U.S. on the verge of agreement with Taliban

AFGHANISTAN: Insiders say U.S. special representative Zalmay Khalilzad is on the verge of an agreement with the Taliban, paving the way for the withdrawal of about 14,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan. But the pullback would be in exchange for guarantees Afghanistan would not continue to be used as a haven for international terrorism—and that’s a tall order. Already, the Taliban is reportedly splintering at the prospect, with its hardest hard-line fighters threatening to defect to ISIS.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned: “I’m not using the ‘withdraw’ word right now.”

BRAZIL: An analysis of NASA satellite data indicates that total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years. Part of the G-7’s “doomed effort” to preserve Western power in the world is exaggerating Brazil’s wildfires to create the impression of an emergency that justifies intervention, said editors at The Spectator.

IRAN: A rogue supertanker appears to be violating U.S. sanctions, delivering Iranian crude oil through the Mediterranean likely bound for Syria.

INDONESIA: Protesters in West Papua set fire to buildings, forcing the state to cut power, which led to an internet blackout followed by more protests. Authorities claim the blackout is for “security” reasons, but it’s making news from the province hard to come by.

UGANDA: Doctors working at Kibuye hospital in Burundi said the malaria outbreak is decreasing as they enter dry season, reports Jennifer Myhre, a physician and assistant area director for Serge. “But the dry season never came here in Uganda,” she said. “We are in a daily deluge and still have a lot of malaria. Yesterday was the first day in 2019 that I did not have a patient with measles admitted on the pediatric ward. So that’s good news, though probably temporary.”

BRITAIN: August means harvest time for Felicity Irons, one of the last English rush weavers. Cutting two tons of rushes a day from her small skiff on the River Ouse, Irons employs a craft dating to medieval times but finds everyday modern use in Japanese bento boxes and period dramas (it was featured in Game of Thrones).

LONG WEEKEND, LONG READS: Next week a new book comes out by retired Gen. James Mattis, the former secretary of defense. His interview in The Atlantic and essay in The Wall Street Journal are important, sobering reading and avoid petty Trump-bashing. “I was struck by the degree to which our competitive military edge was eroding, including our technological advantage,” he wrote. “Haphazard funding had significantly worsened the situation, doing more damage to our current and future military readiness than any enemy in the field.”

I’M READING: After ISIS: America, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East by Seth J. Frantzman, due out Sept. 30. Here’s a preview:

“The war on ISIS is now largely behind us. But its effects will be felt throughout this century. In many ways the conflict formed a bookend to the optimism that emerged from the end of the Cold War. The brutal horrors of the selling of people into slavery and of mass murder that ISIS perpetrated in Iraq and Syria were made even more real by being carried out through social media, using the latest technology. If news of Auschwitz had to be smuggled out and could be dismissed as terrible rumor, ISIS boasted on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere of its crimes.”

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