The Taliban claims opium poppy cultivation was stopped and the flow of illegal drugs halted when it was last in power in Afghanistan.
But although there was a sharp drop in 2001 – when it was last in control – opium poppy cultivation in Taliban-held areas has risen in subsequent years.
There is no way the Taliban will outlaw this cash cow.
EL CAJON — At least two dozen San Diego County students and 16 parents are stranded in Afghanistan, unable to get to the airport in Kabul after a summer trip to visit relatives.
The families from the Cajon Valley Union School District in East County are among thousands of individuals waiting to leave the country that has devolved into chaos amid the U.S. pullout of troops after 20 years of occupation.
Cajon Valley Superintendent David Miyashiro and Mike Serban, the district’s director of Family And Community Engagement (FACE), said the children range from preschoolers to high school students. They said the students went there on summer break with their families to visit extended family members.
Note they are ethnic Afghans who returned for a visit.
As the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas is celebrating the “defeat” of the United States in Afghanistan, the Arabs seem worried that they will be the ones to pay the price by being targeted by terrorist groups, including Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.
Commenting on the withdrawal of US troops and the speedy Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, various Arab political analysts, writers and journalists said that they have no doubt that the region is headed toward a new era of extremism and terrorism.
OTTAWA — Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says the Canadian military will begin wrapping up its mission at Kabul airport ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline the United States set for ending the mission.
Whatever happened to Justin Trudeau’s sunny ways? Ten days into a campaign whose timing was of his own choosing, the Liberal leader’s main rivals all look like they are having a better time on the hustings than he is. Polls suggest that indeed they are.
Looking at Trudeau’s body language over the past few days, one could be misled into thinking that it was his government that was dragged into an early election rather than the opposite. The perils to the Liberal agenda that he is increasingly raising are of his own making.
What is certain is that Trudeau’s campaign to date bears little resemblance to the convivial exercise that earned him an unlikely majority government in 2015.
The media overall seems less Justin friendly this go round. Has it dawned on them that their credibility was in the dumpster due to their Trudeaumania? Regardless, something has changed lets see if it holds.
He waves to imaginary crowds to convince himself of his own popularity.
@JustinTrudeau arrives in Vancouver. Trade secret – the obligatory wave on arrival is a bit of a sham. There’s no-one here but staff and reporters – and he’s definitely not waving at us. pic.twitter.com/SqfD16ZhWU
— John Ivison (@IvisonJ) August 25, 2021
A US intelligence report requested by President Biden into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic is inconclusive, US media reports say.
Agencies are reportedly divided on whether the virus – first seen in China – was the result of a natural spillover from animals to humans or was caused by a laboratory accident.
An summary of the report is expected to be published in the coming days.
China’s foreign minister has dismissed the report as “anti-science”.
Wang Yi said Washington had “ignored and abandoned” research carried out by the World Health Organization (WHO) for a report that would only service its “political purposes”.
Spencer Elden, who appeared as a naked baby on one of rock music’s most iconic album covers – Nevermind by Nirvana – is suing the band, claiming he was sexually exploited as a child.
In a lawsuit filed in a Californian district court against numerous parties, including the surviving members of the band, Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love, and the record labels that released or distributed the album in the last three decades, Elden alleges the defendants produced child pornography with the image, which features him swimming naked towards a dollar bill with his genitalia visible.
Chinese state-owned shipbuilder tapped to supply ferry for Crown corporation as Canadians remain jailed
A huge state-owned shipyard in China is building a 1,000-passenger ferry for use by a federal Crown corporation over the objections of Canada’s shipbuilding industry and at a time when two Canadians have spent 989 days in Chinese prisons as victims of what Ottawa has called “hostage diplomacy.”
… Colin Cooke, president of the Canadian Marine Industries and Shipbuilding Association, said he finds it “very difficult to stomach” that the federal contract was approved when Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig are incarcerated in China. They have spent 989 days in Chinese prisons with the lights on 24 hours a day.
Mr. Cooke also questioned whether Marine Atlantic’s competitive procurement process was fair, because Stena North Sea can take advantage of China’s heavily subsidized shipping industry to reduce expenses. He said a cost-effective solution could have been found to build the ferry in Canada.
“The vessels could be built stem to stern by Canadian facilities, by Canadian workers for Canadian use,” Mr. Cooke said. “We have the design know-how. We’ve got the components manufacturing and we have the yards.”
Canada’s China class at work
Despite repeated government pledges that Canada would rescue imperiled interpreters and other Afghans who worked for this country, only a small fraction of them are being airlifted out of Kabul, say advocates for the local employees.
Maryam Monsef just referred to the Taliban as “our brothers” pic.twitter.com/KEL5UYa3HO
— (@BryanPassifiume) August 25, 2021
That’s taking the usual LPC vote whoring to a whole new level. Monsef is Minister for Women & Gender Equity, surprised she wasn’t wearing a niqab.
Ontario reports 660 new COVID-19 cases, 1 more death
Ontario is reporting more than 600 new cases of COVID-19 today, driving the rolling seven-day average of new infections to 625.
Provincial health officials recorded 660 new COVID-19 cases today, up from 486 on Tuesday and 485 last Wednesday.
‘Herd immunity’ no longer possible without vaccinating young children, Public Health Ontario says
TORONTO — Achieving herd immunity against COVID-19 will not be possible without an approved vaccine for children under 12, Public Health Ontario says in a new report about what the pandemic will look like this fall and winter.
Due to the increased transmissibility and partial vaccine escape ability of the Delta B.1.617.2 variant now dominant in Ontario and much of the world, the report says the percentage of the population requiring vaccination to hit a point where virus transmission enters long-term decline now exceeds the number of people actually medically eligible for vaccination at this time.
Former President Donald Trump has demanded access to mainstream social media platforms once again.
Trump made political engagement via social media an art, and he’s pushing for a grand reentrance onto the mainstream platforms. “Former President Donald Trump on Monday asked a Florida judge to issue a preliminary injunction in his case against YouTube that would compel the company to reinstate his access to the platform,” reported the New York Post on Tuesday. “Trump’s lawyers said they plan to make similar requests in his suits against Facebook and Twitter in the coming weeks.”
Well, this was inevitable: As the Taliban have taken power in Afghanistan and declared their intention to impose Islamic law, the American establishment media has swung into action, ready as always to exonerate Islam of all responsibility for the crimes done in its name and in accord with its teachings. And so it was that USA Today on Saturday published an article by one Hamid Khan, whose résumé is as predictable as it is revealing: He is “an adjunct professor of Islamic law at the University of Michigan Law, a national security fellow with the Truman National Security Project and an attorney with the U.S. government.” Of course he is. And he is here to tell us that the “Taliban doesn’t equal Islam,” and to complain that “news coverage of Afghanistan disserves a great religion.”
Giggling her way through Afghanistan questions on the flight over, Kamala Harris touched down in Singapore for the first leg of her Asia trip, supposedly to reassure America’s partners and allies that the U.S. has their back.
It didn’t go well
