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The DPP authorities need to keep a sober head, and the secessionist forces should reserve the ability to wake up from their dreams. From what happened in Afghanistan, they should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island's defense will collapse in hours and the US military won't come to help. As a result, the DPP authorities will quickly surrender, while some high-level officials may flee by plane.

Ashraf Ghani played a central role in the design and implementation of the post-Taliban settlement in Afghanistan, serving as UN adviser to the Bonn process and as Finance Minister during Afghanistan's Transitional Administration. He has worked at the World Bank and taught at Johns Hopkins and Berkeley universities. He has been nominated for the job of Secretary General of the United Nations and considered for the job of President of the World Bank. He chairs the Institute for State Effectiveness.

Former President Donald Trump released more statements on Monday criticizing President Joe Biden’s handling of the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. Trump noted Biden had first “surrendered” to the coronavirus pandemic before surrendering to the Taliban, allowing them to overrun Afghanistan over the weekend.

DAVOS in the CATACOMBS: Klaus Schwab’s Secret Vatican ConnectionWhat if I were to tell you that a key Council Father at Vatican II was also an honored guest speaker early on at the World Economic Forum in Davos? What if I were to also tell you that, in addition to being close to Klaus Schwab 40 years ago, this archbishop also held a secret meeting in the middle of the night under the streets of Rome to plot the downfall of the traditional Catholic Church at the close of Vatican II? Wild conspiracy theory? A plot from a Malachi Martin...

Close your eyes and just listen, and you could have convinced yourself it was March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden, as Muhammad Ali made the long walk to face Joe Frazier in what remains the most significant bout in boxing history. Ali and Frazier are both gone, boxing is a vastly different sport in 2021 than it was in 1971 and it’s almost heresy to mention any other fighter in a sentence with those two. But as Nico Ali Walsh turned professional on Saturday, wearing the white trunks with a black stripe that his grandfather wore as heavyweight champion...

Folks who know of me and my writings are aware that I do not speculate much. But I am going to go ahead a take a leap on this one… … I fear the current American government is about to collapse. As I’ve written before, I no longer believe in the left-right dynamic. It’s the ‘narrative-of-the-day’ vs. the rest of us. The evidence is in everyone faces: • An almost 20 year campaign end with an embarrassing defeat, leaving both civilian personnel on the ground told to hide in place, untold billions of military hardware left behind for our sworn...

The Orange County Register , a major newspaper in Southern California, has endorsed conservative talk radio host Larry Elder in the Sep. 14 recall against Gov. Gavin Newsom. In an editorial Sunday, the Register said : As one of the state’s few right-of-center editorial pages, readers — and the state’s political leaders — no doubt expected us to come to our conclusion that voters should recall Gov. Gavin Newsom. Perhaps that explains why Newsom, whose policies we’ve often criticized, would not meet with our editorial board, despite our numerous attempts to arrange a meeting. … Pick an issue and the...

CORK, Ireland — As of 2021, a whopping 6.2 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease and this number is projected to rise 22% by 2025. Globally, the number of people with dementia is predicted to triple to around 150 million by 2050 because of aging populations. While there’s no cure for the Alzheimer’s, new research indicates that the bacteria in our gut could stave off the disease. In a recent study, memory problems were reversed after old mice were given “friendly” bacteria. This research suggests gut-boosting yogurts could help to ward off Alzheimer’s disease, which opens the door to...

The Taliban appears to have set the clock back in the country by at least 20 years with the insurgent group set to proclaim the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The people's government, meanwhile, collapsed on Sunday and President Ashraf Ghani is said to have left the country for Tajikistan. With Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar likely to be declared as the new president, here's a look at his political career so far.#BreakingNews Congratulatory message from Mullah Baradar Akhund, Political Deputy and head of the Political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after the recent victories...

Conservative thinkers are mostly united on the need for reforming the American college system, but they’re divided on how to do it. It can be hard to pin down, exactly, what is to be done, as the Martin Center has previously reported. So it may be worthwhile to step back and look at what proposals are on the table. Some may be utopian, others too targeted to have national implications, but they all aim to improve our flailing institutions that all-too-often cheat students out of a good education. Build new universitiesSome advocates say the only way to fix higher education...

No one ever accused Joe Biden of making much sense. Even more coherent presidents than our septuagenarian-in-chief have been known to issue contradictory policies, the product of feuding factions within an administration.Even so, the news out of the White House last week that the Biden administration wants the members of the Organization of the Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) to produce more oil is baffling. Combine that with that same administration’s continuing efforts to restrict domestic production, and it is downright enraging. Biden is perfectly happy for there to be more oil produced in the world, as long as the jobs and...

While the Biden administration has already attempted to shift blame to Donald Trump for the scenes coming out of Afghanistan, Biden owns both the decision to leave and the catastrophic withdrawal he oversaw as commander-in-chief.“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces,” Biden said in a statement released Saturday.“Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice — follow...

JUST IN - U.S. troops fatally shot at least two armed men who approached Americans at #Kabul airport's security perimeter (WSJ)

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At the start of the Delta variant, the media, the Democrats, and snobby liberal America knew who to blame. It was the unvaccinated. Yes, they make up virtually all the recent hospitalizations and new deaths. The goal should have been to convince these people to get the shot, not denigrate them, and certainly not mock their deaths. Liberal America took the latter route. The moral superiority complex kicked in and now those who were on the fence are firmly entrenched in their position to not get vaccinated. To make matters worse, the experts and the Biden White House continue to...

The American intelligence community said Kabul would fall in 90 days.Instead, it was four.On Saturday, the Afghan president said he stood resolute against the Taliban.On Sunday, he fled the country.The American president said we would pull out on September 11. His ambassador struck the flag and abandoned the embassy on August 15.The United States said it would stand with the Afghan government and people.That’s ending in beheadings and firing squads, and the assignment of little girls and newly widowed women to their new Taliban “husbands.”Call them Biden Brides.And call the botched withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan the worst embarrassment...

Most US embassy staffers in Afghanistan were awaiting evacuation at Kabul airport Sunday — which was “taking fire” as Taliban forces moved in amid the deteriorating situation, according to reports. “The security situation in Kabul is changing quickly, including at the airport,” the US Embassy in Afghanistan said Sunday. “Where are reports of the airport taking fire,” the announcement said. “Therefore we are instructing US citizens to shelter in place.” The embassy urged the families of US citizens in the troubled nation to file forms for immigrant visas “as soon as possible.”

The changes are superficial, but they hint at a bigger cultural shift in an industry where well-cut suits and wingtips once symbolized swagger, memorialized in popular culture by Gordon Gekko in the movie “Wall Street” and Patrick Bateman in the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel “American Psycho.” Even as many corporate workplaces around the country relaxed their dress codes in recent years, Wall Street remained mostly buttoned up. Consider the informal new dress code a "consolation prize" for staff frustrated about their return to the office. Like so much else, that changed in the pandemic. Big banking firms,...

Did anyone expect Joe Biden to screw things up so badly so quickly? I admit that I thought it would take longer for things to get as bad as now.I take no pleasure in this. Our country is hurting and paying a huge price for the Biden presidency, and it’s hard to imagine how such a dumpster fire was achieved in record time. But it seems like we traded mean tweets for gross incompetence, and believe me, given a choice, I think most of us would rather have the mean tweets back.Seriously, it feels like everything that Joe Biden touches...

The State Department and Department of Defense said in a statement Sunday that there are “thousands” of Americans stranded in Afghanistan after the Taliban declared victory over the U.S.-backed government earlier in the day. “Tomorrow and over the coming days, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the U.S. mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals,” they said in the statement. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden remained at Camp David, where he departed for vacation last Thursday. Since...