Ariana: Late Friday, a defiant US President Joe Biden, said in answer to a question, on the report, that was shouted out by a journalist as he walked out of a press conference: “Remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said al-Qaeda would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban. What’s happening now? What’s going on? Read your press. I was right.” With that, Biden turned and left the room – without elaborating. Click here to read more (external link).
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The Telegraph (UK): Afghanistan is facing a locust timebomb after billions of eggs were laid by the grasshoppers in the country’s breadbasket, raising fears that a plague of insects will devastate food supplies next year. For the first time in two decades, swarms of Moroccan locusts – described as the “bad boys” of the locust world because of their voracious appetite – arrived in northern Afghanistan in March. 
The China Project: In 2008, the Afghan government and a state-owned Chinese company signed a deal to mine copper at Mes Aynak, just south of Kabul. The Taliban renewed the agreement. So why is the project stalled? For now, China and MCC hold all the cards. Ultimately, what will happen will depend much more on Beijing’s geopolitical calculus than on the preferences of the Taliban. Meanwhile, as Noorani noted in our interview, “Afghanistan is the loser, and receives neither revenue nor employment.” 
Ariana: In the past two months, 36 instances of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever have been reported by doctors in the western province of Herat, Afghanistan, including five deaths. The number of cases increased this year, according to Mohammad Asif Kabir, Deputy Public Health of Herat which has led to authorities’ concern about the spread of diseases, especially throughout Eid-ul-Adha. 
NYT: While the Taliban have erased most obvious vestiges of the U.S. nation-building effort in Afghanistan, the cultural legacy of two decades of American occupation has been harder to stamp out. 
Ariana: In the 2022 survey by Gallup – conducted one year after the IEA’s [Taliban] return to power and amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan – 98% of Afghans described their life as poor enough to be considered suffering. This number is even higher than it was in the immediate aftermath of the IEA’s resurgence in 2021, when 94% of respondents described their life this poorly. 
Tolo News: The Minister of External Affairs of India, S Jaishankar, said that they have decided not to send an ambassador to its embassy in Afghanistan, but will keep the embassy open. Speaking at the India International Centre, Jaishankar added that it is still too early to judge the recent events in Afghanistan, but India will monitor the situation in Afghanistan.