. hello and welcome if you re watching in the uk or around the world. a member of the afghan security forces has been killed in an exchange of fire wi
deteriorating security situation. but after 20 years of war and thousands of lives lost, the question is, what was it all for? plus, a major earthquake hits haiti, leaving more than 1200 people dead. there s been a scramble overnight to find any survivors trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. the question is what is the scope of this disaster? and as the delta variant causes covid cases to surge, a new warning from top u.s. health officials. the u.s. could soon hit more than 200,000 new cases per day. the question is, how does america s hospital system keep up? it s way too early for this. good morning, and welcome to way too early, the show that has a lot of news to get to. i m jonathan lemire on this monday, august 16th. we have plenty going on and we start overseas where 20 years after the united states toppled the taliban regime in afghanistan, the group is on the verge of retaking political power. taliban forces entered the capital of kabul on satur
we start with breaking news. taliban fighters have reached the afghan capital, kabul. some reports say they ve begun entering the city. but a spokesman for the militants said they d been told to wait. the afghan presidential palace has tweeted that gunshots have been heard at a number of points around kabul. these pictures filmed by our crew in kabul in the last hour show people attempting to leave the city. the taliban says negotiations are taking place to ensure a peaceful transition of power. us and british troops have been arriving in afghanistan to evacuate diplomatic staff. overnight, the insurgents seized the eastern city of jalalabad. local leaders handed it over without a fight according to reports. let s speak to our south asia correspondent, anbarasan ethiraja. remind us of the key points and the significance of what has happened in the last hour and a half. i can the last hour and a half. i can confirm that the last hour and a half. i can confirm that after th
way in which the exit strategy was implemented, there really was no plan as far as they were concerned. that illustrates a second problem. although i have plenty of scorn to heap on, the other side is the afghan leaders, both political and military, were equally responsible for this because they failed to take advantage of the opportunity to get corruption under control and to focus on making a strong security force, notjust on using it to make money and get power for various warlords and various other people. to your second point, i very strongly agree because i have been arguing since 2017 that we should announce our withdrawal and continue with another 18 to 2a months of support at that same level, give everybody a chance to get their mind wrapped around this, to understand they will be responsible, to coordinate everything so it is done in a very professional and logical manner. unfortunately that did not happen. we had a chance, when the deal was made in february 2020, w