Tag: Escape

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Politics

Interpreter describes household’s escape from Taliban in Kabul

Interpreter describes family's escape from Taliban in Kabul

Antifullah Ahmadzai, an Afghan national, takes a selfie inside of a U.S. military cargo aircraft before an evacuation flight from Kabul.

Courtesy: Antifullah Ahmadzai

WASHINGTON – One month ago, Atifullah Ahmadzai boarded a flight from Connecticut to Kabul, eager to hold his wife and five young children again.

The purpose of this trip was nearly a decade in the making as Ahmadzai, a former interpreter for the U.S. military, was carrying the final documents needed for his family to complete a coveted special immigrant visa.

While in Kabul, Ahmadzai planned on saying goodbye to friends and extended family members before bringing his wife and children to America, where he had spent the last two years preparing for their new life.

Ten days into his plans, after the rest of Afghanistan had already fallen during the U.S. military’s withdrawal, the Taliban seized the presidential palace in Kabul.

The swift collapse of the Afghan national government forced Ahmadzai and thousands of others to flood the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport, where Western forces were conducting evacuation flights out of the country.

The story of Ahmadzai and his family is emblematic of the desperation and fear felt by thousands of Afghans as U.S. and coalition forces withdrew the last of their troops from Afghanistan after a nearly 20-year occupation.

Over the course of 17 days leading up to Aug. 31, the U.S. and coalition partners airlifted more than 116,000 people out of Afghanistan on cargo aircraft. The Pentagon said it dedicated more than 5,000 U.S. service members and 200 aircraft to the colossal evacuation mission.

Meanwhile, governments around the world opened their borders to at-risk Afghan nationals arriving on evacuation flights.

“I wasn’t expecting that everything was going to change immediately,” Ahmadzai told CNBC.

“The Taliban made a checkpoint 800 feet away from my house, where they would question you about your job,” he said, adding that he was too afraid to disclose his previous role in the Afghan military.

Taliban forces stand guard in front of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 2, 2021.

Stringer | Reuters

At one checkpoint, Ahmadzai said his cell phone was searched by Taliban insurgents looking for anything that would confirm his ties to the previous government or to the United States.

“They were also knocking on people’s doors and asking about their jobs,” he said. “The homes of those who worked for the government or with the U.S. military were marked during the day and at night the Taliban came back to those houses to kill.” Fear of targeted killings by the Taliban fueled many Afghans’ desire to get out of the country.

A rallying cry on Facebook

Desperate for a way out, Ahmadzai sent a text message to a U.S. Army officer he translated for during America’s longest war.

“He addresses me as his brother,” said the officer, Mike Kuszpa, now a teacher in Connecticut, when asked about Ahmadzai’s initial message.

“He wrote to me and said, ‘Brother, my family and I are out here and the Taliban has been looking for interpreters. Who knows what’s gonna happen, they may kill me and my family,'” Kuszpa told CNBC.

A 2004 photo of Antifullah Ahmadzai (left) and Mike Kuszpa (right) in Afghanistan.

Courtesy of Mike Kuszpa

“I was grasping at straws. I didn’t know anybody, so I posted to a neighborhood message board on Facebook asking if anybody had Department of State connections that could help my interpreter and his family get on an evacuation flight,” he said.

The post to the 109-member “Westville Dads” Facebook group triggered a flurry of phone calls, Facebook messages, encrypted text messages and emails to a network that spanned from academia to intelligence analysts to lawmakers to diplomats.

“I got in touch with a former student of mine who is a foreign service officer about getting his documents in the system so that he wouldn’t be turned away at the airport,” said Matt Schmidt, national security and political science professor at the University of New Haven, who reached out to at least 16 people in a bid to help Ahmadzai.

“I counseled Atif to wait for a phone call from State to go to the airport,” Schmidt said using a shortened version of Ahmadzai’s first name, Atifullah. “Mike was uneasy about waiting and told Atif to go to the airport. It was the right call.”

A struggle to flee

Across the globe, Western forces intensified emergency humanitarian evacuations amid a backdrop of security threats and the Biden administration’s self-imposed Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline.

“At one point I started getting news alerts about gunfire at the airport while I was messaging with Atif. It was surreal,” said Schmidt, who breathlessly waited for updates from Ahmadzai.

In Kabul, Ahmadzai and his family were struggling to get out.

“It was difficult to get to the airport. I tried for three straight days but was not able to reach the gates,” Ahmadzai told CNBC, explaining that he had to sidestep Taliban checkpoints each time he and his family returned home after a full day of waiting at the airport.

“On the fourth day, I received a text message advising me to go through another gate. When I arrived, there were more than 1,000 people already gathered,” Ahmadzai said. He said there was occasional gunfire in the crowd.

“My family was very scared and shocked,” Ahmadzai said. “My wife asked me if we could go back because she was afraid for our children, but I told her we have to try and leave because it was better than dying at the hands of the Taliban.”

After more than three hours of waiting at the gate, Ahmadzai was able to get close enough to the U.S. Marines guarding the entry point to show them his green card and visa.

“I then showed them the paperwork for my children and wife,” he said. The Marines were able to verify his information, he said, because two days prior it was entered into the State Department’s system thanks to the network of mobilized dads on Facebook.

Ahmadzai’s next message to his friends coordinating his evacuation came from the interior gates of the airport.

Antifullah Ahmadzai, a former Afghan interpreter for the U.S. military, stands with his children and U.S. Marines at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

“When he sent that pic of him and his kids safe in the airport with the soldiers flanking him, I broke down in tears,” Schmidt said.

“As a dad, I couldn’t imagine the fate that awaited them if they didn’t get out,” Schmidt continued. “We were just dads reaching across the globe to help a fellow dad. That bound us all together, more than culture or religion. We knew what it meant to need to protect your family.”

A fateful departure

Ahmadzai, his wife and their children, who range from age 2 to 12, boarded a C-17 cargo military aircraft and flew to Qatar, which is about 1,200 miles from Kabul. They spent two nights and three days in the Persian Gulf country.

“Qatar camp was good, but as soon as we got there my second son was feeling very sick and he vomited more than 15 times as he was not familiar with this kind of situation. A medic came and gave him an IV quickly and after that, he was able to start eating and drinking again,” Ahmadzai said.

Antifullah Ahmadzai, an Afghan national, takes a selfie inside of a holding bay from an unspecified location in Qatar.

Courtesy: Antifullah Ahmadzai

After Qatar, the family was flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where they spent the night. The next day they boarded a flight to the United States and arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

Ahmadzai said he and his family were tested for Covid-19 and completed biometric health screenings before leaving the airport in Dulles. He was vaccinated against Covid earlier this year. The Pentagon has previously said that all Afghan nationals relocating to the United States who want the coronavirus vaccine will be able to receive one.

“I never expected to come back to the States alive,” said Ahmadzai, who spoke to CNBC over the course of a week from Qatar, Germany and the United States. He said he was “thankful that the United States helped us in a very critical situation.”

“There was no option, no flights and no way for me and my family to escape the Taliban,” he said.

When asked about his children, Ahmadzai said they were “doing great and happy.”

“The kids are quite different now. They think they are in a different world and are trying to learn a new language and way of life.”

Ahmadzai and his family recently left a U.S. military installation in Virginia, where they finished their special immigrant visa paperwork. He is returning to Connecticut with his family.

Kuszpa, the Army officer, said there are plans for an outdoor barbecue to welcome Ahmadzai’s family to the community.

“Now he’s here and a part of our family,” said Schmidt, the professor. “His kids will play with ours.”

Categories
Business

The place is it protected to journey? 7 concepts to flee on trip

Where is it safe to travel? 7 ideas to escape on vacation

Some habits are hard to break – but that doesn’t seem to be the case when traveling.

The habits of travelers are changing – quickly and en masse. People are bypassing big cities in favor of smaller destinations that attract fewer tourists, and outdoor activities like hiking and biking are attracting more interest than before.

To avoid the crowds while spending time in the great outdoors, here are seven points to consider once you are safe to travel again.

Normandy, France

France has been the most visited country in the world for years. Travelers congregate in inland Paris, on the French Riviera in the south, and in the country’s world-famous wine regions, which are spread across the bottom two-thirds of the country.

But what about the north? Regions along the English Channel such as Normandy receive a small fraction of French tourists, making them ideal for travelers wanting to experience the country and avoid large groups.

Although Normandy is relatively calm, the Mont Saint-Michel, a Gothic-style Benedictine abbey less than a mile from mainland France, is packed with people.

MathieuRivrin | Moment | Getty Images

Normandy is popular with World War II history buffs who tour the iconic D-Day beach invasion sites, as well as their cemeteries and monuments. Others are drawn to the beach towns of Deauville and Trouville, the cobblestone streets of Honfleur, and the majestic tidal island of Mont Saint-Michel.

As in much of France, the food is another draw. Normandy is famous for Camembert cheese, Calvados liqueur and Tarte aux Pommes (apple tarts).

The “other” islands of Greece

According to the World Bank, Greece received around 10 million tourists a year in the mid-1990s. By 2019 that number had more than tripled.

According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, five regions accounted for 88% of all overnight stays in 2017, namely the South Aegean, Crete, the Ionian Islands, Central Macedonia and Attica. Almost half of all hotel rooms are in Crete and the South Aegean Islands, the latter including popular destinations of Santorini, Mykonos, and Rhodes.

Travelers can escape the crowd by choosing a Greek island like Lipsi, which receives far fewer tourists than Santorini or Mykonos.

Fabio Sabatini | Moment open | Getty Images

Makis Bitzios, general manager of the Greek tourism consultancy Remake, said that tourists are highly concentrated in the most popular Greek islands and many others have far fewer tourists, including Iraklia in the Cyclades archipelago and Lipsi in the Dodecanese.

“Both islands are very beautiful, without the crowds, very authentic and not as well known as many other Greek travel destinations,” he said.

Central Vietnam

Many international tourists to Vietnam travel north to Hanoi and Halong Bay or south to Ho Chi Minh City.

Those who venture into the center usually head to Hoi An Old Town, the dazzling hotels outside Da Nang, or the historic sites of Hue and My Son.

The Anantara Quy Nhon Villas are an all-villa resort in the Vietnam region on the south coast.

Courtesy Anantara Quy Nhon Villas

A few years ago, a small number of resorts were betting that travelers would be drawn to the more sleepy parts of Vietnam.

Anantara, a luxury brand from the Minor Hotels Group, was one of them. It opened the Anantara Quy Nhon Villas in 2018 as the first international five-star hotel in a part of Vietnam that received few international visitors.

The resort has 26 ocean view villas, each with ocean views and private pools.

The brand opened another location, Anantara Mui Ne, four hours east of Ho Chi Minh City.

“Both Anantara Quy Nhon Villas and Anantara Mui Ne are in remote areas and in their own gated locations that offer peaceful experiences but are close to local locations,” said Pieter van der Hoeven, Regional General Manager of the CNBC brand Global Traveler by email.

Another inland attraction is the colossal Son Doong Cave. First explored in 2009, only 1,000 travelers are allowed to explore each year. This is a limit to protect the cave, which is considered to be one of the largest and most magnificent in the world.

Kagawa, Japan

Not to be confused with Kanagawa, the popular coastal prefecture south of Tokyo. Kagawa is Japan’s smallest prefecture by geographic size. At about 724 square miles, it’s about two and a half times larger than New York City, yet is home to less than 1 million people.

Kagawa is located on Shikoku Island and receives a small number of Japanese tourists. According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, fewer than 550,000 of the nearly 32 million international tourists to Japan went to Kagawa in 2019.

Travelers looking to tour feudal castles, temples and gardens and want to eat udon – the famous dish is closely linked to the prefecture where the noodles are made from locally grown wheat – can check out the village of Urashima.

Urashima Village is a secluded inn with three private buildings (one of which is called “Silence”) overlooking the uninhabited Maruyama Island.

Courtesy Urashima Village

The small luxury inn opened in January and offers guests the chance to work in peace, kayak in the sea and explore the country by bike.

The inn, manned by a concierge team and a private chef, overlooks the uninhabited island of Maruyama, which the hotel’s website says guests can enter twice a day if an “underwater lane” emerges at low tide.

Dandenongs, Australia

While Melbourne receives the lion’s share of awards (and tourists) for the Australian state of Victoria, there are numerous destinations outside of the city that deserve recognition.

One such place is the Dandenongs, a serene mountain range of bucolic bed and breakfasts, forest gardens, and family-owned restaurants.

Less than an hour from Melbourne, the Dandenongs Ranges are a mountainous area with great food and small town friendliness.

Nigel Killeen | Moment | Getty Images

Upscale homes are available for rent at Valley Ranges Getaways in Sassafras, one of the region’s most popular villages. Another visitor favorite, Olinda, sits just two miles down the road. Both are lined with craft shops, antique shops, and restaurants serving local wine.

Travelers can head to Healesville Sanctuary to get up close and personal with wombats and kangaroos, or pre-order tickets to ride on Puffing Billy, a preserved open-car steam train.

New Mexico

Travelers to and within the United States may want to skip the coasts in favor of the American Southwest this year.

According to the data company Statista, New Mexico is the seventh most populous state in the United States, with an average of 17 people per square mile. Nicknamed the Land of Enchantment, the state has national parks, the Aztec Ruins National Monument, wonderful caves, and rugged red and white desert biomes.

Some of the most luxurious hotels in New Mexico, such as the Inn of the Five Graces and the Hotel St. Francis, are located in the capital Sante Fe, which has a population of 85,000.

Ghost Ranch near Abiquiú, New Mexico, is an area with an eclectic mix of former residents, including dinosaurs, Spanish settlers, and artist Georgia O’Keeffe.

Dean Fikar | Moment | Getty Images

However, the Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado Sante Fe sits on 57 acres outside of town. Guests stay in suites and freestanding casitas, which means “little houses” in Spanish, with southwestern décor and wood-burnt, Pueblo-inspired kiva fireplaces.

Overlooking the Rio Grande River Valley and the nearby Jemez Mountains, the resort features a year-round pool, outdoor fire pits, and an adventure center that offers hot air balloon rides, horse riding and white water rafting, and cultural tours to Ghost Ranch, or organizes Bonanza Creek Ranch where films like “Cowboys & Aliens” and “Wild Hogs” were filmed.

Saba and Saint Eustatius

With the Caribbean islands typically averaging over 30 million international travelers a year – a number not counting cruise line passengers – the number of international visitors visiting the small Caribbean islands of Saba and Saint Eustatius might just be a rounding error.

Both islands are special municipalities in the Netherlands and, according to the Dutch government agency Statistics Netherlands, each receive fewer than 10,000 tourists by air each year.

Saba and Saint Eustatius (shown here) are part of the Netherlands Antilles and provide a secluded escape for hiking, diving, and immersion in ecotourism.

Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty Images

A third of visitors come from other islands – namely Aruba, Curaçao, and Saint Martin – with at least another third including travelers from the United States and the Netherlands.

On Saba, Queen’s Gardens Resort & Spa received a Travelers’ Choice Award from TripAdvisor at Mountaintop 2020, while Saint Eustatius (also known as Statia) offers home rentals that range from modest bed and breakfasts to three-level villas on Airbnb.

Categories
Entertainment

In Australia, Hollywood Stars Have Discovered an Escape From Covid. Who’s Jealous?

In Australia, Hollywood Stars Have Found an Escape From Covid. Who’s Jealous?

MELBOURNE, Australia – In the photo posted on Instagram, actors Chris Hemsworth, Idris Elba and Matt Damon, all wearing 1980s style sweats, hug each other. You are maskless. Touch. Happy even. The headline reads: “A little 80s themed party never hurt!”

Your outraged fans peppered the post with comments. What about the pandemic? Social distancing? Masks? We are still suffering from a pandemic that has all but crippled the travel industry and prevented most people from casually flying on vacation to paradise.

However, the Hollywood Brigade was in Australia, a country where coronavirus has been effectively eradicated, allowing officials to relax restrictions on most gatherings, including parties (with dancing and finger food). Due to the near-lack of the virus and generous subsidies from the Australian government, the country’s film industry has been buzzing at an enviable pace for months compared to other regions.

Australia has managed to lure several Hollywood directors and actors into continuing film production. In fact, many celebrities including Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa McCarthy found freedom from the pandemic there.

One person wrote on Mr. Hemsworth’s Instagram post, “Before you comment, remember that not everyone lives in America.”

Although the accelerated pace of vaccination in the United States has raised hopes of returning to some semblance of normality by summer, the country is still the world leader in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths. The cinemas only reopened in New York City last week. Some fans are cautiously sneaking back while others are still cautious about contracting the virus.

But thousands of kilometers away, many stars who appear on the big screens can frolic or film on location in Australia. (Mr. Hemsworth is a fixture himself – he moved back to Australia in 2017 after several years in Los Angeles.) In the US, where hundreds still die every day, some fans watched jealously.

“These Hollywood stars have been transported to another world where the world’s problems don’t exist,” said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University in New York. He added that the temporary exodus from the United States revealed another disintegration of the myth that Hollywood was the endgame for celebrities.

Australia has become a “hip place” that “fabulous people want to go,” said Professor Thompson. “If you’re trying to be a star, you have to go to the west coast to make your bones.” When you become “a really big star” you are buying property in an exotic location like Australia, he added.

“It definitely feels like a time machine,” said Ms. Portman, who called from Sydney, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in December. “It’s so different, all animals are different, all trees are different, I even mean the birds, there are multicolored parrots that fly around like pigeons,” she added. “It’s wild.”

A spokeswoman said the government helped 22 international productions bring hundreds of millions into the local economy. Paul Fletcher, Federal Minister of Communications, said: “There is no doubt that this is a very significant increase over previous activity.”

But even as celebrities dress up and pose on social media, some Australians grumble that the country’s strategy to fight the virus has stranded tens of thousands of citizens overseas. The strict border measures have also contributed to a shortage of agricultural labor.

Exceptions have been made for tennis players who participated in the Australian Open last month, as well as for the staff who run the tournament. The presence of Hollywood’s rich and famous has further angered critics who see a clear bend of the rules for those with money and power.

“Everyone knows that there seem to be separate rules for anyone who is a celebrity or has money,” said Daniel Tusia, an Australian who was stuck overseas with his family for several months last year. “There are still a lot of people who couldn’t get home, who don’t fall into that category and who are still stranded,” he added.

In a statement emailed, the Australian Border Force said travel exemptions for film and television productions have been considered “if there is evidence of the economic benefits the production will bring to Australia and support from the relevant government agency . “

A year ago, Hollywood Everyone’s Tom Hanks made the threat of the pandemic all too real when he and wife Rita Wilson tested positive for the coronavirus in Queensland, Australia while filming an unnamed Elvis biopic. Her illness made a personal threat, the seriousness of which was only just beginning to crystallize at this time.

But in May, Australia appeared to be well on its way to quelling the first wave of the virus, and the soap opera “Neighbors” was one of the first scripted TV series in the world to resume production. The federal government has allocated more than $ 400 million to international productions, which, along with existing subsidies, gives film and television producers a discount of up to 30 percent for filming in the country.

More than 20 international productions including Thor: Love and Thunder, a Marvel film with Hemsworth, Damon, Portman, Taika Waititi, Tessa Thompson and Bale; “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” a fantasy romance with Mr. Elba and Tilda Swinton; and Joe Exotic, a spin-off of the podcast that preceded the popular Netflix series Tiger King, which stars Saturday Night Live actress Kate McKinnon as Big Cat enthusiast Carole Baskin all filmed either in production or in preparation next year.

Ron Howard directs Thirteen Lives, a dramatization of the Thai rescue of a football team from a Queensland cave in 2018 (the Australian coast is a good proxy for the tropics). And later that year, Julia Roberts and George Clooney will arrive in the same state to direct Ticket to Paradise, a romantic comedy.

Although a number of American temporary employment stars have landed in the country, some like Ms. McCarthy, who was originally in Australia to work on “Nine Perfect Strangers,” have decided to shoot more projects, according to industry representatives. “Oh the birds!” she raved in a YouTube video. “I love seeing a spider the size of my head.”

Others, like Zac Efron, appear to have settled here permanently.

His Instagram is flush with Australiana: Here he is in a hammock in the desert of the red earth, seems to be participating in an indigenous ceremony or is wearing the Australian cowboy hat, an Akubra. Last year, Mr. Efron even got what an Adelaide barber called a “mullet,” a vicious hairstyle popular in Australia.

“Home, sweet home,” he captioned a picture of himself in front of a $ 100,000 motor home.

Chances are the stars will keep popping up. They were seen camping under the stars as they went to dinner without a mask and partied (yes, like it was 1989). Mr Damon said in January that Australia was definitely a “happy country”.

But locals in Byron Bay – the seaside town that has gone from hippie to glitter in recent years – have complained that the influx of stars over the past year has changed the city beyond repair.

“The actors and the famous people are the tip of the iceberg,” said James McMillan, a local artist and director of the Byron Bay Surf Festival. He added that the large cohort of production workers from Melbourne and Sydney had priced locals out of real estate.

“It has definitely changed more than it has ever done in the past 12 months,” added McMillan, who has lived in Byron Bay for two decades. “People have stars in their eyes.”

Categories
Business

2 Individuals Tied to Carlos Ghosn’s Escape to Be Extradited to Japan

2 Americans Tied to Carlos Ghosn’s Escape to Be Extradited to Japan

TOKYO – Two American men alleged to have helped former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn escape Japan in a loudspeaker box in 2019 when he was facing criminal charges lost their last offer of extradition from the United States to Japan on Saturday to block.

Without comment, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer denied a motion by lawyers for the two men – Michael Taylor, 60, a former Green Beret, and his son Peter Maxwell Taylor, 27 – to suspend a lower court order that cleared the way for them to be sent to Japan to be tried.

The two men are wanted for their role in a caper straight out of a Hollywood movie. The country’s most famous criminal defendant is fleeing right under the noses of the authorities.

In December 2019, Mr Ghosn was transferred from his Tokyo home to the Osaka area, where he was smuggled onto a private plane destined for Turkey. He then flew on to Beirut and took him out of the reach of the Japanese authorities who had accused him of financial misconduct.

The Japanese public prosecutor’s office issued an arrest warrant for the Taylors last January. US officials arrested her in Massachusetts in May when the younger Mr. Taylor was preparing to fly to Lebanon, where Mr. Ghosn now lives.

The Taylors spent the intervening months in a county jail to prevent them from being sent to Japan, where they have an extradition treaty with the United States. The men were denied bail after US prosecutors classified them as “an enormous risk to escape” and cited their role in Mr Ghosn’s escape.

The men did not deny that they were involved in Mr Ghosn’s escape. The Japanese authorities have provided extensive documentation of the two men’s roles, including detailed reports of their movements before and during Mr Ghosn’s escape.

According to the Japanese authorities, Peter Taylor traveled to Japan three times in 2019 to meet with Mr Ghosn, who was waiting for a trial at his home in Tokyo, including the day before his escape.

The next day, Mr. Ghosn went to a nearby Tokyo hotel where he met Michael Taylor and another man, George Antoine Zayek, a veteran of the Lebanese Civil War. The two men accompanied Mr. Ghosn to Osaka before hiding him in a large speaker box with holes in the floor and putting him on board the private jet heading for Turkey.

Taylor lawyers have argued that the charges against them are not a crime in Japan. They also say the men would be detained and treated arbitrarily, which amounts to torture under Japan’s legal system.

The country has been criticized domestically and internationally for a system of “hostage justice” in which criminal suspects who deny guilt can be held for long periods without charge.

Mr Ghosn, who maintains his innocence, says he was the victim of a politically motivated campaign by Nissan executives and Japanese officials to depose him and that he fled the country to escape a rigged judicial system.

Mr Ghosn’s escape from Japan was planned in collaboration with a team of at least 15 employees around the world, the New York Times previously reported.

Peter Taylor, who works in private security, had helped with other international escape operations in the past. The Times once hired him to save a correspondent, David Rohde, from the Taliban. Mr Rhode escaped alone in 2009.

In the lead up to Mr Ghosn’s escape and in the months that followed, Mr Ghosn and his son Anthony Ghosn made direct payments to Mr Taylor and a company he controlled worth more than $ 1.3 million, US prosecutors said in court files With .