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Sunday, 23 July
23:25
12 dead, many feared missing in Afghanistan in flash flood after heavy rain "IndyWatch Feed World"
Hundreds of homes are either damaged or destroyed and the missing people are believed to be under the rubble of collapsed homes. Heavy flooding from seasonal rains in Afghanistan has killed at least 12 people and left dozens missing, according to a Taliban spokesman and local officials. Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Sunday that around 40 people are missing after the flash flooding late Saturday night in the Jalrez district of Maidan Wardak province, west of Kabul. He added that all relevant authorities have been ordered to provide necessary assistance to the people in the affected areas. The provincial governor's office in a statement said that hundreds of homes are either damaged or destroyed and the missing people are believed to be under the rubble of collapsed homes. The statement also said that hundreds of hectares of agricultural land were washed out and destroyed and the highway between the capital Kabul and the central Bamiyan province is also closed due to...
04:39
Tory MPs try to oust Tobias Ellwood from defence role for praising Taliban "IndyWatch Feed World"
Conservative MPs have launched an attempt to oust their colleague Tobias Ellwood as chair of the Commons defence select committee after he posted a video praising the Taliban for improving safety in Afghanistan. Ellwood had sought to draw a line under the row, saying he was "sorry for my poor communication" after his actions outraged those in his own party and military veterans. In a tweet and accompanying video, Ellwood described Afghanistan as a "country transformed" and talked up the group that seized power in August 2021, claiming "security has vastly improved, corruption is down and the opium trade has all but disappeared".
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Saturday, 22 July
14:42
Greek Seas: Europes Largest Migrant Cemetery "IndyWatch Feed Nthamerica"
An Egyptian boat set sail from the city of Tobruk, in Libya, on June 9, 2023. The overcrowded Adriana is carrying more than 600 refugees from Pakistan, Egypt, Syria and Libya. The vast majority of them are held in the cargo hold. Some will pay an extra $55 to luckily travel on deck.
Hellenic (Greek) Coast Guard and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (commonly referred as Frontex) spot Adriana in Greek SAR (Search and Rescue zone) on Tuesday morning, June 13, and start monitoring its movement. Its another ship with poor infrastructure that will pass through Greek waters destined for Kalavria, Italy. However, its story ends up differently.
A call from the boat was made to The Med Alarm Phone, an emergency hotline for refugees in danger at the Mediterranean Sea, stating that the boat is in distress. Based on information from Frontex at 09:47 UTC, the ship was navigating north-east at slow speeds of 6 knots. Several calls were made and the first was received at 12:17 GMT, a few hours after Greek authorities had spotted the ship.
After the first call, three boats reached Adriana in attempts to provide help. The first one, Lucky Sailor, after being enlisted by the Greek coast guard, provided food and water around 15:00 local time. The Greek coast guard visits the ship a few minutes later and reported that the boat is moving.
Based on Marine Traffic data that BBC have verified, more than two hours later, around 18:00, a ship called Faithful Warrior that was located in the same spot as the Lucky Sailor and also enlisted by Greek authorities, provided some more food and water to the refugees calling for rescue.
While the refugees contact Alarm Phone, the smugglers in charge of Adriana deny rescue and any other help from the Greek authorities. In most cases they are paid after the transfer is...
Friday, 21 July
23:44
Afghanistan potential supply elasticity fact of the day "IndyWatch Feed Economics"
A decade earlier, the U.S. Defense Department, guided by the surveys of American government geologists, concluded that the vast wealth of lithium and other minerals buried in Afghanistan might be worth $1 trillion, more than enough to prop up the countrys fragile government. In a 2010 memo, the Pentagons Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, which examined Afghanistans development potential, dubbed the country the Saudi Arabia of lithium. A year later, the U.S. Geological Survey published a map showing the location of major deposits and highlighted the magnitude of the underground wealth, saying Afghanistan could be considered as the worlds recognized future principal source of lithium.
Here is more from The Washington Post.
The post Afghanistan potential supply elasticity fact of the day appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
16:10
The Afghanistan Lithium Great Game "IndyWatch Feed War"
While the United States, along with its allies, left Afghanistan in August 2021 in spectacularly humiliating circumstances, the departure was never entirely complete, nor bound to be permanent. Since then, Washington has led the charge in handicapping those who, with a fraction of the resources, defeated a superpower and prevailed in two decades of conflict.
In a fit of wounded pride, the United States has, in turn, sought to strangulate and asphyxiate the Taliban regime, citing human rights and security concerns. The Talibans Interim Foreign Minister, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, makes the not unreasonable point that the ongoing crisis is the imposition of sanctions and banking restrictions by the United States.
In May this year, Idaho Republican Senator Jim Risch, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led 18 of his righteous colleagues in introducing the Taliban Sanctions Act, promising more chastising. Ostensibly, the Act seeks to impose sanctions with respect to terrorism, human rights abuses, and narcotics trafficking committed by the Taliban and others in Afghanistan.
The brief for prosecuting an even more aggressive stance against the Taliban never ceases to bulk, be it to arrest the mistreatment of women and their inexorable marginalisation, or the claim that the country is now essentially a bandit state which is both a danger to itself and its neighbours. Over a year into Taliban rule, breakdown of the state, bankruptcy of financial institutions, economic collapse and diplomatic isolation have pushed Afghan society to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe, writes a former senior advisor to Afghanistans Foreign Minister, Arian Sharifi, currently an academic at Princeton Universitys School of International Affairs.
Sharifi goes on to analyse the Taliban in what resembles a portrait of the ramshackle government he served. The Taliban today is deeply divided, making it unable to pursue a unified course of action. They also ruled a country with more than 20 terrorist groups with a long-standing presence in Afghanistan.
In typical good taste, Sharifi delicately ignores his role in having advised a corrupt government whose strings were firstly pulled, then abandoned, by Washington and its allies. His poisonous pen fails to acknowledge the attempt by his own past sponsors to systematically contribute to that very failure, bankruptcy and ruin. He can, however, take some hope in recent reports suggesting that Afghanistan will again become a playground for what British imperialists dubbed in the 19th century the Great Game, the Anglo-Russian competition for influence...