The US decided to split $7 billion belonging to Afghanistan’s central bank between humanitarian aid to the country and kin of victims of the 9/11 attacks, outraging the Afghan people. Most of the bank’s assets are kept at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They were frozen once the Afghan government fell last year. About half a billion dollars belong to commercial banks in Afghanistan, which must keep a certain amount of deposits — including the savings of ordinary Afghans — at the central bank. Mohammad Naeem, a spokesperson of the Taliban political office in Qatar, called the move “stealing” and indicative of “the lowest level of human and moral decay of a country”.

Australia declared the koala an endangered species two years after a parliamentary inquiry predicted they could be extinct by 2050 without urgent intervention.