She was always reticent about her personal opinions about people and policies. She was reluctant even to divulge whether she had a favourite hymn, knowing that she would be condemned ever afterwards to hear it on every occasion.

During the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, in a speech at Lambeth Palace the Queen was explicit about her own view of the role of the Church of England in a multicultural country. ‘The concept of our established church is occasionally misunderstood and I believe commonly underappreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.’

The Queen believed that the ‘Defender of the Faith’ should be the friend and protector of all the faiths which make up the national community. She was an assiduous visitor to temples, gurdwaras and mosques. The idea, however, that you could slip the Christian anchorage in favour of a generalised benevolence to all religions was not one she instinctively favoured. To be simply a ‘Defender of Faith’, rather than the Faith, suggests that one occupies an elevated position in which all faiths are seen as more or less adequate local editions of something vaguely lying beyond them all. Spiritual progress and deeper appreciation of other traditions comes from the serious and disciplined choice of a particular way to follow. The Queen was intensely disciplined in every aspect of her life including in its spiritual dimension. Wherever she was, Sunday worship was a priority.

Read it all.

'The Queen was explicit on numerous occasions that her "inspiration and anchor" was Jesus Christ. Her words reflect a firm personal faith nourished by the experience of prayers and Bible-reading with her mother.'

✍️ Richard Chartreshttps://t.co/VkaAqT0IJI

— The Spectator (@spectator) September 15, 2022

The chaplain service will start at 9am…Wednesday 14th September…and run until Sunday 18th September. They will be with the crowd during day-light hours.

The chaplains will be identifiable by their Hi-Vis vests with Faith Team printed on them.

They will move along with the crowd and will introduce themselves, have conversations and, only if requested, pray with people.

The Church of England is working in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to organise this collaborative chaplaincy.

Read it all.

pic.twitter.com/U5ph5hcVdg

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 14, 2022

For Mr. Putin, the war in Ukraine began as what Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass has called a “war of choice.” Mr. Putin could have left Ukraine undisturbed and gone on to rule Russia for many years to come. But having chosen to start the war, he can’t afford to lose it. Radical Russian nationalists are already blaming him for the military failures in Ukraine. The Kremlin is no place for the weak, and the hard men who run Russia could turn on a politically wounded Mr. Putin in a heartbeat. Regardless of public sentiment across Russia, the people closest to Mr. Putin likely still want him to win the war.

The question is what Mr. Putin does next. If he can stabilize the military front until winter sets in, he has several months to prepare for the spring. He might use that time to organize a general mobilization, building a much larger conscript army for another year of conventional combat. But if the front doesn’t stabilize, or if he feels that public resistance to a general mobilization could endanger the stability of the regime, he might look to more drastic options, such as the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

It is anything but clear how the West would respond. Allowing Mr. Putin to use nuclear blackmail to assert his control over Ukraine would be such a craven act that the moral and political foundations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be shaken to the core—and nuclear-armed aggressors elsewhere would take note. Yet the obvious countermove, placing Ukraine under an American nuclear umbrella, risks the greatest nuclear crisis since John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev squared off over Cuba in October 1962.

So far, American policy has aimed at avoiding the binary choice between abandoning Ukraine and provoking a nuclear confrontation with Russia….

Read it all.

What if Putin Uses a Nuclear Weapon in Ukraine? by @wrmead Putin’s response to Ukraine’s military success could lead to the most dangerous nuclear standoff since the 1962 Cuba Missile Crisis. https://t.co/0Wy002dYZw

— Walter Russell Mead (@wrmead) September 12, 2022

There is a danger that we consign Elizabeth and what she represents of embodied faithfulness to the angels and to history and go forward on our atomised way as a society and a Church into an ever more individualist future, where the only mutual belonging is in our separate identity groups. Instead, let us use that sense of common loss to forge ever-stronger bonds between neighbours, classes, cultures, and nations, and resist the forces that seek to pull us apart. As King Charles said in his first speech, we must instead “help … to bring the marginal to the centre ground”; the needs of Lazarus must be at the heart of our attention. We need strong neighbourhoods and parishes to resist the pressures of globalisation, of racism and hate. The virtues and the faith of the late Queen, far from being old-fashioned and superseded, are what we need for our future, which will only be sustainable if we can co-operate, act sacrificially, and show steadfastness and loyalty.

So we clergy can wear our white vestments of hope with integrity, for in laying Elizabeth to rest and acknowledging the religious resources upon which she drew, we can affirm the value of a Christian monarchy as offering a world of many faiths and cultures a moral umbrella, in which we can imagine together a better world of real justice, peace, and co-operation.

May she rest in peace and rise in glory. And may her faithfulness inspire and steady us in the years to come.

Read it all.

"In laying Elizabeth to rest and acknowledging the religious resources upon which she drew, we can affirm the value of a Christian monarchy as offering a world of many faiths and cultures a moral umbrella." – Alison Milbank https://t.co/WnEAMOzIJD

— Ryan Haecker (@RyanHaecker) September 13, 2022

Contrast the Post summary with this language from her majesty’s 2011 talk, as transcribed by the BBC.

Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: ‘Fear not’, they urged, ‘we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. ‘For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.’

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves — from our recklessness or our greed.

God sent into the world a unique person — neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.

That’s a bit more specific, isn’t it? Year after year, Queen Elizabeth stressed that her faith was at the heart of her life and work. Was this a valid and important part of her (news) story?

Read it all.

“God sent into the world a unique person: neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive. Those are words from the Queen’s Christmas speech in 2011.” From Saturday’s Requiem for HM the Queen: https://t.co/jD6LQm829x pic.twitter.com/fp30dRY4yk

— All Saints Margaret Street (@ASMSLondon) September 12, 2022

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, said that it had always been very clear to him that Queen Elizabeth II was a woman of deep personal faith, particularly through her public speaking.

“She was unafraid to be a strong, personal and courageous witness to the teachings of Christ,” he said.

“Here was a woman who lived her faith – who served the Lord at every moment of her life and who really wrote faith into everything that she thought, said and did.”

Archbishop Martin said that he always always believed the Queen was someone who practiced her faith, who regularly went to church, and was “clearly steeped in the word of God”.

Read it all.

Religious leaders reflect on the Queen's Christian faith https://t.co/wt4qExe9vD

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) September 11, 2022

She was very friendly and clearly a very devout, what we would consider ‘old fashioned’ Church of England Christian.

I remember thinking during more than one Christmas broadcast, she has just preached the gospel to the nation in a way that perhaps nobody else could have done.

I was a small boy when the coronation took place, and I remember being taken down to the town square. We lived in the far north of England, and there was a ceremony. My sister and I were both given coronation Bibles, and I think we had coronation socks and a coronation mug.

I remember when she was presiding at the opening of General Synod and there was a communion service in Westminster Abbey. She expressed great surprise afterwards because the way communion was distributed was by people simply walking forward in a line and receiving communion without kneeling down, whereas she was used to receiving communion while kneeling down. Kneeling was important to her, and worshipping was something to do with your whole body.

Read it all.

#NTWright reflects on meeting #QueenElizabeth with ⁦@UnbelievableJB⁩ @profntwright⁩ “At a time when people are very inclined to sneer and poke at any inconsistencies in the behaviour of people in public life, she has set an extraordinary example.” https://t.co/YJZBQj8X6E

— Judson Taylor (@judsontaylor) September 10, 2022

…she saw the monarchy as something larger than herself, something to which her personal interests had to be subordinated.

Some of this was no doubt due to her quiet but serious Christian faith. A friend who once had the privilege of being a royal chaplain and spending a weekend at Balmoral Castle confirmed that the conversations he had with the queen revealed her to be a thoughtful, devout Christian. As a humble Christian she took her earthly vocation seriously, placing the needs of the office and of the people she ruled before her own.

Unlike most heads of state today, she was a person to whom one could point and say to one’s children and grandchildren, “When you grow up, you want to be like her.” Her reign was marked with a deep sense of the dignity of her office. She never used profane language. She never sneered at critics. A generation raised on reality TV, life-as-performance, confected Twitter outrage, and “living loud” would do well to reflect upon that. To how many other executives of the past decades can one point as a good example to follow? Maybe that is why monarchy might not be such a bad thing after all. Democratically-elected leaders often achieve their positions thanks to ruthless ambition, dirty tricks, and an overwhelming sense of their own vital importance. The queen was never burdened with such temptations, and it showed.

Read it all.

A favourite photo the Queen and Prince Philip. pic.twitter.com/ntUfe1FixU

— Mark Fox (@MarkFoxNews) September 8, 2022

“The role and the duties of monarchy also remain, as does the Sovereign’s particular relationship and responsibility towards the Church of England – the Church in which my own faith is so deeply rooted.

“In that faith, and the values it inspires, I have been brought up to cherish a sense of duty to others, and to hold in the greatest respect the precious traditions, freedoms and responsibilities of our unique history and our system of parliamentary government.

“As the Queen herself did with such unswerving devotion, I too now solemnly pledge myself, throughout the remaining time God grants me, to uphold the constitutional principles at the heart of our nation.

“And wherever you may live in the United Kingdom, or in the realms and territories across the world, and whatever may be your background or beliefs, I shall endeavour to serve you with loyalty, respect and love, as I have throughout my life.

Read it all.

Just published: front page of the Financial Times international edition Saturday September 10 https://t.co/fFNcSDDQqB pic.twitter.com/6xBPaRGOkQ

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) September 9, 2022

Queen Elizabeth II is being mourned by her family, fans and admirers. In Britain, her death at age 96 has thrown a state apparatus into motion that has sat idle for 70 years — since Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, died in 1952.

The British government dubbed the intricate protocol of handling Elizabeth’s death “Operation London Bridge.” It ranges from succession rules to the process of bringing the queen’s coffin from Balmoral Castle in Scotland to London.

The London Bridge plans were leaked to Politico last fall. Some of the details may have changed since then — but using them as a guide, here’s a brief look at what the documents say will happen in the first 10 days after the end of the queen’s record-setting reign:

Read it all.

Sept 2015: #Queen Elizabeth II becomes the longest reigning #monarch in history of the United Kingdom. She began her reign on February 6, 1952. #UK #Britain #history #OTD #ad https://t.co/SR7wt7OVcV https://t.co/6c5ZTC8mwA pic.twitter.com/3VffsOT3sv

— Today In History (@URDailyHistory) September 9, 2022

The Bishop of Worcester, Dr John Inge, said: “She has been on the throne since before most of us were born and has been a constant source of strength, stability, and inspiration throughout her long reign. She has been the glue which has held this country and the Commonwealth together, and I give heartfelt thanks for her life of selfless service.

“That service was undergirded and enabled by a deep Christian faith, and we now commend her to the God in whom she believed, whose love is stronger than death, as we also pray for members of the Royal Family, particularly our new King.”

The Bishop of Chichester, Dr Martin Warner, described Queen Elizabeth’s death as “a moment of bereavement for the whole nation, and for the Commonwealth”. He continued: “She will remain in our hearts and minds as an exceptional example of public duty and commitment to her high calling, carried out with unswerving faith in God. Let us come together as a nation to mark her death with dignity and pride.”

The Bishop of Oxford, Dr Steven Croft, said that her “devoted service” had given “stability to the nation throughout this Elizabethan age”. Her “deep, personal Christian faith”, had inspired him and many, he said.

Read it all.

LATEST. Church of England Bishops have paid tribute to the late Queen, describing her as a source of strength to the nation, and giving thanks for the Christian faith that sustained her during her 70-year reign https://t.co/MwTGAfmXik

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 9, 2022

In times of grief, fear, or vulnerability, we can cling to the wounded feet of Christ. It is offered to all of us.

We can look out at the world, and can find that our lives can be abundant, as Her Late Majesty’s was, that our lives can find hope, even in the face of death.

We remember today especially the Royal Family in their grief. We pray for the reign of His Majesty King Charles III. He will feel especially the weight of this change.

In the Christian story of life, death, and resurrection, there is space for our grief and uncertainty. We see the wounds of Christ who died with us. But with God, the final words are abundant life and fulfilled hope. And in Her Majesty’s life we saw that and can be inspired.

Read it all.

Queen Elizabeth 1926 – 2022 @guardian #frontpagestoday #UK pic.twitter.com/azhAbIHRKo

— (@ukpapers) September 9, 2022

The day you gave us, Lord, is ended,
the darkness falls at your request;
to you our morning hymns ascended,
your praise shall sanctify our rest.

Rest eternal grant unto her.
8th September 2022 pic.twitter.com/nMEQZywK8C

— Graham Usher (@bishopnorwich) September 8, 2022

It is with profound sadness that I join the nation, the Commonwealth and the world in mourning the death of Her Late Majesty The Queen. My prayers are with The King and the Royal Family. May God draw near them and comfort them in the days, weeks and months ahead.

As we grieve together, we know that, in losing our beloved Queen, we have lost the person whose steadfast loyalty, service and humility has helped us make sense of who we are through decades of extraordinary change in our world, nation and society.

As deep as our grief runs, even deeper is our gratitude for Her Late Majesty’s extraordinary dedication to the United Kingdom, her Realms and the Commonwealth. Through times of war and hardship, through seasons of upheaval and change, and through moments of joy and celebration, we have been sustained by Her Late Majesty’s faith in what and who we are called to be.

In the darkest days of the Coronavirus pandemic, The Late Queen spoke powerfully of the light that no darkness can overcome….

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has written to Anglican Primates following the news that Queen Elizabeth II has died.https://t.co/QQ7YZKBwmy

— Anglican Communion News Service (@AnglicanNews) September 8, 2022

Read it all.

Queen Elizabeth II steered the monarchy through turbulent times and was for many a constant point in a rapidly changing world https://t.co/Ej6IOP9ASc

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) September 8, 2022

We join with Anglicans around the world in praying for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and her family.

We pray for God’s presence to strengthen and support The Queen, the Royal Family, and those who are caring for Her Majesty. https://t.co/hpt3mbGZk0 pic.twitter.com/FvGA1V0dd9

— Anglican Communion (@AnglicanWorld) September 8, 2022

God Save The Queen 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/MyrI2NyPG6

— Lucy Jones (@ByLucyJones) September 8, 2022

Shouting fire in theatre is something not done lightly, unless there actually is a fire in the theatre. For Europe’s economy, I think it is time to shout. What we are about to see this autumn and winter is not your standard recession, but the kind of shock that will shape our memories and narratives for the rest of the century.

Last week, I saw a projection of a 5% GDP shock for Germany, based on energy futures prices. In case of an ongoing stop to gas flows and a cold winter, the recession could be worse. Gazprom already announced an indefinite stop of flows through Nord Stream 1, apparently because of an oil leak.

The main quality of the ongoing recession is not so much its measured impact on GDP – though it will probably be substantial. It is the fact that we have exhausted our policy options. Monetary policy in the last decade went way overboard with large-scale quantitative easing and its subsequent refusal to reverse it. The west reacted to the pandemic with the biggest fiscal stimulus package in history.

Economists keep on telling us that we need fiscal expansion in a recession. I agree with that. But what is different this century from the previous one is that we keep on doubling down with stimulus and monetary easing. And we never grow out of the debt.

Read it all.

In my latest column, I write about why Germany's recession is not only unusually severe, but different in kind.https://t.co/miKRJoRpN8

— Wolfgang Munchau (@EuroBriefing) September 5, 2022

Opposition figure Raila Odinga said Tuesday that he would challenge the results of Kenya’s close presidential election with “all constitutional and legal options” after Deputy President William Ruto was declared the winner, bringing new uncertainty to East Africa’s most stable democracy.

Now the country faces weeks of disputes and the possibility that the Supreme Court will order another election. Religious and other leaders have pleaded for calm to continue in a nation with a history of deadly post-election violence.

“Let no one take the law into their own hands,” Odinga said to his often-passionate supporters. In Kisumu, a city in his western Kenya stronghold, some residents said they were tired of going into the street and being tear-gassed.

Read it all.

https://t.co/BIijVI9R7q

— ARTIDÔNIO (@TVARTOURICURI) August 16, 2022

Chinese authorities are pushing political critics into psychiatric hospitals where they are subjected to electroshock therapy and forced drugging nearly a decade after the country passed laws against such abuse, a new report said on Tuesday.

The study published by Madrid-based rights group Safeguard Defenders drew on the testimony of 99 people over a period of seven years, with alleged victims saying they were also placed in isolation for long periods and tied to beds where they were forced to lie in their own excrement.

Read it all (subscription).

Chinese authorities are locking political critics into psychiatric hospitals where they are subjected to electroshock therapy and forced drugging nearly a decade after the country passed laws against such abuse https://t.co/lC9VbXngeZ

— Alfons López Tena 🦇 (@alfonslopeztena) August 16, 2022

Kenya’s vote counting system has not been hacked amid a tense wait for results of Tuesday’s presidential election, a top poll official has said.

“Nothing like that has happened. It is misinformation,” said the electoral commission’s CEO Marjan Hussein Marjan.

Social media has been awash with allegations that fake results have been uploaded as the count is verified.

Media tallies show the two leading candidates – Raila Odinga and William Ruto – are neck and neck.

But it is only the electoral commission that can declare the winner – and it has seven days to do so.

“We anticipated that people would try to hack our systems… we assure the whole country that our systems are actually secure,” Mr Marjan told reporters on Friday afternoon.

Read it all.

Kenya elections: Long wait for Raila Odinga and William Ruto in poll count

Kenya's vote counting system has not been hacked amid a tense wait for results of Tuesday's presidential election, a top poll official has said. ⁦@DickensOlewe⁩ https://t.co/Gghsnr5mAd

— Ashis Basu (@BasuAshis) August 12, 2022

….the focus on Pelosi’s visit is misplaced. The important question is why China responded not just by denouncing the trip, but with import and export bans, cyberattacks, and military exercises that represented a major escalation over anything it had previously done to punish and intimidate Taiwan.

None of this was inevitable. The Chinese leadership had options. It could have ignored or downplayed Pelosi’s visit. What we saw was a reaction – more accurately, an overreaction – of choice. The scale and complexity of the response indicates that it had long been planned, suggesting that if the Pelosi trip had not taken place, some other development would have been cited as a pretext to “justify” China’s actions.

China’s increasingly fraught internal political and economic situation goes a long way toward explaining Xi’s reaction. His priority is to be appointed to an unprecedented third term as leader of the Communist Party of China; but the country’s economic performance, for decades the principal source of legitimacy for China’s leaders, can no longer be counted on as growth slows, unemployment rises, and financial bubbles burst. Xi’s insistence on maintaining a zero-COVID policy is also drawing criticism domestically and reducing economic growth.

Increasingly, it appears that Xi is turning to nationalism as a substitute. When it comes to generating popular support in China, nothing competes with asserting the mainland’s sovereignty over Taiwan.

Read it all.

America and China agree on very little these days. Yet on the subject of Taiwan, at least in one regard, they are in total harmony. The status quo surrounding the self-governing island, which China claims and whose thriving democracy America supports, is changing in dangerous ways, say officials on both sides. War does not look imminent, but the uneasy peace that has held for more than six decades is fragile. Ask them who is at fault, however, and the harmony shatters.

That much is clear from the crisis triggered this month by a visit to Taiwan by the speaker of America’s House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. She was well within her rights, but her trip was provocative. It infuriated the Chinese Communist Party. One of Ms Pelosi’s predecessors had visited the island in 1997, but China’s top diplomat claimed that American “saboteurs” had wrecked the status quo. After Ms Pelosi left, China fired missiles over the island and carried out live-fire drills that encircled it, as if it were rehearsing for a blockade.

Since the previous stand-off in 1995-96, America, China and Taiwan have all grown uneasy with the ambiguities and contradictions—the status quo, if you will—on which peace precariously rests. China, especially, has bared its teeth. If the world is to avoid war, it urgently needs to strike a new balance.

Read it all.

The status quo surrounding Taiwan, which China claims and whose thriving democracy America supports, is changing in dangerous ways, say officials on both sides https://t.co/NjXho4LRNv

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) August 11, 2022

I don’t think many Americans appreciate just how tense and tenuous, how very touch and go the energy situation in Europe is right now.

For months, as news of the Ukraine war receded a bit, it was possible to follow the energy story unfolding across the Atlantic and still assume an uncomfortable but familiar-enough winter in Europe, characterized primarily by high prices.

In recent weeks, the prospects have begun to look darker. In early August the European Union approved a request that member states reduce gas consumption by 15 percent — quite a large request and one that several initially balked at. In Spain, facing record-breaking heat wave after record-breaking heat wave at the height of the country’s tourist season, the government announced restrictions on commercial air-conditioning, which may not be set below 27 degrees Celsius, or about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. In France, an Associated Press article said, “urban guerrillas” are taking to the streets, shutting off storefront lights to reduce energy consumption. In the Netherlands a campaign called Flip the Switch is asking residents to limit showers to five minutes and to drop air-conditioning and clothes dryers entirely. Belgium has reversed plans to retire nuclear power plants, and Germany, having ruled out the possibility of such a turnabout in June, is now considering it as well.

Read it all.

“I think there’s been a gradual and growing recognition that we are headed into the worst global energy crisis at least since the 1970s and perhaps longer than that.”—⁦@JasonBordoff. https://t.co/gSipgPuVru

— David Wallace-Wells (@dwallacewells) August 10, 2022

In southampton 20-odd people are picketing Red Funnel, a ferry company that carries people to and from the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. The strikers complain about their pay and treatment. But they are most exercised by the rapidly rising cost of living. One young woman says that she went into debt to attend a friend’s wedding. A man describes watching his electricity meter in horror, knowing that a big bill is coming. “Everyone’s just had enough,” he says.

The sun pours down on the strikers. Britain as a whole has had a hot, dry summer; southern England extremely so. A weather station west of Southampton recorded no precipitation in July—the first zero monthly reading since it began operating in 1957. On August 5th Southern Water, the local supplier, banned residents from watering their gardens or washing their cars with hoses. Other water companies will follow.

It has not been a long, hot summer in the American sense—the country has thankfully seen no large-scale disturbances. Instead it is a season of drift and dysfunction. Dry weather has combined with inflation, industrial disputes, transport snafus and political paralysis. As Michael Gove, until recently a cabinet minister, admitted last month, parts of the state are barely functioning. It is Britain’s summer of discontent.

For the middle-aged and old, the inescapable comparison is with the summer of 1976. That year saw a lower peak temperature but a worse drought—in parts of Wales the water was turned off every day at 2pm. It was also a period of high inflation, industrial unrest and political turmoil: the prime minister, Harold Wilson, had unexpectedly resigned in the spring. The weather fused in people’s minds with other problems. Bernard (now Lord) Donoughue, a political adviser, lay awake at night, “too hot to sleep”, worrying about the pound….

Read it all.

As Michael Gove, until recently a cabinet minister, admitted last month, parts of the state are barely functioning. It is Britain’s summer of discontent 2/2 https://t.co/WLZgpHOtfd

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) August 9, 2022

It is with great pleasure that I send my warm greetings as you continue your meeting in the fifteenth Lambeth Conference. As we all emerge from the pandemic, I know that the Conference is taking place at a time of great need for the love of God – both in word and deed.

I am reminded that this gathering was necessarily postponed two years ago, when you had hoped to mark the centenary of the Lambeth Conference that took place in 1920, in the aftermath of the First World War. Then, the bishops of the Anglican Communion set out a path for an ongoing commitment towards Christian unity in a changing world; a task that is, perhaps, even more important today, as together you look to the future and explore the role of the church in responding to the needs of the present age.

Now, as so often in the past, you have convened during a period of immense challenge for bishops, clergy and lay people around the world, with many of you serving in places of suffering, conflict and trauma. It is of comfort to me that you do so in the strength of God.

Read it all.

LATEST. The #LambethConference is taking place “at a time of great need for the love of God” in a changing world, the Queen has said https://t.co/99s53mNWyg

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) August 3, 2022

…there is no escaping the fact that Al Qaeda continues to fester under the Taliban. This means that the U.S.-Taliban engagement of the past several years has failed. That engagement was predicated on the belief that the Taliban — which hosted Bin Laden before Sept. 11 — would change their ways, seek better relations with the world and prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist safe haven. Al-Zawahri’s sanctuary in Kabul makes clear that America can’t rely on the Taliban’s word.

Unsurprisingly, the Taliban see the targeting of al-Zawahri in Kabul as a blow to their honor and a violation of Afghan sovereignty and the U.S.-Taliban agreement of 2020, and they could respond by stepping up support to Al Qaeda and allied terrorist groups in Afghanistan. (The U.S. government says the Taliban have violated tenets of the agreement by hosting Al-Zawahri.)

Al-Zawahri’s successful targeting in Kabul doesn’t mean that the threat is now over. If anything, it demonstrates that Al Qaeda is resurfacing in Afghanistan and that despite sanctions, the Taliban are comfortable, secure and enabling threats against the region and the Western world.

Read it all.

“There is no escaping the fact that Al Qaeda continues to fester under the Taliban. This means that the U.S.-Taliban engagement of the past several years has failed,” writes @asfandyarmir. https://t.co/sRLpJwJhrl

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) August 2, 2022

The West and China could “miscalculate our way into nuclear war”, the UK’s national security adviser warned on Wednesday night.

Sir Stephen Lovegrove said Britain had “clear concerns” that Beijing was expanding and modernising its nuclear arsenal, adding that China’s “disdain” for arms control agreements was a “daunting prospect”.

In a hardening of the UK position, Sir Stephen warned that the world may no longer have the Cold War safeguards that prevented nuclear war with the USSR and raised the prospect of an “uncontrolled conflict” between China and the West.

He said the world was entering a “dangerous new age of proliferation”, with threats from genetic weapons, space-based systems and lasers.

“We should be honest – strategic stability is at risk,” Sir Stephen said in a speech at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We need to start thinking about the new security order.”

Read it all.

🔴 The West and China could “miscalculate our way into nuclear war” with China, the UK’s national security adviser warned on Wednesday night https://t.co/wVNlUiPKfD

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 27, 2022

If the U.S. is going to develop an effective response to this combination of strategic threats, our political leaders will have to move beyond finger pointing and blame games over the fate of the JCPOA. Republicans can say justly that Mr. Obama’s decision to sign something as consequential and controversial as the Iran nuclear deal without the bipartisan support needed to get a treaty ratified in the Senate was a historic mistake. Democrats can reasonably riposte that Mr. Trump’s unilateral withdrawal made everything worse. Such matters can be left to the historians. The question before us now is not who was right in 2015 or 2018. It is what we do next.

Mr. Biden has repeatedly said that allowing Iran to build nuclear weapons is not an option. If his administration fails to hold that line, the consequences for American power in the Middle East and globally would be profound and perhaps irreversible. If America attacks Iranian nuclear facilities and finds itself stuck in yet another Middle Eastern quagmire, the effects at home and abroad will also be dire. China and Russia would take advantage of America’s Middle East preoccupation to make trouble elsewhere, and U.S. public opinion would be further polarized.

Few presidents have faced policy choices this tough or consequential. It’s understandable if not commendable that the administration postponed the day of reckoning for so long, but as the dead-cat stink intensifies, Mr. Biden is coming closer to the greatest test of his career.

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The Iran negotiations have moved toward failure as America’s international position grew less secure, and today the deal’s impending collapse is part of a global crisis of American power, writes @wrmeadhttps://t.co/SKtoqK6kX2

— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) July 26, 2022

Ukraine says Russia has attacked the Black Sea port city of Odesa less than 24 hours after the two countries agreed to a deal to resume shipments of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain and mitigate a global food crisis.

Ukraine’s military says Russia fired at least four missiles. Two were shot down by Ukraine’s air defense system, and the other two hit an area around the port. Odesa regional governor Maksym Marchenko said an unspecified number of people were injured in the attack.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman compared the attack to “spitting in the face” of the United Nations — which worked with Turkey to broker the grain deal.

Friday’s agreement included Russian assurances that it would not attack port facilities.

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Ukraine says Russia attacked the port city of Odesa less than 24 hours after the two countries struck a deal to resume shipments of millions of tons of Ukrainian grain and mitigate a global food crisis.https://t.co/m7xcciS0Zi

— NPR (@NPR) July 23, 2022