Briefly

AFGHANISTAN

Ghani vows to hasten Taliban prisoner swap

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani vowed on Sunday to speed up the release of Taliban prisoners, and said he was ready to hold peace talks with the insurgents after accepting their surprise offer of a cease-fire. The Taliban proposed a three-day truce over the Eid al-Fitr holiday and Ghani swiftly agreed to it. A US-Taliban deal signed in February stipulated that the Afghan government would release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners while the insurgents would free about 1,000 Afghan security force personnel. The prisoner swap is seen as a confidence-building move ahead of long-awaited talks between the government and Taliban.

UNITED STATES

SpaceX ready to send astronauts to ISS

In the beginning, everyone was skeptical. But Elon Musk's SpaceX defied expectations－and on Wednesday hopes to make history by ferrying two NASA astronauts into space, the first crewed flight from US soil in nine years. US President Donald Trump will be among the spectators at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to witness the launch, which has been given the green light despite months of shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic. The general public, in a nod to virus restrictions, has been told to watch via a livestream as Crew Dragon is launched by a Falcon 9 rocket toward the International Space Station.

NEW ZEALAND

Ardern unruffled as quake hits interview

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was unflustered by an earthquake that struck the capital Wellington on Monday while she was doing a live TV interview, and calmly continued with the program. Wellington and nearby areas were shaken by a magnitude-5.8 earthquake, according to GeoNet. Ardern was speaking on a live TV interview at the time from the parliament building, called the Beehive. "We're just having a bit of an earthquake here, Ryan..." she told the host of the show Ryan Bridge, as she, the camera and other things around her shook.

Agencies Via Xinhua