Month: August 2021

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Politics

A number of U.S. service members killed in assault

Multiple U.S. service members killed in attack

WASHINGTON — A thirteenth U.S. service member has died from his wounds and the number of injured has risen to 18 after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive near Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Thursday.

The injured service members are being evacuated from Afghanistan on specially equipped C-17 aircraft with surgical units, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command said Thursday evening.

U.S. Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, said in a briefing earlier Thursday that a number of Afghan civilians were also killed, but he was not able to provide a precise number.

The general, who oversees the U.S. military’s operations in the region, said that the Pentagon was working to determine attribution for the attack but added that the current assessment is that the bomber is affiliated with ISIS.

ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack.

McKenzie said that the U.S. is still monitoring “extremely active threats” to the airport that range from suicide bombers to rocket attacks. McKenzie said that despite the attack, the U.S. emergency evacuation mission continues.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressed his condolences in a statement Thursday and condemned the attack that “took their lives at the very moment these troops were trying to save the lives of others.”

“We will not be dissuaded from the task at hand. To do anything less — especially now — would dishonor the purpose and sacrifice these men and women have rendered our country and the people of Afghanistan,” Austin added.

About 5,400 U.S. service members are assisting with evacuation efforts in Kabul. The British have about 1,000 troops assisting with the evacuation. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said there were no reported casualties among its government and military personnel in Kabul after the attack.

President Joe Biden addressed the nation on the attack Thursday evening.

“The president met with his national security team Thursday morning, including Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley as well as commanders on the ground in Kabul,” the White House said in a statement.

“He will continue to be briefed on updates on the evolving situation throughout the day,” the statement added.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul had issued a security alert Wednesday urging Americans to avoid the airport. “U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey Gate, East Gate, or North Gate now should leave immediately,” the alert said.

The embassy again told Americans after the attack Thursday not to travel to the airport and to avoid its gates.

In the last 24 hours, Western forces evacuated 13,400 people out of Kabul on 91 military cargo aircraft flights. Since the mass evacuations began Aug. 14, approximately 95,700 people have been airlifted out of Afghanistan.

About 101,300 people have been evacuated since the end of July, including about 5,000 U.S. citizens and their families.

Warning: Graphic image. Volunteers and medical staff unload bodies from a pickup truck outside a hospital after two powerful explosions, which killed at least six people, outside the airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021.

Wakil Kohsar | AFP | Getty Images

A State Department spokesperson said Thursday that about 500 of the 1,500 Americans believed to be still in Afghanistan have been evacuated.

“We are now in contact with the roughly 1,000 Americans we believe remain in Afghanistan. And, the vast majority — over two-thirds — informed us that they were taking steps to leave,” the spokesperson added.

Biden on Tuesday reiterated to leaders of the G-7, NATO, United Nations and European Union that the United States will withdraw its military from Afghanistan by the end of the month.

The president warned that staying longer in Afghanistan carries serious risks for foreign troops and civilians. Biden said ISIS-K, an Afghanistan-based affiliate of the terror group, presents a growing threat to the airport.

“Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both U.S. and allied forces and innocent civilians,” he said.

The Taliban said earlier Tuesday that the group will no longer allow Afghan nationals to leave the country on evacuation flights nor will they accept an extension of the withdrawal deadline beyond the end of the month.

“We are not in favor of allowing Afghans to leave,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters during a news conference Tuesday.

“They [the Americans] have the opportunity, they have all the resources, they can take all the people that belong to them, but we are not going to allow Afghans to leave and we will not extend the deadline,” he said. Evacuations carried out by foreign forces after Aug. 31 would be a “violation” of a Biden administration promise to end the U.S. military’s mission in the country, Mujahid said.

— CNBC’s Spencer Kimball contributed to this report from New York.

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World News

Kamala Harris Pledges U.S. Assist for Afghan Ladies and Youngsters

Kamala Harris Pledges U.S. Help for Afghan Women and Children

HANOI – Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that the United States would work with its allies to protect women and children in Afghanistan as the Taliban takeover forced them to face worrying historical parallels and draw attention from their original mission distracted on a five day trip to Southeast Asia.

“There is no question that any of us who are vigilant are concerned about this issue in Afghanistan,” said Ms. Harris, referring to the protection of women and children in that country.

The vice president made her comments in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, on the final day of her trip to Southeast Asia, an important part of the Biden administration’s strategy of forging partnerships in the region and realigning American foreign policy to compete with China’s growing influence.

For Ms. Harris, the trip was an opportunity to assert herself on the world stage after her first overseas trip to Central America, which focused on the root causes of migration, received from political backlash against the Biden government’s response to the increasing crossings at the southwestern border .

Ms. Harris faced the great challenge of reassuring her partners in Asia and around the world that despite the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan and the arbitrary evacuations of the United States, the United States can still be a credible ally.

While the Biden government seeks to meet an August 31 deadline to leave Afghanistan, the situation in Kabul has overshadowed a trip focused on public health, supply chain issues and economic partnerships.

In Singapore, whether at her meeting with city-state leaders or during her orchid tour after a high-level foreign policy speech, Ms. Harris kept asking questions about withdrawal, the future of human rights in Afghanistan, and the fate of those who had risked their lives to help American troops in the 20 Years War.

The pressure didn’t ease in Hanoi – especially after the world saw pictures of desperate Afghans charging behind US military planes, comparing it to the evacuation of the United States from Vietnam in 1975.

On Thursday, Ms. Harris did not directly answer a question whether the Americans are safer now than they were before they left Afghanistan. Instead, she extolled the government’s evacuation efforts, which have increased rapidly in recent days.

Biden government officials said they had evacuated tens of thousands of people since August 14, the day before Kabul fell to the Taliban. Most Americans have flown out although tens of thousands of Afghan allies will almost certainly be left behind after August 31.

Updated

Aug 28, 2021, 7:25 p.m. ET

During her trip, Ms. Harris upheld her message, stressing that the government’s “uniquely” focus was on evacuating the remaining American citizens and Afghan allies.

Her flight to Hanoi from Singapore on Tuesday was delayed by three hours because the US Embassy in Vietnam described a possible “abnormal health incident”. This is the language the Biden government uses to refer to what is known as Havana Syndrome – the unexplained headache, dizziness and memory loss reported by numerous State Department officials, CIA officials and their families in various countries. When asked about the report, Ms. Harris only said that the officers are investigating him.

Understanding the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan

Map 1 of 5

Who are the Taliban? The Taliban emerged in 1994 amid the unrest following the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including flogging, amputation and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here is more about their genesis and track record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who for years have been on the run, in hiding, in prison and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to rule, including whether they will be as tolerant as they say they are.

What is happening to the women of Afghanistan? When the Taliban was last in power, they banned women and girls from most jobs or from going to school. Afghan women have gained a lot since the Taliban was overthrown, but now they fear that they are losing ground. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are indications that they have begun to reintroduce the old order in at least some areas.

Ms. Harris used the trip to Southeast Asia not only to forge partnerships on climate change, cybersecurity and pandemic, but also to make her most outspoken comments to date on Beijing.

Both Beijing and Washington have recognized Southeast Asia as a region of economic and geopolitical importance. Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have all accused China of building and fortifying artificial islands in the South China Sea and of sending ships to intimidate their military and fishermen.

On Wednesday, Ms. Harris offered to send aircraft carriers and a Coast Guard cutter to Vietnam in addition to a million doses of Covid-19 vaccines.

“When it comes to Beijing, let me be very clear,” she said. “We welcome fierce competition, we are not looking for conflict, but we will speak out on issues like you, the South China Sea.”

Tension between the United States and China was evident throughout Ms. Harris’ trip – even when she was in the air. Beijing used its delayed flight to Hanoi to send an envoy to a meeting with the Vietnamese prime minister and pledge a donation of two million doses of coronavirus vaccines – double the US donation.

After the meeting, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh declared that his country “is not allying itself with one country to fight another,” according to Vietnamese state media.

“It’s striking,” said Aaron Connelly, research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore. Chinese officials, he said, “believe they have the advantage and are trying to make it clear to Southeast Asian counterparts that working with the United States will come at a cost.”

Categories
Politics

All in or All Out? Biden Noticed No Center Floor in Afghanistan

All in or All Out? Biden Saw No Middle Ground in Afghanistan

Mr Biden hired Jake Sullivan, his national security advisor, to conduct an inter-agency inquiry into Afghanistan policy, which resulted in 10 departmental meetings, three cabinet-level meetings, and four meetings in the camp room attended by the president.

The Biden team considered other options, including maintaining a small troop presence for counter-terrorism operations or in support of the Afghan security forces, but argued that this was just “magical thinking” and would require more troops than was bearable. They debated whether to renegotiate the Trump deal to make further concessions, but the Taliban made it clear they would not return to the negotiating table and considered the Trump deal binding.

Mr Biden’s advisors also considered extending the withdrawal period until winter, after the traditional fighting season was over, to make the transition less dangerous for the Afghan government. The Afghanistan Study Group, a bipartisan, Congressional chartered body led by General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., a retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and which included Ms. O’Sullivan, recommended the deadline for the February May 1st extend out and seek better conditions.

But Mr Biden was warned by security experts that the longer it took for a decision to be announced, the aides said, the more dangerous it would get, so he only extended it until August 31.

Particularly influential on Mr Biden, aides said, were a series of intelligence assessments he had requested of Afghanistan’s neighbors and close neighbors, which revealed that Russia and China wanted the United States to remain stuck in Afghanistan.

At the end of the day, officials said that either option eventually led to one of the two ultimate alternatives – wholly out, as Mr. Trump had agreed, or preparing for a longer and more dangerous gun war with many other troops. Although not everyone in the room preferred Mr. Biden’s path, officials claimed everyone was heard.

“Biden faced basically the same problem as Trump,” said Vali Nasr, a senior adviser to Richard C. Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, “and his answer was the same – we’re not going.” To get back in, you have to we out. “

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World News

Amazon companions with Affirm for first purchase now, pay later partnership

Amazon partners with Affirm for first buy now, pay later partnership

Amazon is diving into the buy now, pay later space.

The e-commerce giant is teaming up with Affirm for its first partnership with an installment payment player on the popular e-commerce site.

Affirm’s buy now, pay later checkout option will be available to certain Amazon customers in the U.S. starting Friday with a broader rollout in the coming months, the companies said in a statement. The partnership will let Amazon customers split purchases of $50 or more into smaller, monthly installments.

Affirm’s stock spiked as much as 48% after-hours Friday on the news, adding more than $8 billion to its market capitalization, later settling up around 33%. Amazon shares were unchanged.

Friday’s partnership is the latest sign of the booming lending space as younger consumers move towards these alternative lines of credit. Earlier in August, Square jumped into the space with a $29 billion deal to buy Australian fintech Afterpay.

So-called installment loans have been around for decades, and were historically used for big-ticket purchases such as furniture. Online payment players and fintechs have been competing to launch their own version of “pay later” products for online items in the low hundreds of dollars.

SEE ALSO: Affirm review: When should you use ‘buy now, pay later’ provider?

Affirm is one of the best known installment payment options. It works with more than 12,000 merchants, including Peloton and Walmart.

PayPal, Klarna, Mastercard and Fiserv, American Express, Citi and J.P. Morgan Chase are all offering similar loan products. Apple is planning to launch installment lending in a partnership with Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg reported last month.

Affirm said some of the Amazon customer loans will bear interest, but some will come with 0% APR. Other installment-type options are available on Amazon through credit cards.

“By partnering with Amazon we’re bringing the transparency, predictability and affordability that Affirm provides today to the millions of people who shop on Amazon.com in the U.S.,” Eric Morse, Senior Vice President of Sales at Affirm, said in a statement. “Offering Affirm’s alternative to credit cards also delivers more of the payment choice and flexibility consumers on Amazon want.”

Categories
Entertainment

It is Official: Manifest Has Been Renewed For Season 4

MANIFESTO -

manifest will return for another season. After NBC canceled the show in June, Netflix picked up the series for a fourth and final season. Fittingly, the streamer announced the news on Aug 28, aka Aug 28, in honor of the series’ mysterious Flight 828. The “oversized” final season will consist of 20 episodes that conclude the story once and for all. A release date has not been confirmed, but it is possible that the final season will be split into different parts.

“What began as a high-altitude flight deep in my imagination years ago has grown into the jet engine journey of my life,” said showrunner Jeff Rake in a press release about the renewal. “Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that this story, its characters and the team that work so hard to bring it to life would radiate love and support from around the world. The fact that we can reward the fans with the end they deserve moves me without end. On behalf of the cast, crew, writers, directors and producers, I thank Netflix, Warner Bros. and of course the fans.

We are certainly excited to see what journey the passengers of Flight 828 will take next, as the shocking finale of the third season of the show on June 10 completely changed the trajectory of the show. Not only was there a major character death, but there was an important twist that could lead to even more answers about what really happened on Flight 828. While we wait for more details, you can now catch up on all three seasons on Netflix.

Categories
Politics

SEC steps up analysis into ‘gamification’ of buying and selling with on-line brokers, Gary Gensler says

SEC steps up research into 'gamification' of trading with online brokers, Gary Gensler says

Former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler, testifies at a US Senate Banking Committee hearing on systemic risk and market oversight on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 22, 2012.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on Friday that it is intensifying its investigation into gamification and behavioral prompts used by online brokers and investment advisors to encourage people to trade more stocks and other securities.

Wall Street’s top regulator said that rosy earnings forecasts can mislead investors from technology that in reality underestimates the risk of a particular investment or the chances of staggering returns.

“While new technologies allow us greater access and product choice, they also raise the question of whether we as investors are adequately protected when we trade and seek financial advice,” said SEC chairman Gary Gensler in a press release. “In many cases, these characteristics can encourage investors to trade more often, to invest in other products or to change their investment strategy.”

The SEC often seeks public comments before drafting new rules and regulations for Wall Street, which means Friday’s announcement, while procedural, could be a headache for industry leaders.

Robinhood Markets, the operator of a popular digital trading platform that has been under scrutiny for its client trading requests, fell as much as 1% to the day’s lows, according to the SEC report.

The commission said that online investment firms and brokers often use “predictive” analytics tools designed to show clients what they would make under optimal – but not necessarily likely – outcomes.

While brokers may disclose that their predictive models are no guarantees of future returns, Gensler would like to gather investors’ thoughts on game-like features on financial platforms, behavioral prompts, more frequent trading, and “other digital elements or features designed to interact with” retail investors on digital platforms. “

As part of the announcement, the SEC announced that it would collect public submissions for 30 days after the application and comment forms are made available online.

Gensler said he was particularly keen to hear from the public on two key issues.

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First, the SEC chairman would like to know how financial regulators should protect investors from a potential conflict of interest.

Online brokers make profits when their customers trade more often. Robinhood Markets, for example, makes part of its money by sending its customers’ orders to high-frequency traders for cash. This process is itself controversial and known on Wall Street as paying for the flow of orders.

But if game-like prompts or congratulatory messages from online brokers encourage customers to make more trades – and especially if more trades result in poor portfolio performance at slightly lower prices – should the SEC intervene?

Gensler’s second key question is a little more cerebral.

In essence, the SEC wants to answer: If the game-like or predictive prompts from brokers are producing optimal results and affecting how often clients trade, should the regulator treat those prompts in the app as formal investment recommendations or advice?

The SEC often seeks public comments before drafting new rules and regulations for Wall Street, which means Friday’s announcement, while procedural, could be a headache for industry leaders.

Despite the stellar growth of the millennials favorite stock trading app, Robinhood has faced regulatory headwinds when it comes to its digital engagement with its millions of clients.

The financial industry regulator imposed Robinhood in June with the highest fine ever of around $ 70 million. FINRA said its penalty came in response to Robinhood’s technical failures in March during a spike in trading frenzy, their lack of diligence in authorizing clients to place option trades, and providing misleading information to clients on issues such as margin trading .

CEO Vlad Tenev testified to the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee in February about the GameStop trading mania in early 2021.

Robinhood also paid the SEC $ 65 million after being charged with misleading clients about how the app makes money and fails to deliver the promised best execution of trades.

In response to the public backlash, Robinhood has since taken steps to address some of the controls, such as:

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World News

How Canadian Leaders Marketing campaign in a Pandemic

How Canadian Leaders Campaign in a Pandemic

After nearly two weeks of campaigning, it would be a stretch to say that election fever is sweeping Canada. Lawn signs are relatively scarce in Eastern Ontario, where I live, and others tell me similar stories from other parts of the country.

Political scientists and pollsters expect, or hope, that the nation’s focus will turn to the campaign after Labor Day brings an unofficial end to summer’s all-too-short reign.

Meanwhile, inside the campaigns, candidates and their teams are busy looking for new ways to get their messages across and interact with voters during the pandemic, without risking in-person gatherings.

This week, I checked out a modified campaign event hosted by the Conservative Party in Ottawa, my first event of this campaign. The party has transformed part of a ballroom in a downtown Ottawa hotel into a television studio that Erin O’Toole, its leader, uses for what the party calls virtual town hall meetings, which it targets to specific parts of the country. On Tuesday, when I dropped by, the audience was in British Columbia.

For about an hour, the Conservatives robot-dialed voters in the province and asked them if they would listen in and try to ask Mr. O’Toole questions.

Mr. O’Toole had an answer for every question, of course. But the callers weren’t allowed to follow up, making it impossible to determine if his answers actually satisfied them. That said, it’s likely safe to assume that the man who asked if Mr. O’Toole would take the advice of a recent U.N. report to immediately start moving away from fossil fuels was not sated. After acknowledging that the Conservatives did not have a valid climate plan in 2019, Mr. O’Toole praised the party’s new proposal, a system that would aim for substantially smaller emissions reductions than the government’s current target.

Mr. O’Toole has conducted 10 virtual town halls from Ottawa to date. The sessions are streamed live on YouTube and through Facebook, where questions can be submitted in writing. But the questioners, and the listeners, are found mostly through automated phone calls placed by the campaign, and none of them appear on video. The party declined to describe the screening process it uses before putting anyone through to Mr. O’Toole. But there are clearly people vetting the callers.

Whether by chance or by design, many of the questions at the session that I attended, and others that I watched, were on issues that polls show resonate the most with Conservative voters, such as the budget deficit and rolling back recently strengthened gun controls. But at least two people called for action on climate change far beyond what the Conservatives are proposing.

The session had the feel of a video stream of a talk radio show. Its moderator was Michael Barrett, a Conservative member of Parliament from Eastern Ontario, who never challenged any of Mr. O’Toole’s claims and promises, the way an independent host might.

The vast ballroom-turned-studio, dominated by a flag lined stage that vaguely evokes the interior of the Parliament buildings, was utterly devoid of campaign atmosphere during the session.

The only people physically present during the town hall were professionals. In addition to me, the very socially distanced, in-person audience consisted of a television producer, a television network camera operator, a handful of Conservative Party technicians running the show, Mr. O’Toole’s bodyguards and, briefly, a photographer.

Despite the absence of a crowd, let alone crowd energy, Mr. O’Toole remained enthusiastic and energetic for the entire hour.

It’s much too early to say if virtual town halls, like other pandemic make-dos, will succeed the traditional campaign road show with its jets and buses. Mr. O’Toole is, like the other leaders, still hitting the road. I’ll also be out there soon to see how the campaigns of Mr. Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh of the New Democrats have adjusted to the pandemic.

This week: Letter Boxed, where you try to create words using letters surrounding a square. All of The Times’s games, and tips on playing them, can be found here.

A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.

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Politics

U.S. Blew Up a C.I.A. Submit Used to Evacuate At-Danger Afghans

U.S. Blew Up a C.I.A. Post Used to Evacuate At-Risk Afghans

A controlled detonation by American forces, which could be heard across Kabul, has destroyed Eagle Base, the last CIA outpost outside of Kabul airport, US officials said on Friday.

The demolition of the base was to ensure that no devices or information left behind could get into the hands of the Taliban.

Eagle Base, which began in a former brick factory at the beginning of the war, was used throughout the conflict. It grew from a small outpost to a sprawling center where the anti-terrorism forces of the Afghan intelligence services were trained.

These forces were some of the only ones who continued to fight after the government collapsed, according to current and former officials.

“You were an exceptional unit,” said Mick Mulroy, a former CIA officer who served in Afghanistan. “They have been one of the most important ways the Afghan government has kept the Taliban in check for the past 20 years. They were the last to fight and they suffered heavy losses. “

Native Afghans knew little about the grassroots. The terrain was extremely safe and designed to be nearly impossible to penetrate. Walls up to ten feet high surrounded the grounds and a thick metal gate quickly slid open and shut to let cars in.

Inside, the cars had to go through three external security checkpoints, where the vehicles were searched and documents checked before they were allowed to enter the base.

During the early years of the war, a subordinate CIA officer was put in charge of the salt mine, a detention facility near Eagle Base. There, the officer ordered a prisoner, Gul Rahman, to take off his clothes and chain them to a wall. He died of hypothermia. A CIA board recommended disciplinary action but was overruled.

A former CIA contractor said leveling the base would not have been an easy task. In addition to burning documents and crushing hard drives, sensitive devices also had to be destroyed so that they did not fall into the hands of the Taliban. Eagle Base, the former contractor said, is not an embassy where documents can be burned quickly.

The destruction of the base was planned and had nothing to do with the massive explosion at the airport, in which an estimated 170 Afghans and 13 American soldiers were killed. But the detonation hours after the attack on the airport alarmed many people in Kabul, who feared that it was another terrorist attack.

The official American mission in Afghanistan to evacuate US citizens and Afghan allies ends next Tuesday. The Taliban have said the evacuation effort cannot be extended, and Biden government officials say continuing beyond that date would significantly increase the risks for both Afghans and US forces.

Categories
Entertainment

When Europe Supplied Black Composers an Ear

When Europe Offered Black Composers an Ear

Running the festival was not an easy task. It involved translating dozen of black American art songs from English into German. In addition, historical negligence shaped which scores and voices the orchestra and singers were able to find. “This music has been forgotten,” said conductor Roderick Cox of William Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony”. “It was neglected; They couldn’t get access to this music through the publishers; the parts were in ruins. “

In fact, Dawson’s Symphony – once hailed as a brilliant success – rested in the United States for decades. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the only recent recording of it was made in Vienna.

But praising Europe for providing a platform for the music of black American composers leaves out an important part of the story. White European support and advocacy for black American musicians has often come at the expense of their own black populations. As many black European intellectuals and activists have pointed out, do Europeans know the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Trayvon Martin, but do they know the names of Oury Jalloh, Stephen Lawrence and Jerry Masslo?

Renowned music institutes such as Darmstadt in Germany have rarely invited black composers to join their international communities, or given German-based black composers such as Robert Owens and Benjamin Patterson their rights. In the city of Hamburg with a black population from the 19th summer were almost entirely white.

Europe has been lax in promoting its own historical black composers and musicians such as George Bridgetower, Amanda Aldridge, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and Avril Coleridge-Taylor. Many of the recent high profile performances by black European performers and composers can be attributed more to the Chineke Orchestra in England – Europe’s first ensemble with a majority of colored musicians – than to white European music institutions. Other black European composers such as Werner Jaegerhuber, a Haitian-German composer who lived in Germany from 1915 until his escape from the Nazis in 1937, have not yet received significant European attention.

Recognizing black composers on every stage puts pressure on institutions to grapple with their racist past and envision a better future. Nearly a century apart, Rudolph Dunbar’s performance of Still’s Afro-American Symphony and Roderick Cox’s of Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony suggest that efforts to promote racial justice go hand in hand with commitment to the power of music to use. Performing the music of black composers is not easy or just an opportunity to correct historical errors. It should also not be considered equivalent to eating your proverbial broccoli. Rather, it is an invitation to the most exquisite dishes. Fighting for the music of black composers means fighting for a better world.

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Politics

Barack Obama points assertion on Kabul assault: ‘Heartbroken’

Barack Obama issues statement on Kabul attack: 'Heartbroken'

Former United States President Barack Obama is hosting a drive-in rally for Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden on October 27, 2020 in Orlando, Florida.

Eva Edelheit | Reuters

WASHINGTON – Former President Barack Obama made a formal statement on Afghanistan on Friday, his first since the U.S. military entered the final stages of its withdrawal from the country two weeks ago.

Obama said he and former first lady Michelle Obama were “heartbroken when they heard of the terrorist attack outside Kabul airport that killed and wounded so many US soldiers and Afghan men, women and children.”

“As president, nothing was more painful than mourning with the families of the Americans who gave their lives for our country,” he said.

Obama continued, “As President Biden said, these soldiers are heroes who have dangerous, selfless missions to save the lives of others.”

That line served as a rhetorical nod to Obama’s former vice president and essentially confirmed that Biden is now in charge.

Obama’s testimony came the same day that Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak’s family confirmed he was one of the dead.

“We also think of the families of the deceased Afghans, many of whom stood by America and were ready to risk anything for a chance for a better life,” said Obama.

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Obama is the last of the four US presidents who led the US 20-year war in Afghanistan to comment on the situation.

He is also the president who ordered an additional 30,000 US soldiers into the country in late 2009, a decision that his then Vice President Biden firmly opposed.

At the time, Obama believed that US firepower could sustain Afghanistan’s fragile, corrupt post-Taliban government.

Eleven years later, that government collapsed within hours when the Taliban retook Kabul on August 15 without firing a single shot.

Obama did not mention the entire evacuation effort in his statement on Friday. But earlier this year he said he strongly supported Biden’s decision to end America’s longest war.

“After nearly two decades of putting our troops in danger, it is time to recognize that we have accomplished all we can militarily and that it is time to bring our remaining troops home” Obama said on April 14th.

The two Republicans who led the war, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, have both openly opposed Biden’s decision to withdraw American troops – albeit in different ways.

Bush, who started the war shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, said he feared for the country’s women and girls who are facing almost certain repression due to the Taliban’s fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law.

Bush in July also painted a bleak picture of what awaited Afghans who had worked for the US-led coalition over the past two decades.

“I think of all the interpreters and people who have helped not only the US forces but also the NATO forces, and they are simple, it seems like they are just being left behind to be butchered by these very brutal people and it breaks my “heart”, Bush told Deutsche Welle.

Trump has taken a different path, making a number of statements over the past few weeks that skew his own record and falsely accuse Biden of withdrawing American troops in front of US civilians. Trump has also tried to label refugees evacuated from Afghanistan as “terrorists”.