EUROPE RUSSIA Because we live in bar-none the stupidest time in all of human history, there are a lot of Russian people who are very angry with Morgan Freeman. The actor. How can anybody be mad at the guy who narrated March of the Penguins, you ask? Well, Freeman, for some reason, lent his voice and … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: September 23-25 2017

ASIA AFGHANISTAN A car bomber attacked a NATO convoy in Kabul on Sunday, wounding several people but killing nobody (at least as yet). Increasing Taliban activity in Afghanistan's southern Oruzgan province has forced the closure of all or nearly all of the province's medical facilities. The provincial government says the Taliban threatened the facilities unless … Continue reading Asia/Oceania/Africa update: September 23-25 2017

IRAQ Iraqi forces liberated Shirqat on Friday, which means Hawijah should be the next big ISIS stronghold to fall. Some accounts of Iraqi plans for the last phase of this conflict have treated Shirqat as a separate objective apart from Hawijah and western Anbar, but in truth Shirqat is close enough to Hawijah to consider … Continue reading Middle East update: September 23-25 2017

ASIA AFGHANISTAN Hold on to your hats, because President Deals might actually have made one: U.S. President Donald Trump and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday backed having companies from the United States develop Afghanistan’s reserves of rare earth minerals, despite formidable obstacles to industrial mining in the country. The comments, at a meeting in … Continue reading World update: September 22 2017

IRAQ The Popular Mobilization Units have reportedly joined the operation to liberate Hawijah from ISIS. This isn't surprising from an operational perspective--the Iraqis are fighting here, at nearby Shirqat, and in western Anbar simultaneously, so it's all hands on deck--but it could spell trouble for next week's Kurdish independence referendum. Hawijah is in Kirkuk province, … Continue reading Middle East update: September 22 2017

Shanah Tovah to anyone celebrating Rosh Hashanah. I'm going to have to condense things again today, and possibly tomorrow as well--I'm trying to make some headway on a couple of paid pieces but it's been hard to find the time to work on them. Hopefully I'll get at least one of them written and get … Continue reading World update: September 21 2017

WAR ON TERROR Folks, if you're like me and you spend any time on Twitter, you may think that it's home to some of the worst people in the world. And you're not wrong. However, as a non-Instagram user I was surprised to learn that things may be even worse over there: Researchers say Islamic … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: September 19-20 2017

ASIA KYRGYZSTAN Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is winning friends in Kyrgyzstan. He met on Tuesday with Omurbek Babanov, one of the candidates who will be standing for president in Kyrgyzstan's October 15 election, and was immediately accused by Bishkek of interfering with the election. Babanov is an opposition candidate, you see, and could be a … Continue reading Asia/Africa update: September 19-20 2017

IRAQ UPDATE: Some time after I posted this Reuters began reporting that the Iraqis have begun their offensive to liberate Hawijah from ISIS. Disputes with the Kurds, exacerbated by their upcoming independence referendum, were thought to be delaying that offensive indefinitely, but I guess everybody was able to get on the same page enough to get … Continue reading Middle East update: September 19-20 2017

ENVIRONMENT New science suggests that the Paris climate agreement's pie-in-the-sky 1.5 degrees Celsius limit might not be so pie-in-the-sky after all: The 1.5C target was set as an aspiration by the global Paris climate change deal in 2015 to limit the damage wreaked by extreme weather and sea level rise. It was widely seen as … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: September 18 2017