AFGHANISTAN - Videos have emerged from Kabul of civilians, including women and children, taking to the streets to protest against the rule of the Taliban and to celebrate Afghanistan’s Independence Day. Protests against the Taliban have entered their second day, this time reaching Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. On Thursday, hundreds of people took to the streets, in part to celebrate Independence Day, but also to rally against the militants, who captured the capital on Monday. The protests, which are reportedly happening in Kabul and at least one other city, are occurring one day after the Taliban opened fire on civilians waving a flag in Jalalabad, killing three, according to witnesses.

AFGHANISTAN - Afghan resistance has claimed to have captured three towns north of Kabul in fighting that 'killed or injured 60 Taliban fighters'. Local forces are reported to have taken back the Pul-e-Hesar, Deh-e-Salah and Banu districts in the Baghlan province on Friday. Writing in Persian, Afghan Defence Minister General Bismillah Mohammadi said the three areas had been reclaimed, adding: 'The resistance is still alive.' A Twitter account under the name 'Panjshir Province' - the only area not controlled by the Taliban - earlier said the Pul-e-Hesar was captured while 'fighting was raging' in the other two districts. The Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul is Afghanistan's last remaining holdout, known for its natural mountainous defences.

USA - The National Hurricane Center has upgraded Tropical Storm Henri to a hurricane. With wind speeds currently around 75mph, Henri is expected to batter Long Island or southern New England on Sunday. Severe weather warnings have been issued across the northeastern US, as Hurricane Henri tracks northwest across the Atlantic. Henri was upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane by the National Hurricane Center on Saturday morning, and is expected to make landfall on Sunday. Should it hit Long Island, it will be the first hurricane to strike there since Gloria in 1985. If it makes landfall in New England, it will be the first hurricane to do so since Bob in 1991, which killed 15 people and racked up a bill of more than $1.5 billion in damages.

USA - No empire is eternal: all eventually fall amid hubris and humiliation. The heart-wrenching, humanitarian calamity that is the botched Afghan retreat is merely the latest sign that the American era is ending: Washington is no longer the world’s policeman, and an unsettling future of clashes between expansionist, authoritarian regional powers beckons.

USA - Christianity has always been hand in hand with the greatest empires. The abandonment of Christianity has always led to the collapse of any nation or people or family or person who abandons it. This is an axiom.

[Axiom definition: a self-evident truth that requires no proof.]

NORTH KOREA - The world’s gaze may now be focused on Afghanistan, but can North Korea resist the opportunity to kick out at Washington when it’s down? The world’s eyes are focused on Afghanistan, so much so that the other potential “flashpoints” around the globe have been forgotten. Nowhere is this more relevant than the Korean Peninsula, where North Korea has voiced firm, yet not overwhelming, opposition to a series of joint military drills taking place this week between South Korea and the US. Its ambassador to China made the unusual step of giving an interview to the Global Times, with the article warning that the “US is bound to pay a price for joint drills with South Korea”. Pyongyang has a record for this kind of stance: On only three occasions has North Korea in the past decade not responded to the annual war games with provocations of its own, seeing them as a rehearsal for an invasion against it.

CHINA - The collapse of Afghanistan has brought us a lot closer to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The way that the Biden administration has handled the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is not going to bring peace. Instead, I believe that it is going to result in more war. For decades, the overwhelming strength of the United States restrained other major powers from becoming too adventurous. But now the stunning defeat in Afghanistan has exposed how weak we have become.

USA - After a year of giving lip service to Joe Biden, CNN has finally admitted that he simply sucks at his job. As Joe Biden’s presidency appears to be coming to a spectacular end with his failure in Afghanistan, CNN is now laying the groundwork to mentally prepare the public for a Kamala Harris presidency.

USA - President Joe Biden’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan has sent a shiver of frustration and bewilderment through allies at home and abroad who regarded his inauguration as a break from former President Donald Trump’s oft-haphazard approach to foreign policy. German politician Armin Laschet, the heir-apparent to outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, described the situation even more harshly. “This is the greatest debacle that NATO has seen since its foundation, and it is an epochal change that we are facing,” he said this week. That’s the kind of criticism European officials might have expected Trump to earn rather than Biden, given the former president described the alliance as “obsolete” during his campaign to win the White House in 2016. NATO officials and European leaders heaved a sigh of relief when Biden defeated Trump. “The Afghanistan operation was always going to end sometime. It was never going to go on forever. But the manner in which it’s been done has been humiliating and damaging to NATO.”

YEMEN - There is no magic bullet that can end the war in Yemen. An adjusted international approach is badly needed, but will not represent an algorithm to end the conflict. This is perhaps frustrating news for an American foreign policy establishment that is eager to fast-track a solution to the country’s knotty problems and move on. But continuing with the same diplomatic strategy, based on an outdated understanding of the conflict, is a recipe for disaster. The appointment of the new UN envoy represents an opportunity to build a negotiating framework that incentivizes dealmaking and can potentially lead to a more realistic and sustainable peace. But patience will be needed. Rethought and reinvigorated diplomacy will take time and will face numerous setbacks. Beginning that difficult effort, however, is the only way to halt the war’s grim trajectory.

USA - The Caldor Fire continued its explosive growth in California's El Dorado County on Wednesday, expanding to nearly 63,000 acres. The blaze has destroyed a school, a church, and many other buildings, and forced thousands of people to flee rural homes. The fire just started last weekend. Caldor fire response spokesperson Chris Vestal said its behavior has been "unprecedented," with unusually high flame lengths and rapid expansion as it ripped through steep terrain, fueled by what Cal Fire described as "large amounts of dry vegetation." The massive Dixie Fire, which has burned more than 635,000 acres, also continued to burn on Wednesday, threatening the communities of Janesville and Susanville in Lassen County.

USA - Former President Donald Trump slammed President Joe Biden in a statement Saturday night, saying that “Biden gets it wrong every time on foreign policy,” and because of that, the Taliban no longer fears or respects America. Trump said in his statement that “everyone knew” that Biden would not have done a good job under pressure, and in addition, Biden has gotten it wrong whenever it comes to making foreign policy decisions.

USA - Unlike former President Donald Trump, the faces and voices of the reconstituted Taliban regime in Afghanistan can apparently tweet to their hearts’ content. In a statement obtained by Mediaite Tuesday, Twitter ducked the question of whether it would bar representatives of the Islamic fundamentalist government from getting their message out 280 characters at a time — saying only that it would “continue to proactively enforce” its rules outlawing the “glorification of violence, platform manipulation and spam.” Big Tech critics have expressed outrage over Twitter’s tolerance toward the Taliban after it banned Trump in the aftermath of the deadly January 6 riot at the US Capitol. The company also recently suspended Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican for Georgia) after she questioned the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, but has permitted accounts affiliated with repressive governments like China and Iran to spread anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda. “Why does the Taliban spokesman have an active Twitter account but not the former President of the United States?,” Representative Madison Cawthorn (Republican for North Carolina) tweeted Sunday. “Who’s side is the AMERICA BASED Big-Tech companies on?”

TAIWAN - China carried out assault drills near Taiwan on Tuesday, with warships and fighter jets exercising off the southwest and southeast of the island in what the country's armed forces said was a response to "external interference" and "provocations". Taiwan, which Beijing claims as Chinese territory, has complained of repeated People's Liberation Army (PLA) drills in its vicinity in the past two years or so, part of a pressure campaign to force the island to accept China's sovereignty. In a brief statement, the PLA's Eastern Theatre Command said warships, anti-submarine aircraft and fighter jets had been dispatched close to Taiwan to carry out "joint fire assault and other drills using actual troops". Taiwan believes China is trying to gather electronic signals from US and Japanese aircraft so that they can "paralyse reinforcing aircraft including F-35s in a war", the source said, referring to the US-operated stealth fighter.

AFGHANISTAN - It was a scene that once seemed unthinkable: a dour-looking Taliban fighter, his AK-47 on the desk before him, his comrades by his side in the ornate office formerly occupied by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who had fled the country hours before. For the Taliban, those images from Sunday night, when the group’s fighters advanced from the provinces and breached the presidential palace in Kabul, culminated in a lightning takeover of the country after two decades of grinding combat against the US and its allies. For other jihadi groups, it was nothing less than an inspiration. Whether it’s Al Qaeda affiliates in Mali and Somalia, extremist factions operating in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, or so-called keyboard warriors cheering on from their homes in the West, the Taliban’s victory over Afghanistan’s Western-created government “is the most significant boost to the global jihadist movement since September 11,” said Rita Katz, the founder of SITE Intelligence, an extremist monitoring group.