Trying to follow US politics from a distance can be challenging because there are so many questions and so few answers.
Having done away with term limits in 2018, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong is pushing what some observers describe as a mini “revolution”, curbing the excesses of capitalism and shedding negative cultural influences of the West.
Reuters
The dominant narrative became that “we are at war.” When at war, everyone has to follow orders. If a platoon is ordered to go right and some soldiers explore maneuvering to the left, they are shot as deserters. Scientific skepticism had to be shot, no questions asked. The orders were clear.
Tablet
Days after China sent US climate envoy John Kerry home empty handed, Beijing has given Alok Sharma, the COP26 President and the UK’s senior climate official, the same message: China won’t cave in to Western demands, plunging Joe Biden’s and Boris Johnson’s Net Zero agenda into doubt.
GWPF
The Biden administration is taking aim at major meatpackers, charging that “pandemic profiteering” is squeezing consumers and farmers alike, with a few companies that dominate the industry raking in record profits.
Bloomberg
Two coal-fired generators had to be fired up yesterday to meet Britain’s electricity demands, in a move that usually happens only in winter.
London Times
France’s top court on Tuesday overturned a decision by a lower court to dismiss charges brought against cement giant Lafarge for complicity in crimes against humanity in Syria’s civil war.
AFP
An Aug. 27 essay that circulated online in both the official Xinhua news agency and the state-controlled People’s Daily newspaper is being viewed by some analysts as a sign China could soon return to the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s …
Washington Times
“This is a road map to the high-risk research that could have led to the current pandemic,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of U.S. Right To Know, a group that has been investigating the origins of Covid-19.
The Intercept
Men are abandoning higher education in such numbers that they now trail female college students by record levels.
WSJ
Tiffany France thought her son would receive his diploma this coming June. But after four years of high school, France just learned, her 17-year-old must start over. He’s been moved back to ninth grade.
WJLA
The good news: he’s doing better than many.
Among the expertise being brought on include those who have looked extensively in cell reprogramming
Daily Mail
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Thursday that the U.S. is taking the variant, dubbed Mu, “very seriously,” but that it hasn’t taken an extensive hold in this country.
CBS
I wrote about Hungnam at the Belmont Club 2 weeks ago. If You Can’t Say ‘Retreat, Hell,’ at Least Retreat Well
This wasn’t just a territorial battle, a fight over the land of Afghanistan. It was also a cultural clash. It was a war between one side that has very strong beliefs and is more than willing to die for them, and another side that doesn’t know what it stands for anymore and would rather avoid risk and self-sacrifice if at all possible. I’ll leave you to decide which of these is the Taliban, and which the US.
Brendan O’Neill
The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Sunday the Taliban is blocking a half dozen planes with American citizens and permanent residents, as well as Afghan interpreters, from departing Afghanistan, accusing the militant group of holding the flights “hostage.”
Forbes
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Beijing has rebuffed American calls to make more public pledges on climate change before a UN climate summit in November, insisting it should follow its own plan rather than bowing to US pressure, according to a person familiar with the two countries’ negotiations.
SCMP
