Convenience Big Store: Russia plays a careful hand on Afghanistan

18 August, 2021

In the headlines

Britain will take in 5,000 Afghan refugees this year and 20,000 over the long term. It's not enough for former minister David Davis, who tells HuffPost that "north of 50,000" better reflects our "direct moral responsibility" for the crisis. Hundreds of people have been evacuated from a village near St Tropez as a wildfire sweeps across 17,000 acres in the south of France. A group of about 20 protesters last night tried to "seize" Edinburgh Castle from the "corrupt, evil, satanic paedophiles" in government. They said their actions were justified by "article 61" of the Magna Carta, which has no legal status in Scotland.

Comment of the day

Taliban leaders in Moscow last month. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

Russia plays a careful hand on Afghanistan

The Taliban has defeated America, but it's striking how Russian media and government propagandists have largely avoided "expressions of Schadenfreude", says Mark Galeotti in The Moscow Times. A civil war in Afghanistan has serious implications for Moscow. As one veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war put it: "Europe and America are far from Afghanistan, but for us, it's on our doorstep."

Officially, Afghanistan's top exports are carpets and dried fruit, but for a long time they've actually been jihad, opium and refugees. And an alarmed Kremlin knows "radicalisation can't be stemmed with tanks". Some US sources claimed last year that the Russians were offering bounties for dead American soldiers. It's more likely that they were trying, in time-honoured fashion, to buy alliances with cash, just as British political officers did in the 19th century. The Kremlin even hosted a Taliban delegation in Moscow last month. Its efforts have paid off so far – the Russian embassy in Kabul is still open, guarded by Taliban fighters. Now Russia is waiting to see whether the insurgents will fare better than any of the other powers who "thought they could reshape the country". The Kremlin hopes they will. If not, this latest Afghan War may be ending, "but the next one may already be starting".

Israel is rushing out triple jabs

Israel's vaccination success made it a "laboratory for the world", says the Financial Times in an editorial. It was the first country to reopen after double-jabbing 70% of its population by early April. But now it's seeing an "alarming" fourth wave of infections. There are signs that the Pfizer vaccine's effectiveness starts to wane six months after the second jab – for the over-65s, protection against severe illness from the Delta variant may have fallen as low as 55%. At the current infection rate, about 5,000 people will need hospital beds by early September – "twice as many as Israel is equipped to handle". The country has responded by offering a third shot to the over-60s, and soon the over-50s.

Israel's predicament might be unique – the AstraZeneca and Moderna jabs used in other countries "may prove longer-lasting". Unlike many nations, including Britain, it didn't extend the gap between first and second shots. But it shows that "relatively frequent" large-scale booster programmes might be inevitable "until the virus burns itself out". After reviewing Israeli data, the US has decided to recommend boosters eight months after the second jab. It raises difficult questions about whether "scarce" vaccines should go to "largely unprotected" developing countries or be used to extend the immunity of rich nations. It's a moot point: we urgently need to step up vaccine production everywhere. "The world simply cannot have enough."

Inside politics

When Barack Obama had to reduce the guest list for his 60th birthday party, the "disinvitados" included those who helped him to power, says Maureen Dowd in The New York Times: Nancy Pelosi, David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel. Last week showed he's become "Barack Antoinette", indulging in "an orgy of the 1% – private jets, limousine liberals and Hollywood whoring".

Gone viral

Amol Kamble, a 38-year-old police constable from Mumbai, has wowed the internet with his high-energy Bollywood dances, says The Indian Express. Kamble originally made it big on TikTok, but when India banned the app last year because of its Chinese links, he had to move to Instagram. His bio reads: "Mumbai Police on field. ⭐ Swagger on and off field. 😎"

Zeitgeist

Some anti-vaxxers wrongly believe the dog worming medication Ivermectin protects against Covid. When quizzed about it in his blog, The Red Hand Files, Nick Cave was suitably scathing. Proudly double-jabbed, the 63-year-old singer wrote that he could now "move safely through the world with more than dog worming pills and an inflated belief in my own immune system for protection."

Snapshot

Tomorrow's world

China has begun building an experimental power station for "converting solar energy bounced to Earth", says The Register. The hope is that mile-long satellites, 22,000 miles up, will collect the sun's energy 24 hours a day and beam it down to power stations in the form of microwaves. Scientists in the Bishan district of Chongqing are testing the technology with balloons at a modest 1,000ft.

Snapshot answer

It's Hakainde Hichilema, 59, who was voted in as president of Zambia on Monday after five failed attempts. Born a "cattle boy", he won a scholarship to the University of Zambia and moved to the UK, where he made his fortune in finance and property. Since getting into politics, he has been arrested 15 times and spent four months in prison. In his victory speech, he extended an olive branch to the incumbent, Edgar Lungu: "Don't worry... you won't face retribution or get teargassed."