Worldly News Online

US President Joe Biden has defended his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan - a move which led to Taliban militants returning to power. Staying longer was not an option, Mr Biden said in an address to the nation, a day after the end of a 20-year US presence in Afghanistan. He praised troops for organising an airlift of more than 120,000 people wishing to flee the Taliban regime. The Islamist militants have been celebrating what they call a victory. US-led troops went into Afghanistan in 2001, ousting the Taliban in the wake of the devastating 9/11 attacks, blamed on al-Qaeda - a militant jihadist group then based in the Asian country. Mr Biden has been widely criticised - at home and by his allies - over the abrupt manner of the US withdrawal, which led to the unexpected collapse of the Afghan security forces US troops had trained and funded for years. President Biden deployed nearly 6,000 troops to seize control of the airport to co-ordinate the evacuation of...

By Magdi AbdelhadiNorth Africa analyst The eyes of many people are on the small country in North Africa that set the Middle East on fire when in 2011 it toppled a dictator that had ruled it for 27 years. Tunisia - the birthplace of the so-called Arab Spring - shook the tectonic plates of power in a vast and strategic region, and no-one knows when and how they will settle back: in the same old despotic order or a new one that is yet to be born? That question has become even more pressing after 25 July, when the secular President Kais Saied stunned the world by announcing the suspension of parliament, the sacking of the cabinet and assuming emergency powers citing an imminent threat to the Tunisian state. These extraordinary measures are supposed to last for 30 days. No-one knows yet whether he will extend the emergency powers, or if he will embark on something else. For Tunisia watchers the development came as no surprise. The poster child of the "Arab Spring" has l...

The TechCrunch Top 3Solid Power is going public: The solid-state battery developer backed by Ford and BMW said Tuesday it would head to the Nasdaq via a merger with special purpose acquisition company Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp III at a post-deal implied market valuation of $1.2 billion. Andreessen Horowitz has launched its own media apparatus called Futre: The publication, funded by a16z funds, looks to provide content that doesn’t currently exist in the market and that can be created from the “unique, interesting perch” that the firm has, says Margit Wennmachers, the firm’s operating partner of marketing and Future. Good luck, a16z, and welcome to the jungle. We have a new FTC commissioner: The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Big Tech critic and prominent antitrust scholar Lina Khan as a commissioner to the Federal Trade Commission, signaling a new era of scrutiny for the tech industry. Khan was confirmed in a 69-28 vote, with Republicans joining Democrats in a rare show ...