USA - US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson is now blaming those Americans who are stranded in Afghanistan for being stranded in Afghanistan. Ambassador: WILSON: “We put out repeated warnings, every three weeks, to Americans, going back to, I think, March or April, each one in stronger terms, leave now, leave immediately. Never in my 40 years of working — since I began working at the State Department have I seen such strong language used. People chose not to leave. That’s their business. That’s their right. We regret now that many may find themselves in a position that they would rather not be in. And we are determined to try to help them.” ...as recently as July 8, a mere six weeks before it did happen, no one less than the President of the United States, Joe Biden was telling everyone — and I quote: “the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” Joe Biden is going to leave thousands of American civilians behind terrorist enemy lines, and he’s going to say it’s their own fault, even though on July 8, he was telling them they had nothing to worry about.

USA - Is history about to repeat itself? As I write this article, it is being projected that Hurricane Ida could hit New Orleans on Sunday, and that would be exactly 16 years to the day from when Hurricane Katrina absolutely devastated the city in 2005. The levees that were supposed to protect New Orleans spectacularly failed, and almost 2,000 people were killed. It has been estimated that 125 billion dollars in damage was caused by Katrina, and to this day it remains one of the most costly natural disasters in US history. Now Hurricane Ida is coming, and meteorologists are extremely concerned about this storm. Since 2005, we have not seen a major hurricane make a direct hit on New Orleans. Over the coming hours, the path of the storm could still change, and so let’s keep a close eye on it. The Weather Channel is warning that it could become a Category 4 storm as it approaches the coast… If Ida were to slow down and linger in the Gulf of Mexico for an extra day or two, could it potentially become a Category 5 storm?

USA - Hurricane Ida intensified over warm Gulf of Mexico waters on Saturday, prompting tens of thousands to flee coastal areas, while President Joe Biden pledged aid to help states quickly recover once the storm has passed. Forecasters said Ida could make a US landfall on Sunday night as an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, generating winds of 140 miles per hour (225 kph), heavy downpours and a tidal surge that could plunge much of the Louisiana shoreline under several feet of water. "We're concerned about explosive development shortly before it makes landfall," said Jim Foerster, chief meteorologist at DTN, which provides weather advice to oil and transportation companies. Officials ordered widespread evacuations of low-lying and coastal areas, jamming highways and leading some gasoline stations to run dry as residents and vacationers fled the seashore.

USA - US President Joe Biden promised on Thursday to hunt down and destroy the ISIS-K terrorists who killed 13 American service personnel and dozens of Afghans in a double suicide attack on Kabul airport. He made the retaliation threat last night as he joined Boris Johnson in vowing to continue the evacuation efforts despite a 'continued' risk of further bombings by the terrorist group which is an enemy of the Taliban who are in control of the country. The jihadist group, an off-shoot of the terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS), last night claimed responsibility for double bombing, which is believed to have killed at least 90 people and injured more than 150 others. Intelligence experts questioned how Biden would strike back after withdrawing all US forces from Afghanistan and handing the country to the Taliban.

AFGHANISTAN - Armed forces minister James Heappey described the terror threat to people outside Kabul airport as "lethal" amid concerns over an affiliate of the so-called Islamic State in Afghanistan, ISIS-K. He told BBC Breakfast: "I can't stress the desperation of the situation enough, the threat is credible, it is imminent, it is lethal. "And we wouldn't be saying this if we weren't genuinely concerned about offering Islamic State a target." ISIS-K, a local branch of the notorious global terrorism organisation, is amassing thousands of fighters to topple the "liberal" Taliban - and they will target Westerners to do it. Founded in 2015, ISIS-K's aim is to establish an Islamic caliphate across Khorasan - a region covering Pakistan and Afghanistan and parts of central Asia. Its fighters - who view the Taliban as too liberal - are thought to number up to 2,200, but this figure could rise dramatically amid political uncertainty. There are now concerns from the Western superpowers that ISIS-K will launch a wave of terror attacks in an attempt to destabilise the Taliban's efforts to form a government, with potential evacuees representing high profile targets.

USA - On Monday, a group of nearly four dozen veteran organizations requested a meeting with President Joe Biden to discuss the evacuation of US partners in Afghanistan and “fulfilling our commitment to our Afghan allies.” “Failing to meet our obligations to these Afghans would not only be a national security risk - harming America’s reputation abroad and eroding the trust in our armed forces that is critical for future operations - it would also condemn veterans and survivors of the conflict in Afghanistan to a lifetime of moral injury,” the group wrote in their letter to Biden. The Taliban seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, on August 15 as the Afghan government collapsed and top government officials fled the country, prompting a frenzied evacuation of US diplomats, citizens, and allies from the country.

USA - On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (Republican for Louisiana) stated that no one believes President Joe Biden will defend American allies like Taiwan and Ukraine after his handling of Afghanistan. Scalise said, “Look at what our enemies around the world must be thinking. What’s China thinking when they look at Taiwan right now? What is Russia thinking when they look at Ukraine right now? Does anybody trust that this president’s going to stand up to bad guys around the world? And do any of our allies think this president will have their backs, just like he cut and run on them in this conflict?”

USA - Erik Prince, a retired US Navy SEAL and founder of the private military company Blackwater USA, joined Steve Bannon on The War Room on Wednesday to discuss Joe Biden’s historic catastrophe in Afghanistan. Prince and Blackwater are assisting Americans and Westerners stranded inside Afghanistan. There are still thousands of Americans stranded inside Afghanistan. According to Erik Prince, who has operatives on the ground, the Taliban and Islamist groups are blocking Americans from reaching the airport and confiscating their passports. Prince was asked about the upcoming celebrations in Kabul on the 20 year anniversary of the 9-11 attacks coming in two weeks. It will be like nothing we have ever seen.

USA - James Madison University in Virginia is training student employees to recognize that people who identify as male, straight, cisgender, or Christian are "oppressors" that engage in the "systematic subjugation" of other social groups. According to documents obtained by Fox News, student employees in charge of facilitating orientation for first-year students this fall at JMU underwent training in recent weeks to learn about social justice and inclusion. The presentation defined privilege as the "unearned social power accorded by the formal and informal institutions of society to ALL members of a dominant group at the expense of targeted groups." It also said members of both the oppressor and target groups are "socialized to play their roles as normal and correct." Among the oppressed groups, according to the presentation, are people who identify as Black, Asian, Latinx, non-Western European, LGBTQ+, homoromantic, Muslim, Jewish, working class, overweight, or disabled, among others.

USA - In just 24 hours, the mainstream media complex has been flooded with the headline “Full Approval!” for the Pfizer gene therapy injection. But wait. Something is not adding up with this new stampede to get the needle into your arm. First, the drug giant Pfizer did not directly develop its mRNA shot: it hired a German company in 2018, BioNTech, to do that for them. They subsequently entered into a joint marketing/manufacturing agreement to deliver the resulting product to the world. Thus BioNTech is not a subsidiary of Pfizer.

ISRAEL - Ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's visit to the White House on August 26, the US "is going through an almost traumatic foreign policy setback in Afghanistan with implications for the entire Middle East," said former Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. "Now is not the time to experiment with new ideas in the peace process."

ISRAEL - The rapid collapse of the Afghan government and its US-backed security forces shows how the American attempt to instill in Afghans a liberal worldview in the space of 20 years was politically and culturally impossible and how misguided that approach was. But the more fundamental problem is that the US decision to leave Afghanistan is part of an American strategy to reduce its role as an international superpower, especially in the Middle East. This may encourage radical Islamic elements such as Iran, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and elements of the Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, to challenge the US and its allies, including Israel. The essential lesson for Israel is that with all the importance of Israel's strategic partnership with the US, Israel must recognize the limitations of a superpower's backing and adhere closely to the principle that Israel will defend itself on its own. This is a relevant lesson in the Iranian context when the Americans project hesitation in response to Tehran's many provocations.

USA - The weekend flooding in Tennessee that killed at least 21 people was more destructive than originally estimated, with about 120 homes washed off foundations, destroyed or simply "gone," officials said Tuesday. The scope of the damage came into sharper focus in hardest hit Humphreys County, as rescue teams continue to search house-to-house with trained dogs for dozens believed still missing. "Our damage is much more massive than what we thought," Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis told NPR in an interview Tuesday. It was already believed that hundreds of homes were water-damaged and uninhabitable, officials said after the storm brought 17 inches of rain in just three hours. Davis and other officials surveyed the damage from a helicopter late Monday, focusing largely on the hardest hit town of Waverly, about 55 miles west of Nashville. "Yesterday we thought it was 20-something houses that had been removed from the foundations," Davis said. "That's not even close. Well over 100-120 houses have been moved, or are gone, no longer exist."

ISRAEL - Relations between China and Israel have expanded rapidly since the early 2000s in numerous areas, including diplomacy, trade, investment, construction, educational partnerships, scientific cooperation, and tourism. Israel seeks to expand its diplomatic, economic, and strategic ties with the world's fastest-growing major economy and diversify its export markets and investments. China seeks Israel's advanced technology and values Israel's location as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

AUSTRALIA - Video messages from Australian truck drivers have surfaced in some of the alternative social media sites in recent days stating that they are going to take their country back, by going on strike and creating a blockade that will choke the supply chain. They are warning Australians to prepare, and stock up on food and basic necessities while they do this. They claim to have widespread support among “truckies” and also among military veterans. They recently had a “snap” protest in Sydney where dozens of trucks spanning miles lined up blowing their horns in a sign of solidarity against tyranny.