CHINA - The Global Times began its polemic by asserting, “The US troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan has led to the rapid demise of the Kabul government. The world has witnessed how the US evacuated its diplomats by helicopter while Taliban soldiers crowded into the presidential palace in Kabul. This has dealt a heavy blow to the credibility and reliability of the US.” Many people cannot help but recall how the Vietnam War ended in 1975: The US abandoned its allies in South Vietnam; Saigon was taken over; then the US evacuated almost all its citizens in Saigon.”

IRAN - Iran’s new ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday said that the “defeat” of the United States in Afghanistan must usher in a durable peace in the neighboring war-wracked country. “The military defeat and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan should offer an opportunity to restore life, security and lasting peace in that country,” Raisi said, quoted by his office. Raisi, who made the remarks in a call with outgoing Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the Islamic republic wanted good relations with Afghanistan. Iran was “closely monitoring the evolution of events in Afghanistan” and wants good neighborly ties with it, he said. Iran shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Afghanistan, and hosts nearly 3.5 million Afghans, according to the UN refugee agency. Zarif meanwhile held Monday a meeting in Tehran with China’s special envoy for Afghanistan Yue Xiaoyong, the foreign ministry said. The talks focused on the situation in Afghanistan, it said.

USA - Donald Trump excoriated US President Joe Biden for allowing one of America’s worst defeats ever as Taliban fighters recaptured Afghanistan, while the current commander-in-chief was conspicuously silent on the debacle. “What Joe Biden has done with Afghanistan is legendary,” Trump said on Sunday. “It will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history.” Trump went on to say in another message that Biden should “resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in Covid, the border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence and our crippled economy.” “It shouldn’t be a big deal because he wasn’t elected legitimately in the first place,” Trump added, referring to the allegations of election fraud in the US presidential elections that he and his supporters have leveled against the Democrats.

AFGHANISTAN - Chinese, Iranian, and to some degree Russian media are reacting with glee over humiliating scenes of America's exit plans in chaos coming out of Kabul Sunday into Monday. Perhaps as expected, Chinese state-run Global Times featured it's most prominent headline Monday with the words "Taliban's rapid victory embarrasses US, smashes image, arrogance." Alternately Beijing is claiming to "respect" Afghans' choice - as the same article reads. And then there's outright mocking - as is seen by the Global Times' editor… Chinese netizens joked that the power transition in Afghanistan is even more smooth than presidential transition in the US. It's been no secret that in recent weeks as rapid Taliban gains became obvious, China's government has been preparing to officially recognize the rule of the Islamists now in control of the presidential palace and all government ministries. China and Afghanistan share a short border of up to 47 miles. Meanwhile, there are widespread reports that Taliban militants are actually guarding the Russian and Chinese embassies in Kabul, after they declared they would stay open.

USA - Nobody is going to respect the power of the US military after this. We spent nearly 20 years and more than 2 trillion dollars fighting the war in Afghanistan. Much more importantly, 2,448 US service members lost their lives and thousands more were seriously wounded. After so much heartbreaking sacrifice, the Taliban have won the war. It is inconceivable that the US military could lose to a ragged collection of drug dealers and goat herders, but thanks to an appalling failure of leadership at the White House and in the Pentagon it has happened.

AFGHANISTAN - The final collapse of the 20-year western mission to Afghanistan took only a single day as Taliban gunmen entered the capital, Kabul, on Sunday, President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and America abandoned its embassy in panic. Even the militants themselves were surprised by the speed of the takeover, co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar admitted in a video statement in the evening. Now the group faces the challenge of ruling, he added. They are expected to proclaim a new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan soon.

USA - There is no longer any debate that global warming is real, and that it is happening now at an alarming rate. It is transforming the global climate system before our eyes. The rise of fossil-fueled economies over the past 200 years, and especially the accelerating CO2 emissions since the end of World War II, is clearly the cause of our mounting climate crisis. But even though 99% of climate scientists recognize what is happening, it can still be difficult to grasp something of such magnitude.

UNITED NATIONS - The publication of the UN’s report on climate change highlights the fact that the real danger facing humanity is knee-jerk policy-making based on one-sided science, rather than impending doom from global warming. The latest apocalyptic report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been designed to propel us into action. With less than 80 days to go until the world convenes at the Glasgow climate conference, the call to act has become deafening.

UK - Another scientist has pushed back against the doom-and-gloom climate change predictions from the United Nations and other governmental agencies. Dr Leslie Woodcock, emeritus professor at the University of Manchester (UK) School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, is a former NASA scientist along with other impressive accomplishments on his distinguished professional resume. In an interview, he laughed off man-made climate change as nonsense and a money-making industry for the green lobby, which approaches the subject with a religious fervor.

UK - The Government is launching a major crackdown on companies ‘greenwashing', in a bid to fight against climate change. Britain hosts the UN’s COP26 climate conference later this year, which will see leaders from around the world gather in Glasgow. Boris Johnson wants Britain to lead the way, with the UK aiming to become a net zero greenhouse gas polluter by 2050. As part of this effort the Government is targeting ‘greenwashing’, when firms make misleading or inaccurate claims about their environmental credentials. Price comparison websites are also in the firing line, and could be required to provide consumers with more details of how environmentally friendly different offers are. According to the Telegraph there are fears within the Government that, whilst it is illegal for companies to make grossly inaccurate claims, some are exaggerating their environmental credentials. Speaking to the paper an insider said: “Nobody can say the energy coming out of your plug is completely green, because not all the energy sources going into the grid are green."

USA - “There has been no dramatic sea level rise in the past century, and evidence-based projections show no significant or dangerous rise is likely to occur in the coming century. There is no evidence to indicate that the rate of sea level rise (or fall) in any of these areas will be substantially different than has been the case over the past decades or even century. There is no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and sea level rise.

AFGHANISTAN - Taliban fighters have entered Kabul and are seeking a 'peaceful transfer of power' with gunfire heard near the presidential palace as the extremists seized huge swathes of the country in the wake of the US military departure. The militants were seen in the districts of Kalakan, Qarabagh and Paghman hours after taking control of Jalalabad, the most recent major Afghan city to fall to the insurgents as they make huge gains across Afghanistan. The US evacuated diplomats from its embassy by helicopter as a Taliban spokesman said they were looking for a 'peaceful surrender' of the capital after meeting little resistance, while the British ambassador moved to a safe place to prepare for an evacuation. A US defense official has warned it could be only a matter of days before the insurgent fighters take control of Kabul. Just last week, US intelligence estimates expected the city to be able to hold out for at least three months.

USA - Lawmakers in Texas have blocked a Chinese billionaire’s push to build a 15,000-acre wind farm on a large swath of land he purchased after news of his plans drew the attention of a conservancy group. It warned first about the environmental impact and then noted Sun Guangxin’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party and how the project could give him access to the state’s electricity grid. And the 140,000 acres that Sun snapped up in recent years is near Laughlin Air Force Base raising national security concerns. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act into law in June. “As far as I know this is the first law of its kind by any state in the United States of America,” Abbott said of the bill designed to prevent “hostile nations” from accessing Texas’ electricity grid and other “critical infrastructure,” such as computer networks and waste treatment systems.

RUSSIA - President Vladimir Putin on Saturday said the scale of natural disasters that have hit Russia this year is "absolutely unprecedented" as local officials ask for Moscow's help to tackle fires and floods. The Russian leader called on authorities to do everything possible to help Siberians affected by the region's gigantic wildfires, as well as Russians living in the flood-hit south of the country. Speaking at a video conference with the leaders of the affected eastern and southern regions, Putin said he received daily reports on the climate situation in the country. "In the south (of Russia), the monthly norm of rainfall now falls in a few hours and in the Far East on the contrary, forest fires in drought conditions are spreading rapidly," Putin said. In Russia's largest and coldest region of Yakutia, this summer's forest fires have already burned through an area larger than Portugal. Aysen Nikolayev, the head of Yakutia, said firefighters were able to save 230 houses from flames. He called the scale of the fires a first "in history" and asked for help after the region's harvest was severely affected.

USA - As a measure of both the nation’s creaking infrastructure and the severity of the drought gripping California there is the $5 shower. That’s how much Ian Roth, the owner of the Seagull Inn, a bed-and-breakfast in this tourist town three hours north of San Francisco, spends on water every time a guest washes for five minutes under the shower nozzle. Water is so scarce in Mendocino, an Instagram-ready collection of pastel Victorian homes on the edge of the Pacific, that restaurants have closed their restrooms to guests, pointing them instead to portable toilets on the sidewalk. “We’ve grown up in this first-world country thinking that water is a given,” said Julian Lopez, the owner at Café Beaujolais, a restaurant packed with out-of-town diners in what is the height of the tourist season. “There’s that fear in the back of all our minds there is going to be a time when we don’t have water at all. And only the people with money would be able to afford the right to it.”