THE run-up to the COP26 climate change jamboree in Glasgow later this year is probably not going as well as the government would like. Despite being committed to Net Zero by Mrs May’s undebated and uncosted statutory instrument, the size of the likely costs can’t be hidden for ever and the guardian of the magic money tree, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, is fretting.
In early May, as US and Nato forces began their final withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban stepped up their military offensive against Afghan national security forces.
But they also did something less common in the group’s history of conflict in the country – they launched a comprehensive social media campaign to go with it.
A network of social media accounts highlighted the alleged failures of the Kabul government while lauding the Taliban’s achievements.
Tweets boasted about the group’s recent victories – sometimes prematurely – and pushed several hashtags, including #kabulregimecrimes (attached to tweets accusing the Afghan government of war crimes); #westandwithTaliban (an attempt to drive grassroots support) and #ﻧَﺼْﺮٌ_ﻣٌِﻦَ_اللهِ_ﻭَﻓَﺘْﺢٌ_ﻗَﺮِﻳﺐٌ (help from God and victory is near). The first of the hashtags at least trended in Afghanistan.
President Trump?
The American Waterloo reveals itself in the details.
“The Taliban have more Black Hawk helicopters than 85 percent of the countries in the world. For me and for many others it is incomprehensible that the Taliban then have the fingerprints, eye scans and biometric information of the Afghans who have helped us and have been on our side for the past 20 years ”.
The first to report it was the Republican deputy Jim Banks, a former green beret. The arsenal that America left to the Taliban is such that today it is the first Islamist formation with an air force: C-130 Hercules, 23 A-29, 33 Black Hawk and 32 Mi-17 helicopters.
On vaccine passports, Trudeau says provincial passports will be an "interim measure, that will perhaps last a year or so, before (the feds) bring in a formalized passport version" #cdnpoli https://t.co/L3nCNkaBhO pic.twitter.com/DOtbiAa5Pk
— Mackenzie Gray (@Gray_Mackenzie) September 6, 2021
… “The issue of rapists identifying as women is not hypothetical,” she said.
“Documented instances of females being charged with rape as an accomplice are rare. Yet, between 2012 and 2018, the proportion of rape defendants classified as women varied between 1.2 per cent and 1.8 per cent.
“During this seven-year period, 436 individuals prosecuted for rape were recorded as women.”
Sullivan added: “We can respect people’s gender identities without denying the material reality of sex. Ideally, crime statistics should record both.
How did the world come to this?
Two of the Afghan men evacuated from the Taliban-run country with their wives and children under the government’s generous refugee programme have called for extended families to be brought over as well, with one complaining that it was taking too long to get permanent accommodation.
That didn’t take long.
“Right wingers are all Nazis” pic.twitter.com/45YFh3D7Pf
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) September 5, 2021
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says he “might have” been hit by gravel thrown by protesters at an election campaign stop in London, Ont., on Monday.
Trudeau was leaving the event when he was surrounded by angry protesters, some of whom appeared to be throwing handfuls of gravel and debris at the party leader.
Rocks thrown at liberal leader Justin Trudeau at event in London. #cdnpoli #elxn44 pic.twitter.com/UlJT2GBhCD
— Hannah Thibedeau (@HannahThibedeau) September 6, 2021
Now the Liberal leader has turned his hopes towards guns
Justin Trudeau is looking for something he can use to scare people. He needs it badly. After six years in power, his Liberals don’t have a record they feel is sound enough to win them re-election, so they’re seeking someone or something to attack.
ROME — The Vatican has accepted the nomination of Communist Party loyalist Father Joseph Cui Qingqi as the new bishop of Wuhan, who will be ordained on September 8.
AsiaNews, the official press agency of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, reported Sunday that Father Cui was the only candidate put forward by Church bodies loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to occupy the post in Wuhan.
I don’t believe that the details of the Church’s deal with the Chi-Coms has ever been made public.
The man accused of hatching the devastating plot to fly hijacked passenger planes into US landmarks 20 years ago is locked up awaiting trial. But could he have been stopped years before?
“He was my guy.”
Frank Pellegrino was sitting in a hotel room in Malaysia when he saw the television pictures of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers. The first thing he thought was: “My God, it’s got to be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”
The target and the ambitions were a match and Pellegrino was in a unique position to know.
The former FBI special agent had pursued Mohammed for nearly three decades, yet the alleged 9/11 mastermind is yet to face justice.
A newly discovered hat with DNA evidence proving it belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte has gone on display at auction house Bonhams in Hong Kong.
Described by Bonhams as the “first hat to bear the emperor’s DNA“, it is being previewed in Hong Kong before it moves to Paris and then London, where it will be auctioned on 27 October.
The hat, one of the bicornes often seen in depictions of Napoleon on the battlefield, had been bought by its present owner at a small German auction house who did not know at the time it had belonged to the emperor.
The US and the EU should not buy Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fake pro-Western posture (such as when he offered to run the Kabul airport, then fled) or his fake anti-radicalism (such as when he is courting the Afghan terrorists). Erdogan’s strategy, as a member of NATO, is clearly to bolster Russia’s and China’s plans for the future of Afghanistan.
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in support of the communist Afghan government, then in conflict with radical Muslim fighters, Turkey was having its own civil war between ultra-left and ultra-right factions. In September 1980, the Turkish military staged a coup d’état and banned all political parties, including Islamist ones.
Authorities in the southern Japanese city of Beppu raided 56-year-old Tetsuo Urata’s home in late August and told media they “haven’t confiscated such a large number of panties in years.”
“… Oh, how times have changed.
Over the course of the campaign thus far, O’Toole has managed to flip the script, striking an even tone and an earnest approach to politicking. The Liberals, on the other hand, have committed unforced errors again and again, by attacking the Conservatives in a tone that seems bizarrely insecure for a party that has been in power for six years.
The approach took a turn for the worse when Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland was slapped with a “manipulated media” warning by Twitter for spreading a misleading video of O’Toole. And there was more. The Liberal campaign machine also waded into the swamp, releasing a video that assigned the Tory leader the Trumpian nickname of “Two-Tier O’Toole,” among other things.”
