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Category: Politics

The world can learn from South Africa’s ideal of nonracial democracy

The world can learn from South Africa’s ideal of nonracial democracy

Mahmood Mamdani writes: In the course of the struggle against apartheid, South Africans did something remarkable: they tried, with incomplete success, to destroy the settler and the native by reconfiguring both as survivors. They did so by adopting a response to extreme violence that defied the logic of Nuremberg – the logic of separating perpetrators from victims, punishing the perpetrators, and creating separate spheres in which the two could live without harming each other in an ongoing cycle of violence….

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Taliban steps forward after taking over Afghanistan

Taliban steps forward after taking over Afghanistan

  Politico reports: A Taliban spokesperson on Tuesday worked to position the group as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, pledging that the Islamic militants would not seek revenge against Afghan civil servants or those who worked with the U.S. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban, said that the group would look to establish ties with other countries and announce the formation of a new government in the near future. “Afghanistan will have an Islamic — and a strong Islamic…

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Trump empowered the Taliban, his former defense secretary suggests

Trump empowered the Taliban, his former defense secretary suggests

CNN reports: Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday that he was concerned that then-President Donald Trump “undermined” the US’ 2020 agreement with the Taliban by pushing for US forces to leave Afghanistan without the Taliban meeting the conditions of the deal. The Trump administration’s “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan” outlined a series of commitments from the US and the Taliban related to troop levels, counterterrorism and intra-Afghan dialogue aimed at bringing about “a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.” But,…

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Time was always on the Taliban’s side

Time was always on the Taliban’s side

The New York Times reports: Military and intelligence assessments predicting that the government in Kabul could hold on at least a year before a Taliban takeover were built on a premise that proved to be flawed: that the Afghan army would put up a fight. “Most of the U.S. assessments inside and outside the U.S. government had focused on how well the Afghan security forces would fare in a fight with the Taliban. In reality, they never really fought” during…

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First-ever water cuts declared for Colorado River in historic drought

First-ever water cuts declared for Colorado River in historic drought

CNN reports: The federal government on Monday declared a water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, triggering mandatory water consumption cuts for states in the Southwest, as climate change-fueled drought pushes the level in Lake Mead to unprecedented lows. Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US by volume, has drained at an alarming rate this year. At around 1,067 feet above sea level and 35% full, the Colorado River reservoir is at its lowest since the…

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U.S. to advise boosters for most Americans eight months after vaccination

U.S. to advise boosters for most Americans eight months after vaccination

The New York Times reports: The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as mid-September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions. Officials are planning to announce the decision as early as this week. Their goal is to let Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the…

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Why Afghan forces so quickly laid down their arms

Why Afghan forces so quickly laid down their arms

Anatol Lieven writes: In the winter of 1989, as a journalist for the Times of London, I accompanied a group of mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. At one point, a fortified military post became visible on the other side of a valley. As we got closer, the flag flying above it also became visible — the flag of the Afghan Communist state, which the mujahideen were fighting to overthrow. “Isn’t that a government post?” I asked my interpreter. “Yes,”…

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How America lost the war on terror

How America lost the war on terror

Robin Wright writes: The fall of Kabul may serve as a bookend for the era of U.S. global power. In the nineteen-forties, the United States launched the Great Rescue to help liberate Western Europe from the powerful Nazi war machine. It then used its vast land, sea, and air power to defeat the formidable Japanese empire in East Asia. Eighty years later, the U.S. is engaged in what historians may someday call a Great Retreat from a ragtag militia that…

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Taliban’s Abdul Ghani Baradar is undisputed victor of a 20-year war

Taliban’s Abdul Ghani Baradar is undisputed victor of a 20-year war

The Guardian reports: Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban leader freed from a Pakistani jail on the request of the US less than three years ago, has emerged as an undisputed victor of the 20-year war. While Haibatullah Akhundzada is the Taliban’s overall leader, Baradar is its political chief and its most public face. He was said to be on his way from his office in Doha to Kabul on Sunday evening. In a televised statement on the fall of Kabul,…

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Risks and opportunities for China in Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan

Risks and opportunities for China in Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan

South China Morning Post reports: After two decades of the United States’ costly and bloody efforts to support the Afghan government, the Taliban has retaken control of the country in stunning fashion, posing new risks – and opportunities – for neighbouring China. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that China “respects the wishes and choices of the Afghan people”, and hoped the Taliban’s declarations that it would transition the country under an “open, inclusive Islamic government” and…

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The biggest climate change threat increasingly comes from the leaders of China and India

The biggest climate change threat increasingly comes from the leaders of China and India

Pankaj Mishra writes: As apocalyptic wildfires raged in Greece, California and Turkey last week, the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) offered a sobering assessment of the damage inflicted by human beings on their planet since the industrial revolution. Certainly, as droughts parch entire countries, fuel civil wars that spill across national borders and drive uncontrolled migration, collaborative action seems imperative, regardless of which countries industrialized first and kick-started the process of climate change. But the…

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The UN’s terrifying climate change report

The UN’s terrifying climate change report

Elizabeth Kolbert writes: In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization teamed up with the United Nations Environment Programme to form a body with an even more cumbersome title, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or, as it quickly became known, the I.P.C.C. The I.P.C.C.’s structure was every bit as ungainly as its name. Any report that the group issued had to be approved not just by the researchers who collaborated on it but also by the governments of the member countries,…

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Afghanistan government collapses as Taliban take Kabul

Afghanistan government collapses as Taliban take Kabul

Biden, last month: "The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan." https://t.co/cMx5e2xjtn — Shashank Joshi (@shashj) August 15, 2021 The Wall Street Journal reports: Taliban fighters on Sunday took over the Afghan capital and President Ashraf Ghani fled abroad, leaving the government in collapse, as a U.S.-led military…

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Afghanistan’s collapse leaves allies questioning U.S. resolve on other fronts

Afghanistan’s collapse leaves allies questioning U.S. resolve on other fronts

The Washington Post reports: The Taliban’s stunningly swift advances across Afghanistan have sparked global alarm, reviving doubts about the credibility of U.S. foreign policy promises and drawing harsh criticisms even from some of the United States’ closest allies. As Taliban fighters entered Kabul and the United States scrambled to evacuate its citizens, concerns grew that the unfolding chaos could create a haven for terrorists, unleash a major humanitarian disaster and trigger a new refugee exodus. U.S. allies complain that they…

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Afghan women’s defiance and despair: ‘I never thought I’d have to wear a burqa. My identity will be lost’

Afghan women’s defiance and despair: ‘I never thought I’d have to wear a burqa. My identity will be lost’

The Guardian reports: In a market in Kabul, Aref is doing a booming trade. At first glance, the walls of his shop seem to be curtained in folds of blue fabric. On closer inspection, dozens and dozens of blue burqas hang like spectres from hooks on the wall. As the Taliban close in on Kabul, women inside the city are getting ready for what may be coming. “Before, most of our customers were from the provinces,” says Aref. “Now it…

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Al Qaeda won’t return to Afghanistan — it’s already there

Al Qaeda won’t return to Afghanistan — it’s already there

Jason Burke writes: As the Taliban prepare to rule Afghanistan after sweeping across the country in less than a week, an obvious question is what does this mean for the future of al-Qaida and other extremist Islamist groups committed to waging a global jihad. There is no doubt that the astonishing rapidity of the Taliban’s victory will deliver a tremendous boost to Islamist extremists everywhere – whether al-Qaida, Islamic State, fighters in Mozambique or Syria, or jihadi fanboys in bedsits…

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