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CARL AZUZ: Fresh off the Labor Day holiday,
we welcome you to a new shortened week of CNN 10.
I'm Carl Azuz.
It's great to see you.
And we hope you're doing well.
Starting today in Afghanistan where the Taliban, the ruling
group in the Asian country, says it has completely
conquered the Panjshir Valley.
Why is that significant?
Well the Taliban quickly took control of Afghanistan
as the United States prepared to withdraw its military
from there last month.
But there's one province left out of the 34
in Afghanistan that's been considered a holdout.
A group in Panjshir, which is North of the capital of Kabul,
has been fiercely fighting the Taliban for weeks.
And if the Taliban has conquered Panjshir, as it says it has,
it means they now control all of the country.
But the National resistance front
says the Taliban does not have control of Panjshir,
that there's fighting against the Taliban
all over the province, and that it will continue.
Meanwhile, efforts continue to get American citizens out
of the country.
The Biden administration has said,
there are around 100 Americans remaining in Afghanistan.
A republican lawmaker on the House Foreign Affairs Committee
says the number is quote, "in the hundreds".
The US State Department says it just helped four Americans
escape the country over land.
But there are multiple reports that
say the Taliban is blocking other Americans
from leaving on planes.
A republican lawmaker says the Taliban
want something in exchange for allowing the planes to leave.
The State Department says it can't confirm
these reports because it no longer
has employees in Afghanistan.
For its part, the Taliban has said it will allow Americans
to leave Afghanistan freely.
But can this group be trusted?
- Inside the new Afghanistan.
- [non-english speech]
- In rural Paktika province, far from Kabul,
the Taliban's provincial governor has called a meeting.
No women to be seen.
Local village elders and tribal chiefs listened.
A young boy takes a selfie.
Much has changed since the Taliban were last in charge,
smartphones and social media.
But poverty, still the country's biggest problem.
- [non-english speech]
INTERPRETER: We have many expectations.
And we are praying the Taliban will deliver.
- The week after Kabul fell, a local journalist
took a road trip for us to see what was
happening outside the capital.
Taliban guides showed him the way.
At the border, change is already underway.
Part charm offensive, giving traders what they want,
longer opening hours at the border,
and part crack down, keeping men and women apart.
- [non-english speech]
INTERPRETER: Let me tell you.
Before we had one single line for both men and women,
now we have two.
They are kept apart.
- Pakistani officials easing into the new relationship,
backing the segregation.
On this journey, two things become clear,
Afghanistan's near financial collapse and the hard switch
to religious rule.
Spotting a crowd, the team stop.
It's a provincial courthouse.
Inside, local leaders careful to praise the new boss.
- [non-english speech]
- We used to have to go a long way to get to a Taliban court,
he says.
Now we have one right here.
The new judge in town quite literally
laying down the Taliban law, their interpretation
of Islamic law.
Under Taliban rule in the 1990s, the Taliban's Sharia law
led to public amputations for thieves, stoning, even hanging.
But in the local market, Sharia law is not the big concern.
It's making a living.
- [non-english speech]
INTERPRETER: Business is very bad.
We don't know who is in charge.
Only low rent people are here.
We don't know if we can trust them.
They are not telling us anything.
And the situation has not improved.
Prices are going up.
- [non-english speech]
- In the barber shop, business is down.
It's not only me, he says, but business is bad in the market.
It's not as good as before.
They're not alone.
The local pharmacist is also struggling.
Stocks already depleted under the last government.
- [non-english speech]
- The clinic's maternity nurse, also worried about finances,
says the previous government didn't
pay her for the past four months,
and she can't afford to go home.
Closer to Kabul, another doctor.
More problems.
- [non-english speech]
- Day and night, he says, we get 25 to 30 patients.
And we have just one doctor and one nurse for them all.
Outside the hospital, the Taliban
claim an alternate reality.
- [non-english speech]
INTERPRETER: Before, you didn't know whether the doctor
was coming or not.
But now they are there for you all the time.
- On this trip, the Taliban's prioritizing
of Sharia law and bits of charm offensive seemingly missing
Afghans most important needs, a secure livelihood.
CARL AZUZ: Lousy, poor, a massive disappointment.
These are some of the words being used to describe the US
government's latest jobs report, which came out last Friday
and covered national employment conditions in August.
235,000 jobs were added to the US economy that month.
Why was that disappointing?
Because economists had expected that 728,000 jobs would be
added as the recovery continues from all
the effects and shutdowns related to coronavirus.
The unemployment rate, the percentage
of workers that don't have a job,
that improved a bit to 5.2%.
It was 5.4% in July.
The unemployment rate is at its lowest
point since the pandemic hammered
the US economy last March.
But as far as job growth goes, many economists
are blaming the Delta variant of COVID, which
is responsible for most of the new cases in America
for holding the economy back.
- Call it the Delta drag.
Jobs growth slowed in August as the Delta variant surged.
After very strong hiring in June and July,
August was the slowest job growth since January.
And the very sector that drove so much of the job gains
this year stalled.
Hiring in leisure and hospitality was flat.
Employment in that sector is still down about 10%
from before the pandemic.
Job losses last month were in retail stores,
bars and restaurants.
Even without renewed lockdowns, economists
say Americans are turning more cautious about going out
as the variant spreads and hospitals fill up.
There was strong hiring in professional services.
Think architects, engineers, computer systems design,
scientific research, gains in manufacturing
and transportation warehousing.
And notable, the jobless rate fell to the lowest
of the pandemic, 5.2%, as households reported
stronger jobs growth there.
Now big picture.
17 million jobs have been added since the crash
in the spring of 2020.
The economy still down 5.3 million jobs since the pandemic
began.
CARL AZUZ: 10 second trivia.
Which of these nations has only one
official time zone, Australia, Brazil, China, or Indonesia?
Before its communist revolution in 1949,
China had five time zones.
Its current government only recognizes one.
Would you live in a 10 story apartment building
that was built in one day?
Because that's what appears to be happening right here.
This was not done the old-fashioned way.
The Chinese company that built this
started with prefabricated containers that were
largely assembled in a factory.
That's where the windows, appliances,
lighting, mechanical, and electrical systems
were all set up.
Then these containers were moved to the building site.
And that's when the clock was started.
A large team was able to unfold the walls,
stack and connect the containers in just under 29 hours,
what the company calls the world's
shortest construction period.
It says this method of construction
does not affect the building's strength.
But is it the way of the future in the industry?
Some critics still have safety concerns,
though this might attract attention
in cities that are looking for housing that can
be built quickly and cheaply.
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Something funny to wrap up our show today.
And don't give me that skeptical side eye.
These are comedic wildlife photos.
And they're competing for a comedy
wildlife photography award.
Still not impressed?
Well there's got to be something here that you find eye opening.
42 of the world's most amusing animal images
will be voted on by viewers.
And the winner gets a trophy, a special website for a year,
and a one week long safari.
Haters might say that competition's for the birds.
But if you find yourself monkeying around with a camera
"owl" the time and "camel" across something
"unbearlievably" hilarious, well,
take your best shot, eagle eye because you
too could treat yourself to the title of "penguiner."
We love to recognize schools that use our show.
Today's shoutout goes out to Branford High
School in Branford, Florida.
For a chance to get your school mentioned,
please subscribe to our YouTube channel
and leave a comment on the most recent
show at youtube.com/cnn10.
I'm Carl Azuz.
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