A column browsing contemporary news.

At the moment Afghanistan monopolizes news even though people continue dying from CoViD-19 every day.

“While the US State Department continues to engage in high-level diplomatic talks with the Taliban in the neutral setting of Doha, Qatar, as it has for the past year, the real negotiations have moved to the chaotic streets of Kabul in recent days, where American military commanders are in constant communication with Taliban militants over security around the airport.”
And still nobody is ready to admit the truth, they had given up to Taliban for long time and they were just waiting for the unavoidable just in a different ….speed!

“The Taliban have stepped up their search for people who worked for NATO forces or the previous Afghan government, a document prepared for the UN has warned. It said the militants have been going door-to-door to find targets and threaten their family members. The hardline Islamist group has tried to reassure Afghans since seizing power in a lightning offensive, promising there would be "no revenge".”
Obviously ‘no revenge’ is a case of unforgiving perception for some and while the Taliban is not doing well with forgiving they pray that the rest of the world will practice revengefully …forgetting.

Wall Street Journal headline: “What Biden Can Still Save in Afghanistan”
His dignity?

“Culver City Unified School District plans to require all eligible students aged 12 and older to be vaccinated against CoViD-19 by mid-November, the Southern California district announced this week.”
While in Texas, governor Abbot is thinking to penalize vaccinated students. The ironies of US polarize politics.

“A 36-year-old woman (in Singapore) who leaked confidential information on the number of daily CoViD-19 cases before its public disclosure by the Ministry of Health (MOH) was on Friday (20 August) fined $10,000.”
Censoring information and fake transparency is obviously a virus much harder to fight in Singapore.

“A senior Biden administration official said US policy on Taiwan had not changed after President Joe Biden appeared to suggest the US would defend the island if it were attacked, a deviation from a long-held US position of ‘strategic ambiguity’.”
After everything happening with USA defending Afghanistan live on everybody’s screens 24/7, suggesting defending any other country is not wise!

“President Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday urged European countries to take responsibility for migrants coming from Afghanistan, adding Turkey had no intention of becoming "Europe's migrant storage unit" amid turmoil in the country after the Taliban's takeover.”
Which in the case of Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan it also translates into: negotiations start, how much you give me to turn Turkey into Europe's migrant storage unit, again.

“Afghanistan’s president, driven out by the Taliban, is the latest leader on the run to turn up in the United Arab Emirates. Others who found refuge here include Spain’s disgraced former king and two Thai prime ministers.”
if I remember well, Uganda’s cannibal president Idi Amin also turned up to the United Arab Emirates when his regime ended. It must be something familiar in the air for all these corrupted authoritarians in UAE.

“Greta Thunberg, 18, says Britain is 'lying' about its progress on climate change and accuses the government of using 'creative carbon accounting'”
Dear Greta, from the billions to NHS to unemployment rates, Boris Johnson only practices creative accounting.

* Photo: Taliban hipsters.