Rejected by New Zealand, reporter turns to Taliban for help
By NICK PERRY
Associated Press
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A pregnant New Zealand journalist says she turned to the Taliban for help and is now stranded in Afghanistan after her home country has prevented her from returning due to a bottleneck of people in its coronavirus quarantine system. In a column in The New Zealand Herald on Saturday, Charlotte Bellis said it was “brutally ironic” that she once questioned the Taliban about their treatment of women and she was now asking the same questions of her own government. New Zealand has managed to keep the spread of the virus to a minimum. But the requirement that even returning citizens spend 10 days isolating in quarantine hotels run by the military has led to thousands of people vying for spots to return.