Author: Manuel

James Earl Jones, the Hollywood actor and voice of Darth Vader, has died aged 93, his agent has said.

He died early on Monday morning surrounded by his family, agent Barry McPherson said.

Jones starred in dozens of films including Field of Dreams, Coming To America and Conan the Barbarian. He was best known for giving the Star Wars supervillain Darth Vader his distinctive gravelly voice.

Mark Hamill, who played Vader’s son Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, posted “RIP Dad” with a broken heart emoji as he shared a news report of the death.

Jones was also the voice of Mufasa in Disney’s 1994 film The Lion King, and CNN’s “This is CNN” tagline.

Born in Mississippi in January 1931, Jones said he was unable to speak for most of his childhood because of a stammer.

He explained he had developed his famous voice whilst working on how to deal with the stammer.

He would go on to win a host of awards including Emmys, Tony Awards, a Grammy and an honorary Oscar.

Jones voiced Darth Vader in the original Star Wars film, which came out in 1977, and follow-ups The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

He reprised the role in later film releases such as the first instalment of the Star Wars anthology series, Rogue One, and the third instalment of the sequel trilogy, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – both released in the later 2010s.

A different actor always donned the Darth Vader costume and provided the movement for the famous villain, including the late David Prowse, with Jones lending his deep and instantly recognisable voice.

“I love being part of that whole myth, of that whole cult,” Jones said in a previous interview, adding he was glad to oblige fans who asked for a command recital of his “I am your father” line.

Jones said he never made much money off the Darth Vader part – only $9,000 (£6,884) for the first film – and he considered it merely a special effects job.

At his own insistence, he was not given a credit for his performance. He felt it was all merely another “special effect”.

When the films broke all box office records, he was persuaded to rethink.

Jones was also well known as a television performer, playing the older Alex Hailey in Roots: The Next Generation and winning one of his two Emmys for the lead role in the US drama Gabriel’s Fire.

His gravelly tones were used in The Simpsons and he appeared in early episodes of Sesame Street.

Jones also tackled many iconic Shakespeare characters on the stage, including Othello and King Lear.

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A busy bridge in northern Vietnam collapsed after being hit by Super Typhoon Yagi, which has killed more than 60 people since making landfall on Saturday.

Dashcam footage showed the moment the Phong Chau bridge in Phu Tho province gave way on Monday, plunging several vehicles into the water below. Searches were under way for 13 people.

The storm has wreaked havoc across the north of the country, with flooding and landslides leaving millions of people without power over the weekend.

Although it has now weakened into a tropical depression, authorities have warned Yagi will create more disruption as it moves westwards.

More than 240 people have been injured by the typhoon, which brought winds of up to 203 km/h (126 mph) and is Asia’s most powerful storm so far this year.

Ten cars and two scooters fell into the Red River following the collapse of the Phong Chau bridge, Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc said.

The moment a lorry plummeted into the water as the bridge decking ahead fell away before the driver had time to stop was captured on camera.

At least three people have been rescued from the river so far.

Nguyen Minh Hai said he was riding across the bridge on his motorcycle when it collapsed.

“I was so scared when I fell down,” he said, speaking from hospital.

“I feel like I’ve just escaped death. I can’t swim and I thought I would have died.”

Part of the 375-m (1230-ft) structure is still standing, and the military has been instructed to build a pontoon bridge across the gap as soon as possible.

At least 44 people have been killed in landslides and flash floods, according to Vietnam’s ministry of agriculture and rural development.

Among them were a 68-year-old woman, a one-year-old boy, and a newborn baby.

The typhoon also tore roofs from buildings and uprooted trees.

In the Yen Bai province, flood waters reached a metre high on Monday, with 2,400 families having to be evacuated to higher ground as levels rose, AFP news agency reported.

Nearly 50,000 people were evacuated from coastal towns in Vietnam, with authorities issuing a warning to remain indoors.

Schools were temporarily closed in 12 northern provinces, including Hanoi.

Nguyen Thi Thom, who owns a restaurant in Ha Long Bay on the north-east coast, said she and many other people had lost everything in the storm.

“There is nothing left. When I look around, people have also lost all they had, just like me,” she said.

“I can only try to recover from this.”

Before hitting Vietnam, Yagi left 24 people dead across southern China and the Philippines.

As the world warms, typhoons can bring higher wind speeds and more intense rainfall, although the influence of climate change on individual storms is complicated.

Read our full explainer on the effect of climate change on hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones here.

A busy bridge in northern Vietnam collapsed after being hit by Super Typhoon Yagi, which has killed more than 60 people since making landfall on Saturday.

Dashcam footage showed the moment the Phong Chau bridge in Phu Tho province gave way on Monday, plunging several vehicles into the water below. Searches were under way for 13 people.

The storm has wreaked havoc across the north of the country, with flooding and landslides leaving millions of people without power over the weekend.

Although it has now weakened into a tropical depression, authorities have warned Yagi will create more disruption as it moves westwards.

More than 240 people have been injured by the typhoon, which brought winds of up to 203 km/h (126 mph) and is Asia’s most powerful storm so far this year.

Ten cars and two scooters fell into the Red River following the collapse of the Phong Chau bridge, Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc said.

The moment a lorry plummeted into the water as the bridge decking ahead fell away before the driver had time to stop was captured on camera.

At least three people have been rescued from the river so far.

Part of the 375-metre (1230 feet) structure is still standing, and the military has been instructed to build a pontoon bridge across the gap as soon as possible.

At least 44 people have been killed in landslides and flash floods, Vietnam’s ministry of agriculture and rural development said on Monday.

Among them were a 68-year-old woman, a one-year-old boy, and a newborn baby.

The typhoon also tore roofs from buildings and uprooted trees.

In the Yen Bai province, flood waters reached a metre (three feet) high on Monday, with 2,400 families having to be evacuated to higher ground as levels rose, AFP news agency reported.

Nearly 50,000 people were evacuated from coastal towns in Vietnam, with authorities issuing a warning to remain indoors.

Schools were temporarily closed in 12 northern provinces, including Hanoi.

Before hitting Vietnam, Yagi left 24 people dead across southern China and the Philippines.

As the world warms, typhoons can bring higher wind speeds and more intense rainfall, although the influence of climate change on individual storms is complicated.

Read our full explainer on the effect of climate change on hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones here.

Warning: This story contains distressing details from the start.

“This is like doomsday for me. I feel so much grief. Can you imagine what I’ve gone through watching my children dying?” says Amina.

She’s lost six children. None of them lived past the age of three and another is now battling for her life.

Seven-month-old Bibi Hajira is the size of a newborn. Suffering from severe acute malnutrition, she occupies half a bed at a ward in Jalalabad regional hospital in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.

“My children are dying because of poverty. All I can feed them is dry bread, and water that I warm up by keeping it out under the sun,” Amina says, nearly shouting in anguish.

What’s even more devastating is her story is far from unique – and that so many more lives could be saved with timely treatment.

Bibi Hajira is one of 3.2 million children with acute malnutrition, which is ravaging the country. It’s a condition that has plagued Afghanistan for decades, triggered by 40 years of war, extreme poverty and a multitude of factors in the three years since the Taliban took over.

But the situation has now reached an unprecedented precipice.

It’s hard for anyone to imagine what 3.2 million looks like, and so the stories from just one small hospital room can serve as an insight into the unfolding disaster.

There are 18 toddlers in seven beds. It’s not a seasonal surge, this is how it is day after day. No cries or gurgles, the unnerving silence in the room is only broken by the high-pitched beeps of a pulse rate monitor.

Most of the children aren’t sedated or wearing oxygen masks. They’re awake but they are far too weak to move or make a sound.

Sharing the bed with Bibi Hajira, wearing a purple tunic, her tiny arm covering her face, is three-year-old Sana. Her mother died while giving birth to her baby sister a few months ago, so her aunt Laila is taking care of her. Laila touches my arm and holds up seven fingers – one for each child she’s lost.

In the adjacent bed is three-year-old Ilham, far too small for his age, skin peeling off his arms, legs and face. Three years ago, his sister died aged two.

It is too painful to even look at one-year-old Asma. She has beautiful hazel eyes and long eyelashes, but they’re wide open, barely blinking as she breathes heavily into an oxygen mask that covers most of her little face.

Dr Sikandar Ghani, who’s standing over her, shakes his head. “I don’t think she will survive,” he says. Asma’s tiny body has gone into septic shock.

Despite the circumstances, up until then there was a stoicism in the room – nurses and mothers going about their work, feeding the children, soothing them. It all stops, a broken look on so many faces.

Asma’s mother Nasiba is weeping. She lifts her veil and leans down to kiss her daughter.

“It feels like the flesh is melting from my body. I can’t bear to see her suffering like this,” she cries. Nasiba has already lost three children. “My husband is a labourer. When he gets work, we eat.”

Dr Ghani tells us Asma could suffer cardiac arrest at any moment. We leave the room. Less than an hour later, she died.

Seven hundred children have died in the past six months at the hospital – more than three a day, the Taliban’s public health department in Nangarhar told us. A staggering number, but there would have been a lot more deaths if this facility had not been kept running by World Bank and Unicef funding.

Up until August 2021, international funds given directly to the previous government funded nearly all public healthcare in Afghanistan.

When the Taliban took over, the money was stopped because of international sanctions against them. This triggered a healthcare collapse. Aid agencies stepped in to provide what was meant to be a temporary emergency response.

It was always an unsustainable solution, and now, in a world distracted by so much else, funding for Afghanistan has shrunk. Equally, the Taliban government’s policies, specifically its restrictions on women, have meant that donors are hesitant to give funds.

“We inherited the problem of poverty and malnutrition, which has become worse because of natural disasters like floods and climate change. The international community should increase humanitarian aid, they should not connect it with political and internal issues,” Hamdullah Fitrat, the Taliban government’s deputy spokesman, told us.

Over the past three years we have been to more than a dozen health facilities in the country, and seen the situation deteriorating rapidly. During each of our past few visits to hospitals, we’ve witnessed children dying.

But what we have also seen is evidence that the right treatment can save children. Bibi Hajira, who was in a fragile state when we visited the hospital, is now much better and has been discharged, Dr Ghani told us over the phone.

“If we had more medicines, facilities and staff we could save more children. Our staff has strong commitment. We work tirelessly and are ready to do more,” he said.

“I also have children. When a child dies, we also suffer. I know what must go through the hearts of the parents.”

Malnutrition is not the only cause of a surge in mortality. Other preventable and curable diseases are also killing children.

In the intensive care unit next door to the malnutrition ward, six-month-old Umrah is battling severe pneumonia. She cries loudly as a nurse attaches a saline drip to her body. Umrah’s mother Nasreen sits by her, tears streaming down her face.

“I wish I could die in her place. I’m so scared,” she says. Two days after we visited the hospital, Umrah died.

These are the stories of those who made it to hospital. Countless others can’t. Only one out of five children who need hospital treatment can get it at Jalalabad hospital.

The pressure on the facility is so intense that almost immediately after Asma died, a tiny baby, three-month-old Aaliya, was moved into the half a bed that Asma left vacant.

No-one in the room had time to process what had happened. There was another seriously ill child to treat.

The Jalalabad hospital caters to the population of five provinces, estimated by the Taliban government to be roughly five million people. And now the pressure on it has increased further. Most of the more than 700,000 Afghan refugees forcibly deported by Pakistan since late last year continue to stay in Nangarhar.

In the communities around the hospital, we found evidence of another alarming statistic released this year by the UN: that 45% of children under the age of five are stunted – shorter than they should be – in Afghanistan.

Robina’s two-year-old son Mohammed cannot stand yet and is much shorter than he should be.

“The doctor has told me that if he gets treatment for the next three to six months, he will be fine. But we can’t even afford food. How do we pay for the treatment?” Robina asks.

She and her family had to leave Pakistan last year and now live in a dusty, dry settlement in the Sheikh Misri area, a short drive on mud tracks from Jalalabad.

“I’m scared he will become disabled and he will never be able to walk,” Robina says.

“In Pakistan, we also had a hard life. But there was work. Here my husband, a labourer, rarely finds work. We could have treated him if we were still in Pakistan.”

Unicef says stunting can cause severe irreversible physical and cognitive damage, the effects of which can last a lifetime and even affect the next generation.

“Afghanistan is already struggling economically. If large sections of our future generation are physically or mentally disabled, how will our society be able to help them?” asks Dr Ghani.

Mohammad can be saved from permanent damage if he’s treated before it’s too late.

But the community nutrition programmes run by aid agencies in Afghanistan have seen the most dramatic cuts – many of them have received just a quarter of the funding that’s needed.

In lane after lane of Sheikh Misri we meet families with malnourished or stunted children.

Sardar Gul has two malnourished children – three-year-old Umar and eight-month-old Mujib, a bright-eyed little boy he holds on his lap.

“A month ago Mujib’s weight had dropped to less than three kilos. Once we were able to register him with an aid agency, we started getting food sachets. Those have really helped him,” Sardar Gul says.

Mujib now weighs six kilos – still a couple of kilos underweight, but significantly improved.

It is evidence that timely intervention can help save children from death and disability.

Additional reporting: Imogen Anderson and Sanjay Ganguly

At least 18 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on a number of military sites in central Syria, the Syrian health minister says.

State news agency Sana cited Hassan al-Ghabbash as saying another 37 people were injured in the attacks in the vicinity of Masyaf, in Hama province, on Sunday night.

A UK-based monitoring group reported that 26 people were killed and that the targets included a scientific research centre near Masyaf that was used to develop weapons.

The Israeli military said it would not comment on foreign media reports of the strikes, which Syria’s foreign ministry condemned as “blatant aggression” and Iran’s foreign ministry called a “criminal attack”.

However, Israel has previously acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes in recent years on targets in Syria that it says are linked to Iran – Israel’s main foe – and allied armed groups.

The Israeli strikes have reportedly been stepped up since the start of the war in Gaza in October last year, in response to cross-border attacks on northern Israel by Hezbollah and other groups in Lebanon and Syria.

Sana’s report cited a Syrian military source as saying that Israeli aircraft flying over north-western Lebanon launched missiles at “a number of military sites in the central region” at around 23:20 (20:20 GMT) on Sunday.

“Our air defence shot down some missiles,” the military source added.

The news agency said the strikes also caused damage to the Masyaf-Wadi al-Oyoun highway and that a fire broke out in the forested Hair Abbas area.

Later, the Syrian foreign ministry said the attack had targeted “several residential areas”, while local authorities reported that key infrastructure had been damaged, including a fibre optic cable running underneath the highway and a high-voltage power line, according to Sana.

State-run Al-Ikhbariya al-Suriyah TV also broadcast footage purportedly showing a damaged building in the port city of Tartous, west of Masyaf.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) – a UK-based monitoring group with a network of sources on the ground – reported that Israeli strikes destroyed buildings and military facilities in “the scientific research area in Masyaf”, on the Masyaf-Wadi al-Oyoun highway and in Hair Abbas.

It said at least 26 people were killed, including five civilians, four members of Syrian government forces and 14 Syrians working with pro-Iran groups. Another three bodies were unidentified, it added.

The SOHR said Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers had been stationed in the scientific research area for six years as part of a programme to develop short- and medium-range precision missiles and drones.

However, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani told reporters in Tehran: “We do not confirm what was reported by media outlets linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] about an attack on an Iranian centre or a centre under Iran’s protection.”

A senior regional military source close to Damascus and Tehran also denied a Reuters news agency report which cited two intelligence sources as saying that a major military research centre for chemical arms production was hit several times.

Western intelligence agencies have previously alleged that a branch of the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC) near Masyaf has been used to produce chemical weapons in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The Syrian government has denied the claim. However, the facility was reportedly targeted in a suspected Israeli strike in September 2017, a day after a deadly chemical attack on a rebel-held town in northern Syria that the UN and Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons concluded was carried out by the Syrian air force.

According to the SOHR, Israeli air and artillery strikes have targeted Syrian territory on 64 occasions since the start of the year, resulting in the damage or destruction of about 140 targets, including weapons depots, vehicles and Iran-backed militia headquarters.

The strikes have killed at least 208 fighters – including 46 members of Syrian government forces, 43 members of Hezbollah and 24 Iranian Revolutionary Guards – as well as 22 civilians, the monitoring group says.

In April, Iran accused Israel of carrying out an air strike on a consulate building in Damascus which killed two senior Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Iran retaliated by carrying out its first direct military attack against Israel. It launched 300 missiles and drones, but almost all of them were shot down by Israeli and US-led forces.