Steve McGookinTaliban takes Kabul, returns to power in Afghanistan
Almost twenty years after their regime was ousted by US-led forces in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Taliban forces on Sunday entered the Afghan capital Kabul after sweeping through the rest of the country as the United States presence came to “an abrupt and chaotic end”.
With Afghan forces’ resistance collapsing, President Ashraf Ghani fled to Tajikistan amid growing fear and uncertainty among the population over immediate next steps.
A Taliban spokesman said the “war is over”.
“We do not think that foreign forces will repeat their failed experience in Afghanistan once again.” The Taliban is now expected to declare an “Islamic Emirate”.
Their swift advance to the capital over recent weeks clearly caught military and diplomatic planners by surprise. With the US withdrawal in disarray, the Biden administration sent additional troops to help with evacuation plans, but efforts to avoid the optics of a “Saigon moment” mirroring the iconic end of America’s involvement in Vietnam quickly grew futile.
Perhaps misreading the significance and urgency of what happened on Sunday as America’s efforts at nation-building lay in ruins, the White House said President Biden would address the nation “in the next few days”.
Experts have been pondering the implications of the weekend’s developments, with many understandably asking how we arrived at this point. But perhaps some of the most eloquent accounts have come from veterans who served there.
The UK parliament will be recalled on Wednesday to discuss the situation but Prime Minister Boris Johnson said governments had to be “realistic about the power of the UK or any power to impose a military solution.”
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Haiti rocked by large earthquake
More than a thousand people are dead and there are fears of a fresh humanitarian crisis in Haiti after a strong earthquake hit on Saturday.
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Climate warnings intensify ahead of COP26
July was “Earth’s hottest month on record” according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Global data on extreme heat is a reflection of long-term changes, NOAA said, warning that “it remains very likely that 2021 will rank among the world’s 10-warmest years on record.”
However…
The latest data will increase the pressure on world governments to take meaningful action at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in October.
See Also:
The Case For An Eco-Thinking Centenary
Re-framing The Next Hundred Years
Weather Extremes Prompt Urgent Climate Warnings
Build Back Differently: How NI Can Tackle Climate Change (2020)
‘Everything Is Getting Much Worse, Much Faster, Everywhere’ (2019)
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Covid prompts differing school approaches
With schools preparing to, or in the process of, returning there is a mixed picture across the world on approaches to vaccinations of children and policies affecting behavior in the classroom. The situation is perhaps most splintered in the US, where with a record number of children being hospitalized, there are continued warnings about the danger to unvaccinated populations.
With cases and hospitalizations rising in the US, Ed Yong writes in The Atlantic that the virus “will almost certainly be a permanent part of our lives, even as vaccines blunt its ability to cause death and severe disease.”
This weekend saw the start of the 30th Premier League season, and the return of fans at full stadium capacity.
Meanwhile, the All-Ireland football semi-final between Tyrone and Kerry, scheduled for Sunday, was postponed – initially for one week, then for a second – after a Covid outbreak in the Tyrone camp.
See Also:
The Casement Park Saga Explained
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Plymouth mourns shooting victims
The tragic events this week have inevitably raised questions both about firearms policy and so-called “incel” culture.
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Also published on Medium.