Taliban now control a third of country

The Afghan government has lost control of nearly 5 percent of its territory to the Taliban since the beginning of this year, according to a report by the US government's top watchdog on Afghanistan.
Published on Friday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the report says the area under Afghan government "control or influence" decreased to 65.6 percent by the end of May from 70.5 percent last year, based on data provided by US forces in Afghanistan.

And then the very next day

(AP) -- An important district in Afghanistan's southern poppy-growing province of Helmand has fallen under Taliban control after heavy fighting that killed around 17 police and wounded up to 10 others, an official said on Saturday....
The fall of the district, which borders Pakistan and major poppy-producing districts, means "Taliban are in control of 60 percent of Helmand," Akhonzada said.

B-52s doesn't sound like victory

The number of U.S. air strikes over Afghanistan increased dramatically in July, following the Obama administration's decision the month before to widen the air war in support of Afghan troops on the ground.
“This was the first time the B-52 conducted missions in Afghanistan since arriving in theater in April. It proved its flexibility and precision during close-air support missions,” Karns said in an email. Prior to that, the Stratofortresses had been carrying out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Islamic State militants.

Maybe they are vampires?

For the first time in years, the Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr and his militia are unleashing fiery anti-American rhetoric and threatening to attack U.S. troops.
But top U.S. military officials have downplayed his remarks, saying that for now there’s no cause for concern.
Sadr rose to prominence when his Mahdi Army battled U.S. troops after the 2003 invasion. He has quietly tolerated the comparatively small U.S. military force there now supporting the war on Islamic State extremists. But the powerful cleric became confrontational again after Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced plans on July 11 to send an additional 560 U.S. troops to Iraq, bringing the total to more than 4,600.
"They are a target for us," Sadr said in a post on his official website on July 17.
A few days later, an official spokesman for Sadr’s militia, Alaa Abboud, echoed the threat.
“We are thirsty for Americans’ blood,” Abboud told a prominent Iraqi television news channel.

ISIS in Libya on its way out

Libyan families have started to return home to Sirte after months of displacement. Forces aligned with the United Nations-backed government have been fighting street-by-street to liberate the coastal city from ISIL control.
Several hundred militants are said to remain, but are reported to have been cornered into a small area in the centre of Sirte.
The government-backed troops, which are largely made up of soldiers from Mistrata, have received some support from the Libyan administration in Tripoli, but many say they feel let down and have been hampered by a dearth of medical supplies, equipment and ammunition.

The Yemeni double standard

U.S. support for the Saudis in Yemen has weakened Washington morally at the U.N., allowing Russia and other countries to call the Americans hypocritical for "politicizing" Syrian humanitarian access while supporting a coalition that is blockading an entire country, helping to worsen what in Yemen is numerically the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to U.N. figures for those in need of aid. While the U.S. has highlighted the toll of Russian bombs in Syria, it has been less willing to criticize Saudi’s use of cluster munitions. The weapons are widely banned internationally under a U.N. treaty, but the Pentagon maintains they can be used appropriately. The Saudis offer a prime example of their reckless use in Yemen, where they’ve unleashed them in populated areas. The more flagrant the Saudis are in their behavior, the harder it is for Washington to bury the underlying hypocrisy of its support.
This February, amid a deadly Russian air campaign in support of regime forces aiming to encircle Aleppo, the Security Council met urgently on the humanitarian situation in the city and elsewhere in Syria. But upon leaving the session, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin used the Yemen card, telling reporters, “We are going to propose weekly meetings on the humanitarian situation in Yemen.”
However, when subsequent discussions on Yemen appeared poised to yield a resolution on humanitarian access in the country, the Saudis and other Gulf States met with diplomats from the U.S., France and the United Kingdom to complain. Unlike Syria, for which a similar resolution was passed, no such resolution has been mustered by the Council for Yemen.
As Saudi behavior grew more careless publicly, both on the ground in Yemen in the halls of the U.N., the silence from Washington, and at the U.S. mission to the U.N. in New York, continued. Ambassador Power even found herself defending an intervention in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians, coincided with the spread of Al Qaeda, and undercut her own passionate work to draw attention to the crimes of the Assad regime in Syria.
But there is another reason the U.S. has said little about the strong-arm tactics employed by its closest Arab ally: The hypocrisy might be too much to take. Just last year, the U.S. was instrumental in keeping Israel off the very annex the Saudis found themselves on this month. Leila Zerrougui, the U.N.’s special representative for children and armed conflict, had endorsed the inclusion of both the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas on the blacklist. In the end, neither was, but the pressure exerted by Washington and Israel occurred largely behind the scenes, according to diplomatic norms that are now under the spotlight.

Ireland makes a stand

Three senior Irish bankers were jailed on Friday for up to three-and-a-half years for conspiring to defraud investors in the most prominent prosecution arising from the 2008 banking crisis that crippled the country's economy.
The trio will be among the first senior bankers globally to be jailed for their role in the collapse of a bank during the crisis.
Former Irish Life and Permanent Chief Executive Denis Casey was sentenced to two years and nine months following the 74-day criminal trial, Ireland's longest ever.
Willie McAteer, former finance director at the failed Anglo Irish Bank, and John Bowe, its ex-head of capital markets, were given sentences of 42 months and 24 months respectively.
All three were convicted of conspiring together and with others to mislead investors, depositors and lenders by setting up a 7.2-billion-euro circular transaction scheme between March and September 2008 to bolster Anglo's balance sheet.