Asia First does not mean Asia Alone. That is the hard lesson the world is busy teaching the Biden administration and the U.S. In Europe, American diplomats last week scrambled to respond to Belarus’s weaponization of migration on its border with Poland, warned that Russia is positioning itself to invade Ukraine, and worked to defuse a crisis in the western Balkans. In the Middle East, as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tried to reassure key allies about America’s continuing commitment to their security, U.S. naval forces participated with Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in the unprecedented joint Arab-Israeli military exercises in the Red Sea.

This shift from an Asia First policy to Global Engagement isn’t something the Biden administration is voluntarily choosing. It is a change forced on the U.S. by the actions of adversaries who believe that by keeping America off-balance and overcommitted, they can hasten the process of American decline.

President Biden’s original plan to focus on Asia made good political sense. Progressive Democrats are dead-set against the military spending and political engagement that a truly global American foreign policy would require. And it isn’t only progressive Democrats who are weary of endless wars, freeloading allies, and American diplomatic and sometimes military engagement in faraway hot spots like the western Balkans and Sudan. If we could get Iran back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal and reach at least a temporary understanding with Russia on some issues, Team Biden hoped, reduced engagement in Europe and the Middle East would help make a tougher China policy easier to sell back home—and to pay for.

Team Biden is right about that. Unfortunately, China, Russia and Iran understand the situation as clearly as the White House does, and these powers want Mr. Biden and the nation he leads to fail.

Read it all.

The “pivot to Asia” is failing as an American grand strategy because our adversaries are willing and able to disrupt it, writes @wrmead https://t.co/0VmKPSpV3G

— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) November 23, 2021

In many western countries, politicians, soldiers and veterans gather every November to pay tribute to comrades killed fighting for their country. Among those commemorated this year were more than 3,500 troops from America and its allies who died in Afghanistan before the West’s humiliating retreat this summer. And among those paying tribute, far from the Cenotaph in London or the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, were dusty Western soldiers in small garrisons across a swathe of Africa. With the formalities over, they resumed their posts among almost 9,000 European and American troops on the front line of what is now the West’s biggest offensive against jihadists, in the Sahel. It is not going well. How it will end depends in no small part on whether the West learns the right lessons from its failures in Afghanistan.

Some may argue that the main lesson is to avoid fighting insurgents in distant lands where no pressing national interests are at stake. But that is not the case in the Sahel, where jihadists aligned to al-Qaeda and Islamic State have taken aim at Western countries, bombing their embassies and kidnapping or killing their citizens. If the jihadists are given havens and time, they will surely launch attacks on European or American soil, too. “That is their goal and their determination and they’ve been open about it,” says a Western general.

Western governments see other interests at stake as well. The most afflicted countries of the Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger) are among the poorest, have the world’s fastest-growing populations and are among those where climate change will do the greatest harm.

Read it all.

The West should offer more than a purely military solution to the jihadist insurgencies in the Sahel and be realistic about what it can achieve. A start would be to respond to local grievances https://t.co/sKK5G1h6ZJ

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) November 21, 2021

South Carolina added more than 2,300 new COVID-19 cases over the past three days, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control reported Monday For three straight weeks, the state has seen fewer than 1,000 new daily cases. A similar streak of lower numbers hasn’t occurred since July, when daily case totals were at the lowest since the pandemic began. The Palmetto State’s downward trend of cases over the past month shows the spread of the virus has slowed significantly compared to months earlier.

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More than 550 people have died in South Carolina from COVID-related issues over the past month. https://t.co/6vB9VbnW5g

— The State Newspaper (@thestate) November 22, 2021

Austria will again enter a nationwide lockdown and Germany is no longer ruling out a similar move as Europe grapples with a brutal wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Austria will become the first western European country to impose widespread restrictions after curbs on unvaccinated people failed to stem a surge in new infections. It will also become the first European country to mandate Covid-19 shots as it seeks to exit the crisis.

Read it all.

Austria will enter its fourth nationwide lockdown on Monday as a record spike in Covid cases threatens to overwhelm the country’s health care system https://t.co/nuU5Eb85EP via @bpolitics @virtualnomad @naomikresge

— Robert Jameson (@rhjameson) November 19, 2021

The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, has criticised the Government for its lack of engagement with faith groups at the COP26 climate summit and urged it to make climate change a priority over the coming year.

Bishop Usher, who is the lead bishop on the environment, was at the UN talks in Glasgow which ended on Saturday, when countries had agreed to phase down coal use, end fossil-fuel subsidies, and come back next year to strengthen their commitments. But the promised financial support for poor and vulnerable nations remained lacking.

Bishop Usher said on Tuesday evening: “There was a powerful sense of solidarity across the faith groups and denominations at COP26. All faith traditions value the sanctity of creation, and before the summit many of us met at the Vatican to present our call to COP26 President Alok Sharma, where there was probably 85 per cent of the world’s population represented.

“In Glasgow, it was disappointing to see no space for faith groups at the summit. The Anglican Communion delegation struggled to find spaces to meet. It was a great shame the British Government didn’t put more emphasis on the role of faith communities.”

Bishop Usher applauded the efforts of Mr Sharma, however. He said: “I want to praise the commitment of Alok Sharma and his team, who have worked incredibly hard. The UK has the presidency of the COP for the next 12 months, and I would like to see them making use of this in the lead up to COP27 in Egypt.”

Read it all.

Our friend ⁦@Andy2Atkins⁩, CEO of ⁦@ARochaUK⁩, encourages the @churchofengland⁩ to rethink its attempt to engage with fossil fuel companies & to #divest instead. ‘When you’re facing an emergency, you don’t mess around’” #DivestCofE ⁦ https://t.co/fJDMQw8juF

— Operation Noah (@OperationNoah) November 19, 2021

‘ABC News’ Maggie Rulli travels to the Faroe Islands, where scientists believe that seaweed farming could be a solution to the climate crisis.’

Watch it all.

Germany is in the grip of a “dramatic” fourth Covid wave, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said on the eve of a crisis meeting with regional leaders.

Daily infections hit a new German record of 52,826 on Wednesday as European governments responded to a surge on much of the continent.

Belgium announced a series of measures in an attempt to avoid a lockdown.

“All the alarm signals are red,” said Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, as he told people to limit personal contact.

“Europe’s map is quickly going red, and we are the same.”

Children in Belgium will have to wear masks from the age of 10, rather than the current age of 12. Working from home will become compulsory from Saturday for four days a week. Passes known as Covid Safe Tickets will be required in theatres, cinemas and museums.

As the Cold War came to an end, political scientists began to debate what the new paradigm in global conflict might look like. Perhaps the most notorious theory was proposed by Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations (1996) – “the fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future” – in which he singled out Islam as likely to be particularly problematic; Huntington further expounded this argument in Who Are We? (2004), in which he argued that, in many non-Muslim societies, Muslim minorities are proving to be “indigestible”.

Jytte Klausen’s The Islamic Challenge (2005) was in many ways a direct riposte to Huntington. The book, based on interviews with Muslim parliamentarians, educators, lawyers and businesspeople, pushed back on the notion that there is a uniform “Muslim” approach to integration in the West. Klausen discovered something “shocking”: Muslims are basically like everybody else. They want to educate their children, make a decent living and find ways to live a religious life of their choosing. Critics of her book didn’t see it that way, however, and pointed out that Klausen was ignoring a significant subset of the Muslim population in the West that was committed to terrorist violence.

The quest to answer these critics turned out to be a long one. As she writes in her new book, Western Jihadism: A thirty-year history, it took “fifteen years and the work of eighty students”, each of whom scoured court records, media reports and martyrdom biographies released by terrorist groups themselves, to amass a dataset containing 5,832 men and 561 women who have acted on behalf of al-Qaeda or Islamic State in some manner. The book – which has revelatory individual chapters on the life of Osama bin Laden, the first World Trade Center bombing, 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and the rise of ISIS – argues that the “Western branch” of the jihadist movement is driven by a coalescence of the “strategic objectives of Osama bin Laden and the global movement he spearheaded” and the desire of some young Muslims to take part in a transnational and revolutionary social movement, to be part of a historical moment, and to have their lives imbued with purpose.

Read it all.

My short review of Jytte Klausen's new book "Western Jihadism: A Thirty-Year History" for The Times Literary Supplement (@TheTLS). https://t.co/q694xoTJ3b

— Amarnath Amarasingam (@AmarAmarasingam) November 17, 2021

For months, the putt-putt course sat unused. The beanbag chairs lay empty. The kitchen whiteboard, above where the keg used to live, displayed in fading marker “Beers on Tap” from a happy hour in March 2020.

But on a recent weekday, over in the common area was a sign of life — fresh bagels.

As employees at the financial technology start-up CommonBond got Covid vaccines, and grew stir-crazy in their apartments, they started trickling back into the office.

“We call it Work From Work Wednesday,” said Keryn Koch, who runs human resources at the company, which has 15,000 square feet of sunlit SoHo real estate.

At one point, autumn had been billed across corporate America as the Great Office Reopening. The Delta variant intervened, and mandatory return-to-office plans turned optional. Still, many people chose to report back to their desks: The share of employed people who worked remotely at some point during the month because of Covid, which had peaked in May 2020 at 35 percent, dropped in October to 11 percent, the lowest point since the pandemic began, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Read it all.

Many companies are grappling with how to balance the needs of their remote and in-person employees as people trickle back to offices. Many workers are in the mushy middle ground, with flexibility, and all the benefits it confers, at stake.https://t.co/gkvnL8ZCuj

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 16, 2021

Graham Usher, the Bishop of Norwich and the Church of England’s lead bishop for the environment, and Olivia Graham, the Bishop of Reading, have spoken at the conclusion of COP.

In a statement they said: “At COP we called for keeping global warming to below 1.5 degrees, ending fossil fuel subsidies, and securing finance for the world’s most vulnerable people who are already effected by climate breakdown.

“Progress was made in all these areas, plus cutting methane emissions and halting deforestation. We were particularly inspired to hear powerful testimonies from young people and representatives of indigenous peoples.

“We pay tribute to the work of Alok Sharma MP, the COP26 President, and his team.

“Negotiations always have some compromises and disappointments. These impact the world’s economically poorest the most. We must now keep up the moral pressure so that pledges are urgently turned into measurable action….

Read it all.

"We must now keep up the moral pressure so that pledges are urgently turned into measurable action." 🌍 🙏🏼

– @bishopnorwich and @LiviJGraham react to @COP26.

Read the full statement at https://t.co/ypAslMxRDK.#COP26

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) November 16, 2021

As temperatures drop and coronavirus infections spike across Europe, some countries are introducing increasingly targeted restrictions against the unvaccinated who are driving another wave of contagion and putting economic recoveries, public health and an eventual return to prepandemic freedoms at risk.

On Monday, Austria set a new bar for such measures in the West. Facing a 134 percent increase in cases in the last two weeks, the Austrian government cracked down on its unvaccinated population over the age of 12, restricting their movement to traveling for work, school, buying groceries and medical care.

“Our task as the federal government is to protect the people of Austria,” Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg told a news conference on Sunday. “We are fulfilling this responsibility.”

Read it all.

European countries are introducing increasingly targeted rules and measures to make life harder for the unvaccinated, with the goal of motivating them to get a shot. https://t.co/nFftS9iFP7

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 15, 2021

Western intelligence suggests a “high probability of destabilisation” of Ukraine by Russia as soon as this winter after Moscow massed more than 90,000 troops at its border, according to Kyiv’s deputy defence minister.

Hanna Maliar told the Financial Times at the weekend that while interpretations of western intelligence “need further discussion”, they underlined “the high probability of escalation of the situation”.

When asked if the risk of Russian military aggression was higher than during the past years, she said: “Information of our [military intelligence services] coincides with the information of partner countries about the high probability of destabilisation of the situation in Ukraine this winter.”

Maliar added that allies’ conclusions were “based not only on information about the number of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border”, suggesting Washington had additional intelligence about Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s intentions.

Read it all.

Maliar added that allies’ conclusions were “based not only on information about the number of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border”, suggesting Washington had additional intelligence about Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s intentions.
https://t.co/zKLkjN40rU

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) November 15, 2021

When Marvin Olasky gets angry emails from readers — more often than not about an exposé of wrongdoing at an evangelical church, or about a story that reflects poorly on Donald Trump — he has a stock reply.

“We think this is useful to the Church,” he tells disgruntled readers, “because we are also sinners.”

As the longtime editor of World, a Christian news organization that has a website, a biweekly magazine and a set of podcasts, Mr. Olasky has delivered a mix of hard news and watchdog articles about the evangelical realm under a journalistic philosophy he calls “biblical objectivity.”

It involves taking strong stands where the Bible is clear, which has led World to oppose abortion rights and support refugees, he says, and to follow reportable facts where the Bible doesn’t provide clear guidance.

Read it all.

His Reasons for Opposing Trump Were Biblical. Now a Top Christian Editor Is Out. https://t.co/KDKVYWHpoo

— Ben Smith (@benyt) November 15, 2021

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Read it all.(The interview starts from around 1:28:45 and last about 7 minutes.

Sunday 16 June at 6pm – Welcome Service for Imogen Nay. https://t.co/WRqLmTZkKN pic.twitter.com/bRfstNECAb

— Chelmsford Cathedral (@CCathedral) June 14, 2019

The Church of England too is ditching stocks over climate concerns, even if Joffe says she believes that “having a seat at the table” is generally more effective. Last year, the church’s two investment bodies restricted investments in companies including Berkshire Hathaway and Korea Electric Power Corp over climate change concerns.

Joffe says a tougher approach, involving activism and divestment, “will have to become more mainstream”, especially if asset managers and asset owners are to meet their net zero commitments.

For companies, this means a tougher time from shareholders, says Tom Matthews, a partner who specialises in corporate activism at White and Case. He adds the “narrative around climate change has shifted significantly versus where it was in 2015”, when the Paris agreement was signed. “We’re seeing companies getting targeted because they haven’t woken up quickly enough.”

As for Aviva Investors, Baig says he believes the UK asset manager will end up selling out of at least some of the companies it is targeting because they are not making progress quick enough. “We have to be bold enough to walk way,” he says.

Read it all.

Stay or sell? The $110tn investment industry gets tougher on climate https://t.co/JqKFSC5rdn

— FT Markets (@FTMarkets) November 9, 2021

The world is on track for disastrous levels of global heating far in excess of the limits in the Paris climate agreement, despite a flurry of carbon-cutting pledges from governments at the UN Cop26 summit.

Temperature rises will top 2.4C by the end of this century, based on the short-term goals countries have set out, according to research published in Glasgow on Tuesday.

That would far exceed the 2C upper limit the Paris accord said the world needed to stay “well below”, and the much safer 1.5C limit aimed for at the Cop26 talks.

At that level, widespread extreme weather – sea-level rises, drought, floods, heatwaves and fiercer storms – would cause devastation across the globe.

Read it all.

Cop26: world on track for disastrous heating of more than 2.4C, says key report https://t.co/9CZbZnVBdM

— The Guardian (@guardian) November 10, 2021

The international climate summit here has been billed by its chief organizer as the “last, best hope” to save the planet. But as the United Nations conference enters its second week and negotiators from 197 countries knuckle down to finalize a new agreement to tackle global warming, attendees were sharply divided over how much progress is being made.

There’s the optimistic view: Heads of state and titans of industry showed up in force last week with splashy new climate promises, a sign that momentum was building in the right direction.

“I believe what is happening here is far from business as usual,” said John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy on climate change, who has been attending U.N. climate summits since 1992. “I have never counted as many initiatives and as much real money — real money — being put on the table….”

Then there’s the pessimistic view: All these gauzy promises mean little without concrete plans to follow through. And that’s still lacking. Or, as the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg put it, the conference has mostly consisted of “blah, blah, blah.”

Read it all.

"The actual negotiations here are in danger of being drowned out by a blitz of news releases that get great headlines, but are often less than meets the eye,” Glasgow Deliver on a Global Climate Deal? https://t.co/hfAQFA5tB5

— Karen Greenshields🍊 (@boucliersverts) November 9, 2021

“Do not be afraid,” is one of the most common commands in the Bible. God’s not saying there isn’t anything to be afraid of; it’s an invitation to move beyond fear into faith, hope and action. We are rightly fearful of climate change. It is the biggest threat we face; ignored, it will become our fate.

Governments might be tempted to think “TDI” – which, when I was in the oil industry, meant “too difficult, ignore”. Individuals or organisations might feel paralysed, too small and hopeless to make a difference. This fear is dispersed in the light of knowing that we may all feel overwhelmed by the challenge, but together a new way forward, one in which each of us is indispensable, is possible.

The only way forward is in partnership. Earlier this year, Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and I issued a joint statement for the first time ever between those holding these three offices, urging people to come together and “choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19) in obedience to God’s command – for the planet and for future generations.

In Rome, after agreement with scientists, leaders of faiths comprising about 70 per cent of the world’s population presented a declaration calling for bold action at COP26 to its president, Alok Sharma. Churches, businesses, communities, individuals, and governments all need to work together for our reconciliation with the creation given by God. Young people, women and people from indigenous and minority backgrounds need to be included and heard, especially in the most vulnerable parts of the world. In many places the threat is today, not in the future.

Read it all.

"Do not be afraid” is one of the most common commands in the Bible.

The danger of climate change is great but taking decisive action now can offer a hope far greater. #COP26 https://t.co/HDEeBu4q6I

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) November 5, 2021

Some Christians may think that the words “faith” and “wealth creation” are incompatible, but Matt Bird isn’t one of them. Last year the social entrepreneur called on Britain’s churches to start businesses and to encourage their parishioners to do the same. Now Bird, founder and chief executive of Nayba, the Christian charity, wants them to go a step further.

“A food parcel can sustain a person and their family for a few days, but a small business can sustain it indefinitely,” he said. “The Church often over-spiritualises and underplays practical answers to community needs. I believe that the ability to start a business is a God-given gift and that we should encourage the Church to do this as a way of serving the community.”

He wrote his column in The Times in January 2021 — headlined “It’s time for faith-driven entrepreneurs to emerge” — expecting to be “shot down in flames” for suggesting that the Church should get involved in profit-making. Instead, he has been inundated with inquiries from churches nationwide eager to help people to become entrepreneurs. He rapidly formulated his ideas into a book and a month later published The Spirit of Enterprise: Helping entrepreneurs transform neighbourhoods on Amazon.

Read it all (subscription required).

"Enterprise has a biblical footing based on the idea that wealth can foster wellbeing if it is used in the right way." On the "Spirit of Enterprise" course in churches https://t.co/eyYQBRTGHw

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) November 8, 2021

The global economy’s comeback from last year’s deep contraction is approaching a delicate juncture, as policy makers and executives grapple with the bumpy transition from the post-pandemic reopening to a more normalized pace of growth.

Central banks in the U.S. and elsewhere are trying to chart a path that will curb inflation but not choke off growth as they navigate the process of weaning economies off the extraordinary measures—including rock-bottom interest rates and enormous bond-buying programs—deployed to support their economies.

The surge in U.S. consumer demand over the past year—turbocharged by trillions in stimulus—has ricocheted outward and caused disruptions to global supply chains that are now worsening and may stretch through 2022, say executives. The resulting higher prices and the struggle to secure raw materials and labor are piling the pressure on some companies and weighing on major economies such as Germany.

Meanwhile, China is in the midst of an ambitious effort to reform its economy, including reining in household and corporate debt, particularly in the country’s housing market, clamping down on the technology sector and pursuing ambitious climate goals—factors that could slow growth there and globally.

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As supply-chain disruptions worsen and inflation surges, executives and policy makers must navigate a delicate transition to a more normal economy https://t.co/hQKhTB9wc6

— Real Time Economics (@WSJecon) November 8, 2021

Mr. Biden came into office vowing to “build back better.” But voters said little was getting built as Democrats fight over multitrillion-dollar measures to strengthen the country’s social safety net and improve physical infrastructure. Normal life was not back, and might never be. And voters said so many things just felt worse.

It is not just the federal government they blame. Trash is piling up on city streets because of a dearth of garbage haulers. School bus services are being canceled and delayed for want of drivers. Americans who have been hurt economically by the pandemic are still struggling to get rental assistance and unemployment benefits, sometimes months after applying.

“Our political system — it’s almost completely a failure,” said Carla Haney, a 65-year-old swimming instructor who has yet to receive about 14 weeks of unemployment benefits from the State of Florida that she applied for in May 2020. “I don’t see it getting better at all.”

With the global supply chain gummed up, voters around the Phoenix metro area said they were paying the price in lost money and wasted time. A restaurant chef in Phoenix is once again struggling to buy paper plates and napkins. A plumbing supplier in Tempe is losing commissions because he cannot fill orders.

And at gas stations across the country, drivers cringe at paying an average of $3.40 a gallon — prices that have risen by more than $1 a gallon from a year ago.

Read it all.

“It’s just not a civilized country,” said Ted Laarkamp, 76, a retired businessman from Media, Penn. “It’s just a bunch of people that think they can go it alone — like a bunch of lone rangers. Nobody trusts anybody; everything is a conspiracy.” https://t.co/cdj1et5xSz

— Kate Kelly (@katekelly) November 6, 2021

Google owner Alphabet has launched an artificial intelligence company to discover new drugs.

UK-registered Isomorphic Labs will use technology from its sister company DeepMind “to accelerate drug discovery, and ultimately, find cures for some of humanity’s most devastating diseases,” said Demis Hassabis, the head of DeepMind, in a blog post. He added that he would also become the chief executive of Isomorphic Labs.

Scientists around the world were awed in July when DeepMind unveiled how its AlphaFold2 technology could be used to predict the shape of every protein in the human body with almost perfect accuracy.

DeepMind’s model can solve one of the trickiest problems in biology by taking a sequence of amino acids and mapping the twists and turns of its shape. The algorithm could help replace or enhance painstaking laboratory work to identify the structures of proteins, which dictate how they behave.

Read it all.

Alphabet launches AI company to discover new drugs https://t.co/DCdq8DOHCO "DeepMind said it would use the technology to try to find treatments for Chagas disease and Leishmaniasis, two of the most deadly diseases in the world."

— Kristof Decoster (@KristofDecoste1) November 4, 2021

Tucked away in a northern suburb of this sprawling East African city is a burial site that is evidence of one of the world’s great coronavirus coverups.

At the Kondo graveyard in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, unmasked volunteers have been digging holes and felling trees to expand a compound that has tripled in size since last year. During the pandemic’s first wave, hazmat-suited government officials came at night to secretly bury the dead, graveyard workers and bereaved families said. Now, small groups of mourners gather for hasty ceremonies next to floral tributes.

Kondo’s gravediggers said those buried there since last year have one thing in common: All died as a result of the coronavirus, yet none were recorded as suffering from Covid-19. They said they know by speaking to the families and officials from the municipality.

“This is one of the government’s coronavirus cemeteries, but we’re not allowed to call it that,” said Said Ali Salum, a caretaker who has worked there so long that locals call him “Mzee Wa-Makaburi,” or Mr. Graveyard. “We used to bury one a week [before the pandemic], but over the past year we have reached 17 a day.”

Tanzania, a country famous for Serengeti safaris and a turquoise coastline, has engaged in a grim experiment with implications beyond its borders: denying the existence of Covid-19. How that is playing out offers clues on the hidden toll of the pandemic across the developing world.

Read it all.

Take an early look at the front page of The Wall Street Journal https://t.co/5xQPDPcm8q pic.twitter.com/ltEVZ0YLvH

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 5, 2021

The Anglican Communion is helping to give a voice to vulnerable communities during the COP26 summit in Glasgow, the Bishop of Reading, the Rt Revd Olivia Graham, has said.

Bishop Graham, a member of the Church of England’s environment working group, has been at the summit this week, among the many Christian people and organisations lobbying and praying in Glasgow.

“Leaders from all faiths are on the same page about climate chaos and environmental crises,” she said. “When we focus on something as big as this, our differences fall into perspective.

“With tens of millions of members across 165 countries, the Anglican Communion brings a global perspective to the conference that’s untainted by national interests. One of the many benefits of an Anglican presence here is giving voice to the plight of the small island states, which are already becoming slowly submerged by rising sea levels.”

Read it all.

“Leaders from all faiths are on the same page about climate chaos and environmental crises.” https://t.co/qHwotPRNt4

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) November 5, 2021

Aref Mohammad’s war against the Islamic State ended earlier this fall when his unit of Taliban fighters was ambushed by the terrorist group in eastern Afghanistan. A bullet shattered his femur, leaving him disabled and barely able to walk, never mind fight.

But for the Taliban movement he served under, now the government of Afghanistan, the war against the Islamic State was just beginning.

“If we knew where they were from, we would pursue them and destroy them,” Mr. Mohammed, 19, said from his hospital bed in Jalalabad, the capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province where the Islamic State has maintained a presence since 2015.

In the two months since the Taliban took control of the country, the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan — known as Islamic State Khorasan or ISIS-K — has stepped up attacks across the country, straining the new and untested government and raising alarm bells in the West about the potential resurgence of a group that could eventually pose an international threat.

Read it all.

In the two months since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the Islamic State affiliate in the country has stepped up attacks there and mostly targeted Taliban security forces. https://t.co/RgfHtbuwLh

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 4, 2021

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has called an East African bloc leaders’ meeting on Nov. 16 to discuss the conflict in Ethiopia, a senior foreign affairs ministry official said on Thursday.

Read it all.

Uganda's president Museveni calls for East African leaders' summit to discuss Ethiopia conflict https://t.co/gc2ig6SF4Y pic.twitter.com/IcyRW8Ae39

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 4, 2021

More than 30 leading financial institutions, representing over US$ 8.7 trillion in assets under management, including the Church Commissioners for England, have committed to tackle agricultural commodity-driven deforestation as part of broader efforts to drive the global shift towards sustainable production and nature-based solutions.

Ending deforestation and implementing natural climate solutions could provide a third of the solution to achieving the Paris climate target, help halt and reverse biodiversity loss, and support human rights and food security.

With most deforestation driven by unsustainable production practices for palm oil, soy, cattle products and pulp and paper, resulting in more carbon emissions annually than the EU, action on these commodities is particularly urgent, which is the focus of the commitment made today.

Today’s commitment – to use best efforts to eliminate agricultural commodity-driven tropical deforestation from portfolios by 2025 – is clear evidence of the increasing awareness of the systemic risks and associated actions needed to address deforestation related to production of these commodities and accelerate the transition to sustainable commodity production.

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Church Commissioners among leading financial institutions to commit to actively tackle deforestation https://t.co/cMS0hHVQWs

— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) November 2, 2021

Mr. Youngkin had campaigned heavily on education and seized on Mr. McAuliffe’s remark that he didn’t “believe parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Mr. Youngkin used the comment, made during a debate, as an entryway to hammer his rival on issues like race and transgender rights in schools. The issues simultaneously motivated the G.O.P. base while casting the matter to moderates as an issue of parental rights.

“This is no longer a campaign,” Mr. Youngkin said. “It is a movement being led by Virginia’s parents.”

Read it all.

Glenn Youngkin's victory in the Virginia governor's race, combined with an unexpectedly tight contest in New Jersey, where the race remained too close to call, delivered a stark warning sign for Democrats less than 10 months into President Biden’s term. https://t.co/zOdYtEMhAt

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 3, 2021

The Women in Safe Homes fund is a joint venture between fund managers Resonance and Patron Capital, working in partnership with specialist organisations to provide safe, stable and affordable homes for vulnerable women and their children who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The fund aims to house 6,000 women over its lifetime.

The Social Impact Investment Programme, was established within The Archbishops’ Council earlier this year with £16 million of grant funding from the Church Commissioners for England. The programme exists to deploy social investment capital to advance the Church of England’s missional objectives and will support projects which share the Church of England’s Christian values and benefit society.

This first investment will support the purchase and refurbishment of properties which are then leased to women’s support organisations who in turn, let them at affordable rates to vulnerable women at risk of homelessness, whilst also providing them with individualised and specialist support. Many of these women will have been victims of domestic abuse or victims of exploitation or are leaving prison. Safe and stable accommodation is critical to helping them rebuild their lives. There are many Church of England and other faith-based organisations working with vulnerable women and this investment further supports their mission.

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Another piece of encouraging news from @churchofengland as its Social Impact Investment Programme today announced its first investment, a £1.6 million commitment to the Women in Safe Homes fund.

Read here;https://t.co/JEjkTwngws

— Dr. Sanjee Perera (@SanjeePerera1) November 1, 2021

In a sweeping accord aimed at protecting the world’s forests, which are crucial to absorbing carbon dioxide and slowing the rise in global warming, leaders of more than 100 countries gathered in Glasgow vowed on Tuesday to end deforestation by 2030.

President Biden said the United States would contribute billions to the global effort to protect the ecosystems that are vital for cleaning the air we breathe and the water we drink, and keeping the Earth’s climate in balance.

The pact — which includes countries like Brazil, Russia, China and the United States — encompasses about 85 percent of the world’s forests, officials said.

“These great teeming ecosystems — these cathedrals of nature,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said in announcing the agreement, “are the lungs of our planet.”

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In a sweeping accord struck at #COP26, world leaders pledged to work together to end deforestation by 2030, seeking to preserve forests to slow the rise in global warming.https://t.co/pCjBDHeALv pic.twitter.com/dG1udrSJZG

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 2, 2021