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President Joe Biden admitted during his address from the White House this week that, “The scenes we’re seeing in Afghanistan, they’re gut-wrenching, particularly for our veterans, our diplomats, humanitarian workers, for anyone who has spent time on the ground working to support the Afghan people.”

Yet the voices of the veteran community aren’t always heard in mainstream media, which tends to prioritize finger pointing and political bickering instead of focusing on the impact of such events on the people who served there, or the people who lost loved ones there. The depression and rage that flowed through the veteran community – as the US flag came down from the Embassy in Kabul, and as the U.S. failed to secure even a safe route out of the country for its own people, much less the Afghans who have supported the US-led effort there for the past 20 years –  was swift and devastating to many in the veteran community, who often don’t engage with media, but turn to each other for support via chatrooms.

A statement released by former President George Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush read, “Many of you deal with wounds of war, both visible and invisible. And some of your brothers and sisters in arms made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror. Each day, we have been humbled by your commitment and your courage. You took out a brutal enemy and denied Al Qaeda a safe haven while building schools, sending supplies, and providing medical care. You kept America safe from further terror attacks, provided two decades of security and opportunity for millions, and made America proud. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and will always honor your contributions.”  

The Cipher Brief reached out to two veteran leaders, Matthew Griffin and Scott Chapman, who wrote a fictitious letter they titled ‘Writing in Taliban’ as a way to share their outrage over recent events and how they believe – based on their unique on-the-ground experience – the Taliban will communicate this ‘victory’ to their followers.

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“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War 

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Author’s Note:  We’ve spent the past week trying to find a way to communicate our thoughts to the American people in a manner that would intentionally evoke some of the anger, rage, action, and understanding that we feel.  Writing in the voice of a Taliban felt right. If reading our letter from the Taliban makes you angry, cry, or contemplative–then our goal is achieved.  Our hope is that it inspires you to take action by reaching out to your elected officials.  They’ve been repeating the same failed playbook since World War II with your sons, daughters, and tax dollars.  If you want this to keep happening, do nothing.  If you don’t, then do something.  If we all do a little, together we do a lot.

‘Written in Taliban’

OPINION/PERSPECTIVE — The first time I saw you was in the Khyber Pass.  You came with your technology, elite fighters fueled by revenge, and the hubris to believe you could disprove history.

This was a war that you didn’t have the stomach to fight.  But I’m glad you tried.

We bled you the same way we bled the Soviets in our Holy Land.  We bled you the same way the Vietnamese bled you in their homeland.  We did it patiently and deliberately.

Patience.  Something Westerners never learn.

Our history is millennial.  We don’t yearn for an early victory when the Infidel ravages our Holy Land.  Our victory is celebrated decades from now.  We’ve endured, then ravaged every standing military that crossed our borders.   Why?  How?  We’re patient.

In 30 days, we’ll be stronger, richer, and have control over precious natural resources that you need for your pathetic life dictated by comfort.  We will have women, riches, land, guns, and ownership of one of the greatest chapters in military history.

You lose.

If you want to try again, we welcome the challenge.  You will fail regardless of how much money you burn in our deserts. For pity, here is free advice that may contribute to your future success; should you ever decide to invade again.

You recruit your warriors and supporters from a drug addicted, distracted, disillusioned population that’s obsessed with comfort and entertainment.  A population obsessed with altering their mundane reality.  Alcohol, marijuana, pills, and our new favorite — Tide Pods.  Every time your doctors prescribe opiate painkillers, you line our coffers with gold.  Your population’s thirst for our pristine heroin has never been more lucrative for our warrior tribes.   We will keep feeding you poison for as long as you keep your hands out.

If your population wasn’t so spineless, undisciplined, and self-loathing, then you might be able to compile a raiding party with enough tenacity to outthink ours.  Our fighters are born into war.  Raised in it.  It’s a way of life that evades your “first world” nations. They live a life of such immense misery and pain that they’re willing to fight barefoot in the snow for the opportunity to martyr themselves. They yearn for the opportunity to die.  When they do have the blessed opportunity to sacrifice themselves, they sit above Mohammed at the right hand of God.  Blessed in Allah for eternity

What honors do your fighters receive?  Their empty sacrifice is remembered in the form of a “three-day weekend.”  The majority of your population uses this sacred time to get drunk and grow more fat as a way to celebrate their fallen warriors.  Sadly, we pay tribute to their death more honorably.

The colored pieces of cloth you pin on their chests are similar to the jewelry worn by our women.  What good are accolades and vanity if you don’t have the stomach to endure a fight?   We don’t offer the burden of healthcare to our fighters as they often want to die for Allah.  Your fighters fight to live.  Their inability to reconcile the inevitable outcome of our patience leads them to kill themselves.  Your medications, counselors and non-profits will never undo the pain and suffering you’ve forced them to endure.  It will never remove the pain we’ve caused your broken nation.  You are your own worst enemy.

We will give your fighters credit.  Some are creative, tenacious, and fierce. They outgun us in every way possible.  But again, we simply wait them out.  Allah is patient.  You cycle them through our Holy Lands every 3 to 12 months for their combat rotations.  After their tour is complete, they return to the comfort of their warm beds and endless entertainment.  If you left them here, in our Holy Land, with no way out but to win, then you might of have had a chance of success.  The longer you poisoned our Holy Land with your presence, your “rules of engagement” only strengthened our position. There is only one rule in war – that is to win.

Your commanders made you fight with your hands tied behind your back. Your rules also confused our fighters too.  “We’re clearly the enemy; why are they letting us go?”  Thank you for your compassion as it allowed our fighters to kill more Infidels.  We began to feel as if your commanders were on our side.  We’re thankful your most vicious dogs were never allowed off their leash.

Your showcase Generals make us laugh.  You spend millions of dollars flying them around our country, inventing new ways to win while ignoring the guidance of our most capable foes.  Your Generals make decisions to minimize risk to their fragile reputation with the ultimate goal of securing a lucrative retirement–jobs with suppliers that fuel your losing force. A self-serving circle that’s built on the backs of your youngest and most naive fighters.

Your retired Generals “earn” tens of thousands of dollars talking to your political, industrial, and financial leaders about “teams, winning, and discipline.”  It’s a mockery of the war they refused to fight.  It’s a mockery of the Infidel warriors who died in our lands. We urge you to continue following their vacuous personalities so we can further watch your once great nation collapse.

Your statesman and elected officials are spineless, narcissistic, and more cowardly than your Generals.  They crave power over you above all else.  They come to our country, hide behind blast walls, and only heed the word of the indigenous leader they put in power.   I believe your soldiers call this a “self-licking ice cream cone.”

They’ve burned billions of dollars in a wasted effort to bring clean water, electricity, business, education, agriculture, and exports to a region that didn’t ask for it.  You should have saved yourself the effort and simply given the money directly to us.  Don’t worry; your diplomatic friends gave us plenty of your American tax dollars.  If you want to give it another shot with your “soft power,” send those with real experience, not fancy degrees and silver tongues.

Over the next few months, we will make the world understand that you failed worse than any fighting force that’s ever invaded our lands.  Today we celebrate victory.

As you evacuate your embassy, our fighters will be standing in the shade.  Our RPG marksmen will be patient.  We thank you for the parting gifts.  You’ll find surface-to-air missiles staged in the back of Toyota pickup trucks that you purchased for us.  We saw what Extortion 17 did to your nation and the morale of your fighting force.  Do your citizens even remember that victory? We’ll be repeating and improving upon our victory while your citizens and sympathizers evacuate in disgrace.  Every one of your foes around the world will know exactly how to break you. You are welcome to fly your empty drones, target our cell phones, and send your spies.  But they, too, will ultimately fail.  We’ll use their failures to show the world that you’re not all-powerful.  You’re a false front–an empty shell. You lie, cheat, steal, and are easily defeated because you lack the spine to fight.  This is your history now.  We’re grateful Allah gave us the opportunity to show the world how to defeat the Infidels.

We look forward to seeing you again across the battlefield.

Praise be to God,

The Taliban

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The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of veteran views on this issue.  Stay tuned for more and read different informed, national security perspectives in The Cipher Brief

 

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Talk about a gift that keeps on giving; each month reveals yet another beautiful pooch answering nature’s call. Also important: $1 from each “Pooping Pooches 2022” calendar is donated to the Maui Humane Society to support animals in need. This tasteful calendar is available on Etsy and Amazon, but you can also get 500 piece jigsaw puzzle for those long, dark winter evenings!

This year’s latest addition is a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle which can also be purchased on Amazon (not suitable for babies and individuals who have a tendency to put things in their mouth and potentially choke on the pieces).

Just like the calendar, every puzzle sale will also contribute to Maui Humane Society to help animals in need (one poop at a time).

Anyways, if pooping dogs is something you would like to look at for a whole year, you can get this calendar on Etsy or Amazon.

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Reuters has apologized for its poor choice of photo to illustrate a story about a monkey brain study that was deemed offensive and racist in China.

On Thursday, Reuters published a story titled “Monkey-brain study with link to China’s military roils top European university.” The report was about a Chinese professor studying how a monkey’s brain functions at extreme altitude.

The study was done with the help of Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with the aim of developing new drugs to prevent brain damage, Reuters said.

The news agency promoted the story on Twitter with a photo of smiling Chinese soldiers in an oxygen chamber.

The tweet prompted outrage in China, with people calling it racist on social media. Reuters responded on Friday night by deleting the original tweet because the photo of Chinese soldiers was unrelated to the story and “could have been read as offensive.”

PHOTO CORRECTION: We have deleted an earlier tweet that included a picture of Chinese soldiers in an oxygen chamber not described in the original tweet that could have been read as offensive https://t.co/Ahtv9fj8EQ 2/2

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 19, 2021

“As soon as we became aware of our mistake, the tweet was deleted and corrected, and we apologize for the offense it caused,” Reuters said in a statement to the Global Times, China’s state-run newspaper.

It was not the first time the leading Western news agency had run into trouble in China. In July, the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka criticized Reuters for using a photo of Chinese weightlifter and Tokyo 2020 Olympics gold medalist Hou Zhihui that the country’s state media described as “ugly” and “disrespectful to the athlete.”

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Kids say the strangest and funniest things. We’ve always loved the frank, honest and unadulterated way that little humans choose to express themselves. They see things from a different perspective to us grownups whose thoughts have been shaped and molded by the world around us. NYC school teacher Alyssa Cowit was so fascinated by the questions and comments from her Kindergarteners that she decided to start an Instagram account, called Live From Snack Time, to chronicle them. Scroll down for some of the best ones!

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Covid-19 variants keep emerging in different parts of the world, causing experts to ask how long the pandemic will last, and how effective the current methods of protection really are.

Since the pandemic started in 2019, people have referred to the disease which has paralyzed the world simply as ‘coronavirus’. Now, in 2021, when we talk about it, we mean not just the original variant, but also its numerous mutations. 

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In May, the WHO decided to label the key variants with Greek letters. Since then, the Delta variant has been proclaimed the predominant strain across the world, and now we have titles that look like codes to detail the differences between variants. Last month, the UK was put on high alert over a fast-spreading Delta AY.4.2 variant. This week, Norway reported finding one more version of the Delta strain – AY. 63. The country’s experts suggest it’s not more dangerous than the Delta mutation itself. Meanwhile, another Covid variant, discovered in France (B.1.640), brought the researchers an unpleasant surprise: they said they’d never seen mutations like it. 

Professor David Dockrell, from the Center for Inflammation Research of the University of Edinburgh, described to RT the reasons for the constant mutation of the coronavirus. “The areas in the virus that are most likely to change are those that come into contact with what we call ‘selective pressures’ – or factors that make them need to change,” he explains. “So, a version of the virus which mutates and changes to give it a selective advantage to escape from the immune system is more likely to prosper and become a dominant strain.” 

That’s how it works: The part of the virus many of the immune responses (or antibodies, T-cells etc.) are responding to is called the spike protein (or the S-protein). So, the virus tries to change it in order to survive. 

“We know that a variety of different viruses are able to mutate and change when exposed to the selective pressure of the immune system, whether it would be the human immune system or other species in which these viruses have evolved,” Prof. Dockrell says. “And of course, we’ve seen it most clearly with HIV, which is particularly good at changing and evolving. It does something called ‘reverse transcription’ – it copies material in the reversed direction from DNA to RNA.” 

Covid is still seemingly running faster than humanity’s efforts to curb it, but Prof. Dockrell has some good news. “The coronavirus – and viruses like it – are not as able to make these changes. They are going to do it to some extent, but they are not going to be as successful as retroviruses and HIV.” 

And the other major thing to say: When the viruses make changes, there’s always what we call ‘a fitness cost’. Many of the potential changes that the virus could make will actually not favor its survival. So there are only a certain number, potentially, of changes that the virus can make, before it starts affecting its fitness. 

Now, unfortunately, we are still in a phase where Covid19 can continue to evolve and change. It’s not time to panic, though, because across the world various ways to adapt the current anti-Covid strategies are already in place. First of all, people should keep getting vaccines – maybe receiving slightly altered booster doses, Prof. Dockrell suggests, “in a way, that we, after all, have to do with influenza, by providing a seasonal influenza vaccine and changing it every year.” 

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“And maybe we have to keep changing some of the treatments like these new monoclonal antibodies against the virus, because they also may be limited by the emergence of a mutation of the virus evolving the S-protein,” he adds. 

Sounds promising – but won’t it become a never-ending race against constantly emerging mutations? 

Hopefully not. According to Prof. Dockrell, there are parts of viruses that scientists call ‘conserved areas’. With time, vaccines and monoclonal antibodies will target these areas, which the virus finds very hard to change. “Clearly, the direction of travel is to develop either vaccine responses that affect more different kinds of virus, or these ‘monoclonal antibodies’ that we could use to prevent or treat infection, that they will target more conserved areas and therefore will be less limited by the ability of these virus to evolve and change,” he concludes.

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Greece will soon prohibit unvaccinated residents from entering a litany of public spaces, the country’s prime minister has announced, claiming its current Covid outbreak is largely fueled by those who haven’t received the jab.

Starting next week, the unvaccinated will be barred from entry to restaurants, cafes, theaters, bars, gyms and museums, among other indoor public places, PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday, noting that a negative Covid-19 test will no longer be accepted as an alternative to proof of vaccination.

“This is indeed a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” he said as he announced the move in a televised address, adding “Greece is mourning unnecessary losses because it simply does not have the vaccination rates of other European countries.”

The new rules are set to take effect on Monday, and will require Greeks to present vaccine certificates to businesses and other indoor establishments to be allowed inside. Those attending religious services mark a rare exception, however, as they will only be asked to present a negative test in order to enter a church or other place of worship.

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In a bid to encourage booster vaccinations among the elderly – a population much more vulnerable to Covid-19 – citizens over the age of 60 will be made to renew their certificate after a period of seven months.

While officials had hoped to hit a full vaccination figure of 70% for Greece’s population of 11 million by autumn, the number currently stands at about 62%, according to Reuters. As its weekly case counts continue to soar to record highs, the country reported 7,317 new Covid-19 infections and 63 deaths on Thursday, bringing the totals to more than 860,000 cases and some 17,000 fatalities since the pandemic kicked off in late 2019.

The new restrictions in Greece mirror similar policies implemented elsewhere in Europe, with Austria, Germany, Italy, France, the Czech Republic and Slovakia each imposing limits on public life for the unvaccinated. Though the Austrian government recently imposed a full lockdown for millions of residents who have not received the shot, some officials in that country are pushing for even harsher policies, including a national stay-at-home order on the jabbed and non-jabbed alike.

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EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — The images from Kabul are demoralizing and depressing—unless you are sitting in the Kremlin, where they are certainly being viewed in a quite different light. Probably something close to giddiness and glee.

From Russian President Vladimir Putin’s perspective, this likely reinforces his view that President Joe Biden and his national security team are weak and naïve.  ‘This is Obama’s third term’, Putin must be thinking. And of course, the images of US helicopters desperately trying to evacuate thousands from Kabul also resonate in Kiev, Tbilisi, and probably Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius and beyond—think Taipei.  The appalling mismanagement of the withdrawal from Afghanistan will have consequences that will affect American credibility globally and linger well beyond the end of Biden’s presidency.

A first order consequence concerns Russia.

It is highly likely there was practical cooperation between the Kremlin and the Taliban in the preparation for the American withdrawal and this may have included direct support to Taliban forces. We don’t need to revisit the narrative of Russian bounties for dead American soldiers in Afghanistan, but the evidence of Russian energetic engagement with the Taliban in recent months is manifest and the fact the Russian embassy in Kabul is currently protected by Taliban fighters is significant.

For both Russia and the Taliban there was a clear shared strategic objective: Get the Americans and their allies out of Afghanistan and ideally in the most humiliating fashion possible.  The Russian-Taliban honeymoon may not last long, but for the moment it has served both sides well.

For over a decade and a half of his tenure as Russia’s president, Putin has been preaching the gospel that you can’t trust the Americans to back you in the long run or when the chips are down, but you can count on the Russia he leads (think the Russian intervention in Syria and support for Assad or their intervention—whether acknowledged or not—in Libya on the side of Khalifa Haftar among other examples). This messaging is important in current times and reinforces Putin’s narrative about the decline of the West and the waning relevance of western liberal systems of governance.

In recent years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has picked up the trumpet to echo this message that American power is in decline and that American security guarantees cannot be relied on in East Asia and beyond.

Putin has been Russia’s Czar for over two decades without meaningful interruption and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. He has seen US Presidents come and go and he has been quick to size them up and adjust his moves accordingly. He was genuinely scared of what George W. Bush might do in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the speed and efficacy of the US response made a deep impression on him.  He adjusted his approach to the US to one of partner and ally against Islamic extremism (Putin was also busy consolidating his control over the Russian Federation in the immediate post-Yeltsin period).

Putin also sized up then-President Barack Obama after Obama’s failure to act when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad blithely crossed the “no use of chemical weapons” red line.  That opened the door for the annexation of Crimea as well as the Russian military intervention in Syria (and later Libya). Joe Biden was Vice President at the time. Putin likely has a very good book on Joe Biden and was quite confident of what the end result for the US in Afghanistan would look like.  Putin may even have a better feel for Joe Biden than many realize, if any of the Hunter Biden material is true.  One leader’s assessment of another, matters in geopolitical relations. Putin has a high level of confidence in his ability to read his international opposition.

As recently as July 2021 President Biden said, “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of the US embassy in Afghanistan.”  He went on to add, “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”  President Biden made these statements knowing perfectly or should have known—from intelligence briefings and expert commentary—as well as historical precedent—that when the US announces a withdrawal of forces with a hard deadline, in this case 9/11, our adversaries use the time to prepare for their offensive military action. Our Afghan allies knew this as well and prepared accordingly.  Now the Taliban will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the US embassy in Kabul, probably with their ISIS and Al Qaeda friends as honored guests.  If you think the videos from Afghanistan have been troubling to this point, just wait for the anniversary celebrations.

Perhaps of more near term geopolitical significance, Putin will use the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan to support a narrative that Russia needs to defend its interests from the spread of Islamic extremism from Afghanistan by strengthening “security and counterterrorism” cooperation with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan. Does anyone want an excuse to get – and keep – those pesky Americans out of Central Asia and start rebuilding that corner of the Soviet Union?

Putin’s use of terrorism risk as justification for military action is well-rehearsed and goes back to the Moscow apartment bombings (which the FSB almost certainly organized) in September 1999, which Putin used both to consolidate political power and to justify the brutal military campaign in Chechnya. Putin is acutely aware of the risks of Islamic extremism spreading from Afghanistan to Central Asia, the Caucasus, and into the Russian Federation. In fact, Russian, Uzbek, and Tajik troops conducted exercises in July, which appear to have been designed to prepare to respond to cross border incursions from Afghanistan. This is only the first step in his plan for consolidation of Russian power and influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

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Some might ask – given the risk of the spread of Islamic extremism from Afghanistan to the Russian Federation – why would Putin would want to partner with the Taliban?  Those who ask this question are misunderstanding the depth of Putin’s enmity toward the United States and the West and everything for which we stand.  Putin views the world as a “zero sum” game.  What hurts the US must serve Russia’s interests. The debacle in Afghanistan clearly qualifies. A short-term deal with the Taliban is a risk with taking in Putin’s mind.  Putin plays on the superpower chessboard using the only tools he has at hand, military power, cyber and disinformation capability and US ineptitude and lack of strategic thought.  He has taken clever advantage of President Trump’s four years of thoughtless estrangement of US allies around the world.

Beyond the propaganda value and regional leverage our withdrawal has given adversaries like Russia and China, there is the impact of our withdrawal on the many nations among our allies who contributed to the Afghanistan mission. The images of Afghans clinging to a departing US Air Force C-17 and falling to their deaths will not fade easily. How easy will it be to assemble their support when we inevitably have to go in again to deal with a resurgent Al Qaeda, a globally ambitious Taliban, or an even more dangerous embedded ISIS in the hills of Afghanistan?

We should also consider the impact on Pakistan.  Pakistan has nurtured Islamic extremism in Afghanistan for decades.  While a part of the Pakistani security establishment partnered with the US effectively after 9/11, other parts simultaneously were nurturing relations with extremists including the Taliban. The “Great Game” is still being played in that part of the world, and neither the Pakistanis, nor the Indians or Chinese have forgotten it.

Pakistan also still certainly chafes from the US raid to kill bin Ladin in Abbottabad a little over ten years ago.  One wonders if the waning of US influence in Islamabad has opened the door for Islamic extremists to enter the security establishment there. Pakistan is a nuclear power and has in recent years, increased its development of tactical nuclear weapons. Does the Taliban now have a path to nuclear weapons?  This is an important question and it’s answer casts a shadow over our withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Biden Administration, for all its vaunted claims of “return to competence” in Washington, has fallen flat in its first serious challenge. One could argue that Biden’s capitulation on Nord Stream 2 and Putin’s mocking rejection in Geneva of charges of US election interference and cyberattacks on the US, foretold the debacle in Afghanistan. The challenge for the US now will be to manage the airlift of those Afghans who were willing to partner with the US and carefully look for opportunities to rebuild the credibility of US security guarantees around the world.

Taiwan and South Korea would seem good places to start.

At the same time, we need to recognize that Afghanistan will once again become the training ground for those who hope to replicate 9/11 attacks on the US. A strong and robust intelligence capability will be essential in mitigating that risk.

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The EU Commission has released draft legislation aimed at tackling the destruction of woodland by introducing import restrictions on products not certified as ‘deforestation-free’.

The draft proposal, which the commission hopes will become binding rules for all member states, seeks to limit the import of beef, cocoa, coffee, palm, soy, and wood if it is not proven “deforestation-free.”

Outlining the legislation, the EU commissioner for climate action policy, Virginijus Sinkevicius, called it a “ground-breaking” proposal that will help fight “illegal deforestation” and “deforestation driven by agricultural expansion.”

Our proposal to fight deforestation will help us protect 1/3 of 🌎 lands.

We don’t only target illegal deforestation but 𝙖𝙡𝙡 deforestation driven by agricultural expansion.

We start with 6 products that must be deforestation-free 👉🏼 beef, wood, palm oil, soya, coffee, cocoa. pic.twitter.com/Cs9POoydNX

— Virginijus Sinkevičius (@VSinkevicius) November 17, 2021

The bill comes after nations at the COP26 summit agreed to work to end deforestation by 2030. It would impose two criteria on imports, requiring items to have been produced in accordance with the origin country’s laws, and not on land that has been deforested or degraded since the start of 2021.

It is not clear when the rules would come into effect; legislative proposals by the commission have to be debated and considered by both the EU Parliament and the Council of the EU before they are passed. The implementation of measures could potentially impact the EU’s trade relations with countries like Brazil, where clearing of the Amazon rainforest hit a new record in October.

During the recent COP26 climate summit, 110 world leaders – whose countries contain around 85% of the world’s woodland – committed to ending and reversing deforestation by 2030, pledging around £14 billion ($18.84 billion) of public and private funds towards the goal.

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Any apology for Nazism is unacceptable, Colombia’s president Ivan Duque has insisted, after photos of police academy cadets dressed up in Third Reich uniforms were uploaded online, causing outrage.

“Any apology for Nazism is unacceptable,” Duque stated in a tweet on Friday. The president said he condemned any references to those who were “responsible for the Jewish Holocaust that claimed the lives of more than 6 million people,” adding that “anti-Semitism has no place in the world.”

Policía colombiana homenajea a Alemania con una fiesta ‘nazi’

Indignación en Colombia por la fiesta que organizó un grupo de estudiantes de la Escuela de Policía Simón Bolívar en Tuluá, en la que varios uniformados recrearon escenas alusivas a la Alemania nazi pic.twitter.com/UnF4ajUd8z

— RT en Español (@ActualidadRT) November 19, 2021

Duque had earlier made demands for “heads to roll” at an academy that “promotes such criminal practices,” with its director, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Ferney Bayona Sanchez, already having been sacked.

Toda una polémica ha provocado el evento realizado en las últimas horas en la escuela de Policía Simón Bolívar de Tuluá. Los uniformados se disfrazaron de Adolf Hitler, haciendo alusión al nazismo durante la semana de la internacionalización. #VocesySonidos pic.twitter.com/EoS4JqvzrC

— BLU Pacífico (@BLUPacifico) November 18, 2021

Colombia’s defense ministry, which oversees the country’s police, also insisted in a statement that that its training programs “don’t envisage in any way an activity such as the one which took place” at the academy.

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The images of police cadets in Nazi uniforms caused anger and bewilderment among internet users.

The German and Israeli embassies in the country reacted by issuing a joint statement, in which they expressed “total rejection of any form of apology or demonstration of Nazism.” The US embassy in Bogota also said that it was “shocked and deeply disappointed” by the development.

The controversial images, in which aspiring officers were caught sporting black SS outfits with red swastika armbands and grey Wehrmacht uniforms from the World War II era, weren’t revealed in some bombshell media report, but were actually published on the official Twitter account of the Colombian police this Thursday.

The photos were taken as part of a “cultural exchange” event at the police academy in the city of Tulua, aimed at commemorating Germany and “strengthening the knowledge of our police students.” The cosplay was apparently intended to illustrate the history of German law enforcement, with more cadets pictured wearing more modern versions of the country’s police uniforms in the pictures.

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Apple has finally caved to users demanding the ‘right to repair’, allowing owners of iPhones, MacBooks, and other devices to tinker with their electronics at home instead of bringing them to notoriously expensive service centers.

Called Self Service Repair, the feature is set to launch “early next year” in the US before expanding to other countries. Some 200 parts are expected to be available, along with instructions on how to replace them.

Initially, the company will offer repairs for the iPhone 12 and 13, to be followed by Macs with M1 chips. Users will be able to replace the phones’ display, battery, and camera – some of the earliest parts to cease functioning – using original equipment from the company. While Apple encourages only “individual technicians with the knowledge and experience to repair electronic devices,” urging users to take their devices to a professional before cracking them open themselves, the move nevertheless represents a major step for a company that has long been resistant to allowing users to even swap out a battery.

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After rolling out repair instructions and parts for the iPhone 12 and 13, the company will gradually expand users’ abilities to fix their phones themselves without having to wait in line at the Apple Store. Users who attempt to make these repairs on their own will not void their warranty, according to TechCrunch, representing another major change for the tech giant.

Even this week, Apple was sealing off users’ ability to fix their own phones, barring users who replaced their own screens from being able to use Face ID recognition going forward. However, the various departments seem to be coordinating among themselves – users will receive a recycling credit for returning their used or broken part after completing the repair, and the company plans to sell “more than 200 individual parts and tools,” as well as repair manuals customers can peruse before attempting to repair their devices.

The decision to open up Apple’s “right to repair” might not have been entirely that of the company – the Federal Trade Commission wrote to the corporation earlier this year vowing to “address unlawful repair restrictions,” adding it would also “stand ready to work with legislators, either at the state or federal level, in order to ensure that consumers have choices when they need to repair products that they purchase and own.”

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