USA - At this moment, every square inch of California is in a state of drought, and that is a huge problem because it produces about a third of our vegetables and about two-thirds of our fruits and nuts. The USDA has released some new numbers that are absolutely staggering. The following are exact quotes that come directly from that document…

GERMANY - The head of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party has called the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan the "biggest NATO debacle" since the founding of the US-led military alliance. “With the Taliban sweeping to power after NATO troops withdrew, it is evident that this engagement of the international community was not successful,” Armin Laschet said at a closed-door meeting of Germany’s Christian Democrat party on Monday. “It is the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and we're standing before an epochal change." Merkel, for her part, told party colleagues that Germany must urgently evacuate up to 10,000 people from Afghanistan for whom it has responsibility, warning that the fallout from the conflict will last for a very long time.

AFGHANISTAN - A Taliban prisoner who was released from the Guantanamo Bay prison in 2014 by former US president Barack Obama, is emerging as the key figure who reunited the insurgents and helped them capture the power in Afghanistan. Khairullah Khairkhwa was released along with four others in exchange for captured US Army soldier, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The 'Gitmo Five' were labelled "hardest of the hardcore" by US intelligence officials who urged Obama to reconsider his decision. However, those warnings were ignored, with assurance that these five terrorists will be kept in Qatar, so that they are not able to indulge in active politics in Afghanistan. But now, a report the New York Post has claimed that Khairkhwa and the four others released along with him made contact with active Taliban terrorists and vowed to drive American troops out of the country which they ruled 20 years ago. Khairkhwa played a key role in formation of a Taliban regime in exile and became official negotiator for peace talks, the Post report said.

ISRAEL - The Taliban victory against the US today and the Soviet Union before it should be a wake-up call to the Israeli security establishment to start thinking outside of the box and ensure that images of Islamist militants parading in victory are not replicated in Ramallah. It was only two days ago that the now-ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani assured his country and the world that everything was under control. His assurances followed those of US President Joe Biden, who said that "300,000 national troops are well equipped to stand up to 75,000 Taliban militants," with intelligence agencies not predicting any imminent collapse. The only surprise was not that Afghanistan fell to the Islamist terror group, but how rapidly it happened.

AFGHANISTAN - The drama playing out in Afghanistan right now has enormous implications for the entire planet, because it represents a colossal defeat for western globalists. Ever since the end of World War II, western elitists have been tirelessly working to establish “liberal democracies” all over the globe, and the idea was that all of the “liberal democracies” could be increasingly integrated into an emerging one world system. Of course China, Russia, Iran and their allies were never going to fully go along with this plan, and that is one of the reasons why they are endlessly demonized by media outlets in the western world.

AFGHANISTAN - 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, he said the Taliban’s real test was only just beginning and that they had to serve the nation. Baradar’s return to power embodies Afghanistan’s inability to escape the bloody shackles of its past.

CHINA - Amid all of this regional angst, China is quietly attempting to secure its interests in post-US Afghanistan. Beijing has reportedly been actively engaging with Kabul on construction of the Peshawar-Kabul motorway, which would connect Pakistan to Afghanistan and make Kabul a participant in China’s massive infrastructure and investment plan, the Belt and Road Initiative. Up until now, Kabul has resisted participation in the initiative to avoid getting on the wrong side of Washington. Beijing is also building a major road through the Wakhan Corridor—a slim strip of mountainous territory connecting China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang to Afghanistan—and onward to Pakistan and Central Asia, complementing its existing road network through the region. Once completed, these new thoroughfares should enable Beijing to pursue its goals of increased trade with the region and natural resource extraction in Afghanistan. According to a 2014 report, Afghanistan may possess nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of extractable rare-earth metals locked within its mountains.

CHINA - The Global Times began its polemic by asserting, “The US troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan has led to the rapid demise of the Kabul government. The world has witnessed how the US evacuated its diplomats by helicopter while Taliban soldiers crowded into the presidential palace in Kabul. This has dealt a heavy blow to the credibility and reliability of the US.” Many people cannot help but recall how the Vietnam War ended in 1975: The US abandoned its allies in South Vietnam; Saigon was taken over; then the US evacuated almost all its citizens in Saigon.”

IRAN - Iran’s new ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday said that the “defeat” of the United States in Afghanistan must usher in a durable peace in the neighboring war-wracked country. “The military defeat and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan should offer an opportunity to restore life, security and lasting peace in that country,” Raisi said, quoted by his office. Raisi, who made the remarks in a call with outgoing Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the Islamic republic wanted good relations with Afghanistan. Iran was “closely monitoring the evolution of events in Afghanistan” and wants good neighborly ties with it, he said. Iran shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Afghanistan, and hosts nearly 3.5 million Afghans, according to the UN refugee agency. Zarif meanwhile held Monday a meeting in Tehran with China’s special envoy for Afghanistan Yue Xiaoyong, the foreign ministry said. The talks focused on the situation in Afghanistan, it said.

USA - Donald Trump excoriated US President Joe Biden for allowing one of America’s worst defeats ever as Taliban fighters recaptured Afghanistan, while the current commander-in-chief was conspicuously silent on the debacle. “What Joe Biden has done with Afghanistan is legendary,” Trump said on Sunday. “It will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history.” Trump went on to say in another message that Biden should “resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in Covid, the border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence and our crippled economy.” “It shouldn’t be a big deal because he wasn’t elected legitimately in the first place,” Trump added, referring to the allegations of election fraud in the US presidential elections that he and his supporters have leveled against the Democrats.

AFGHANISTAN - Chinese, Iranian, and to some degree Russian media are reacting with glee over humiliating scenes of America's exit plans in chaos coming out of Kabul Sunday into Monday. Perhaps as expected, Chinese state-run Global Times featured it's most prominent headline Monday with the words "Taliban's rapid victory embarrasses US, smashes image, arrogance." Alternately Beijing is claiming to "respect" Afghans' choice - as the same article reads. And then there's outright mocking - as is seen by the Global Times' editor… Chinese netizens joked that the power transition in Afghanistan is even more smooth than presidential transition in the US. It's been no secret that in recent weeks as rapid Taliban gains became obvious, China's government has been preparing to officially recognize the rule of the Islamists now in control of the presidential palace and all government ministries. China and Afghanistan share a short border of up to 47 miles. Meanwhile, there are widespread reports that Taliban militants are actually guarding the Russian and Chinese embassies in Kabul, after they declared they would stay open.

USA - Nobody is going to respect the power of the US military after this. We spent nearly 20 years and more than 2 trillion dollars fighting the war in Afghanistan. Much more importantly, 2,448 US service members lost their lives and thousands more were seriously wounded. After so much heartbreaking sacrifice, the Taliban have won the war. It is inconceivable that the US military could lose to a ragged collection of drug dealers and goat herders, but thanks to an appalling failure of leadership at the White House and in the Pentagon it has happened.

AFGHANISTAN - The final collapse of the 20-year western mission to Afghanistan took only a single day as Taliban gunmen entered the capital, Kabul, on Sunday, President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and America abandoned its embassy in panic. Even the militants themselves were surprised by the speed of the takeover, co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar admitted in a video statement in the evening. Now the group faces the challenge of ruling, he added. They are expected to proclaim a new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan soon.

USA - There is no longer any debate that global warming is real, and that it is happening now at an alarming rate. It is transforming the global climate system before our eyes. The rise of fossil-fueled economies over the past 200 years, and especially the accelerating CO2 emissions since the end of World War II, is clearly the cause of our mounting climate crisis. But even though 99% of climate scientists recognize what is happening, it can still be difficult to grasp something of such magnitude.

UNITED NATIONS - The publication of the UN’s report on climate change highlights the fact that the real danger facing humanity is knee-jerk policy-making based on one-sided science, rather than impending doom from global warming. The latest apocalyptic report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been designed to propel us into action. With less than 80 days to go until the world convenes at the Glasgow climate conference, the call to act has become deafening.