Geopolitics
[ The Guardian ] Ukraine denies minister’s claims of hijacked Afghanistan evacuation flight
A Ukrainian minister has claimed a passenger jet meant to evacuate people fleeing Afghanistan to Ukraine was hijacked at gunpoint and flown instead to Iran, in an unconfirmed incident that was later denied by his own government. Ukraine’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, Yevhen Yenin, said armed hijackers seized the plane at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai international airport,…
Read More[ Middle East Eye ] Algeria severs diplomatic ties with Morocco over ‘hostile manoeuvres’
Source: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/algeria-morocco-sever-diplomatic-ties Algeria announced on Tuesday that it was officially severing ties with neighbouring Morocco “starting today”, after months of tensions between the two countries. Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra made the announcement during a press conference on Tuesday evening. “It has been proven that the (Moroccan) kingdom has not ceased its unfriendly, low and hostile manoeuvres against…
Read More[ The Epoch Times ] New Jersey Military Base to Be Used to House Afghan Evacuees: Pentagon
A military base in New Jersey will house evacuees from Afghanistan as the United States works on flying tens of thousands of Afghans from the Taliban-held country. Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, about 39 miles northeast of Philadelphia, is the fourth base that is preparing to or already has accepted evacuees. The other three bases are Fort Lee in Virginia, Fort McCoy…
Read MoreFailure to evacuate Afghan contractors will have dire consequences for the rest of US foreign deployments around the world
Daniella Mestyanek Young@daniellamyoungBFF deployed to Africa tells me that all of their translators have quit & nobody wants to work with the US military right now… This is perhaps one of the first signal that a impending translator drought (or local guide for that matter) for US foreign operations/deployment. Locally employed guides and translator (or…
Read MoreSingapore’s Minister answering Malaysian military’s passive aggression on Singapore’s National Day
In case you missed it, Singapore celebrated the nation’s 56th birthday last Saturday (Aug 21) with a belated bash at the floating platform in Marina Bay, featuring the usual fanfare — fireworks, the Red Lions and displays from the Singapore Armed Forces. Across the Causeway, Malaysia was also highlighting its own military with a display of their…
Read More[ Anny Bonny Pirate ] Afghanistan: The End of the Occupation
Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale write: A lot of nonsense about Afghanistan is being written in Britain and the United States. Most of this nonsense hides a number of important truths. First, the Taliban have defeated the United States. Second, the Taliban have won because they have more popular support. Third, this is not because most Afghans love…
Read More[ CS Monitor ] Afghanistan: How the Taliban won over northern ethnic minorities
When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, they faced stiff resistance across the country’s north from ethnic-based paramilitaries that resented the southern Pashtun militants. That resistance would prove decisive in 2001 when the same ethnic minorities, backed by U.S. air power, ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul. This time around, the Taliban had…
Read More[ UnHerd ] The man who lost Afghanistan
If there was one family in Afghanistan who incarnated the hopes, illusions and failures of the last two decades there, it was the Ghanis. Ashraf, the father, was the country’s last president. A trained anthropologist, he believed in books, and the power of the ideas within them to move the world. His wife, Rula, a…
Read More[ AP ] Taliban allowing ‘safe passage’ from Kabul in US airlift
The Taliban have agreed to allow “safe passage” from Afghanistan for civilians struggling to join a U.S.-directed airlift from the capital, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said Tuesday, although a timetable for completing the evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and others has yet to be worked out with the country’s new rulers. Jake Sullivan…
Read More[ AP ] Detainee says China has secret jail in Dubai, holds Uyghurs
A young Chinese woman says she was held for eight days at a Chinese-run secret detention facility in Dubai along with at least two Uyghurs, in what may be the first evidence that China is operating a so-called “black site” beyond its borders. The woman, 26-year-old Wu Huan, was on the run to avoid extradition…
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