The situation in the morning: Afghanistan

Afghanistan - anniversary of failure

This Monday is an official holiday in Afghanistan.

For the Taliban.

The radical Islamists have proclaimed that August 15 marks the "first anniversary of the victory of the Afghan jihad led by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan over the American occupation and its allies," according to the extremists' so-called Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

Millions of the country's citizens will not feel like celebrating.

It may not (yet) be as brutal as it was during their rule until 2001. That doesn't make the situation of the people in the Hindu Kush any better.

In addition, the regime is isolated internationally, the economic hardship is enormous, and the country is starving.

Afghanistan is a country without prospects.

For the Western world, which has set itself the task of pacifying and democratizing Afghanistan, this Monday is an

In the summer of last year, they left the country to its own devices in a hurry and almost overnight. The terrorist militias only needed hours to regain control of Kabul.

What a disaster.

In the past few days and weeks, SPIEGEL colleagues have described and analyzed the situation on the ground, reconstructed how the Bundeswehr rescued thousands from the Afghan capital as part of an international evacuation mission in the dramatic days of August 2021, and met people who have fled to Germany and are now desperately watching developments in their homeland 5000 kilometers away.

The Afghan women suffer particularly from the return of the Taliban.

Her newly won freedoms were gradually restricted again, her life is like a prison.

You can read the stories today on SPIEGEL.de:

• My colleague Britta Sandberg met the photographer Roya Heydari, who had to flee from the Taliban to Paris and had to leave her family in Kabul.

• Susanne Koelbl reports on the courage and steadfastness of the student Maryam Ahmadi, who is not intimidated by the brutality of the Islamists.

• The Afghan journalist and women's rights activist Majabien Safvan describes everyday life under the Taliban, their despair and anger at the West.

• Lina Verschwele met MP Halima Sadaf Karimi in Canada, who wants to start a new life there.

The Oder Disaster

The clarification of the

continues to be tough: It is still not clear who or what is to blame for the massive fish deaths.

Mercury has now been ruled out as the cause.

It is now being examined whether other highly toxic substances or possibly an increased salt content in the water could be responsible for the fact that

have died in the river in the past few days and weeks.

New laboratory results are expected in Brandenburg this Monday

.

SPD Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke wants to find out more about the situation near Lebus in Märkisch-Oderland, where helpers last worked continuously to pull carcasses out of the water.

is becoming increasingly clear

.

Authorities in Poland have apparently known since the end of July that masses of fish are dying in the Oder. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki claims to have heard about it a few days ago.

Until then, the German side had only received reports from concerned anglers.

It should be noted that these are two neighboring countries of the European Union, so such delays in reporting serious incidents are surprising, to put it mildly.

Germany, Poland and the EU should take a close look at who preferred to remain silent at what point and how this can be prevented in the future.

On Sunday Green Environment Minister Steffi Lemke discussed the problems in the information chain at a meeting in Szczecin with her Polish counterpart Anna Moskwa and the Polish Infrastructure Minister Andrzej Adamczyk.

In the meantime, the people on the Baltic Sea are also concerned.

So far there have apparently been no conspicuous water samples in the German part of the Szczecin Lagoon, where the Oder flows into the Baltic Sea.

Dead fish have not been discovered here either.

However, Lemke did not rule out that the authorities could, if necessary, issue a swimming warning, for example in the area of ​​the holiday island of Usedom.

• Environmental disaster in the Oder: "No one knows what's in the dead fish" 

Schlesinger before immediate recall?

The RBB Broadcasting Council will meet in Berlin at 4 p.m. on Monday afternoon.

It is, of course, about the

.

with the 61-year-old

is on the agenda .

"The RBB Broadcasting Council is dismissing Patricia Schlesinger from her position as RBB director with immediate effect," says the proposed resolution, which is available to SPIEGEL.

"The dismissal is due to reasons in the person of Ms. Schlesinger that would justify an extraordinary termination of the service contract by the RBB."

Background: Schlesinger has resigned as RBB director, but the terms of the contract termination, such as continued salary payments or severance pay, have not yet been negotiated.

In her letter of resignation, she insisted on contract clauses, which means that the employment relationship would end at the end of February 2023.

Schlesinger was willing to shorten this - if it was ensured that it was a "contractual waiver".

Now the RBB broadcasting council apparently wants to fire Schlesinger immediately, as politicians and the German Journalists' Association have previously demanded, and thus end the

if possible.

Months of continued salary payments or a golden handshake for Schlesinger would hardly be conveyable to the public in view of the allegations in the room.

It's about nepotism and filth, dubious consulting contracts, conversion work on the executive floor worth millions, salary increases in times of crisis, a luxury service limousine with massage seats and expensive meals with "multipliers" in her private apartment, which she billed through the broadcaster.

In the meantime, the Berlin public prosecutor's office is investigating Schlesinger, her husband and ex-SPIEGEL journalist Gerhard Spörl and ex-RBB head of the administrative board Wolf-Dieter Wolf - on suspicion of infidelity and accepting advantages.

All deny the allegations made.

The sum total of the allegations, as my colleagues Elisa von Hof, Isabell Huelsen, Martin U. Müller, Anton Rainer and Sven Röbel analyze in the current issue of SPIEGEL, has

The Broadcasting Council will not be able to heal this crisis on Monday, even with an immediate separation from Schlesinger.

• Coming to terms with the felt affair: salon evenings at Schlesinger's house 

Putin at the “tank biathlon”

The idea that Vladimir Putin regards war as a bloody game has been around for a long time.

The fact that he is not interested in questions of morality, decency or ethical appropriateness is not new either.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise to us that the

these days

as if nothing had happened.

And it shouldn't come as a surprise that the President is paying a visit to these Army Games on Monday.

In the so-called tank biathlon, for the tenth time, soldiers from different countries compete in tank driving, shooting ranges and obstacle courses, while Putin's troops continue to invade Ukraine with their war of aggression.

There are representatives from just 22 countries, including other democracy-loving states such as China, Venezuela and the ex-Soviet republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

According to reports, a weapons museum, remote-controlled mini tanks and children's attractions will also delight visitors.

Also on Putin's agenda today is the

arms show in Patriot Park near Moscow , where Russia wants to show off its latest armaments.

It's the same as always:

.

The sad thing is that many Russians still like his productions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday called on the people of Russia to finally raise their voices against the war.

"The evil takes place on such a scale that silence amounts to complicity," he said in his nightly video address.

If only the Russians would listen to Zelensky.

You can find more news and background information on the war in Ukraine here:

• That happened at night:

  The situation around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is apparently becoming more and more dramatic.

  Kim Jong Un recounts his correspondence with Vladimir Putin.

  And: The amount of the state gas levy will be announced.

  The overview.

• How hackers tried to cut off Ukraine's power:

  In April, Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to sabotage a Ukrainian substation.

  Now the defenders give insights into the details – and tell how an unexpectedly early end of the day thwarted the plan.

• 42 countries are demanding Russia's withdrawal from Europe's largest nuclear power plant:

  rockets have once again landed near the Ukrainian nuclear power plant at Zaporizhia.

  The EU and dozens of other countries are calling on Russia to leave the site immediately.

• The shock after the fright: At

  first it seemed as if the war in Ukraine was only indirectly affecting us.

  It is now becoming increasingly clear that we are confronted with an epochal break.

  And we have to adapt to that.

Here's the current quiz of the day

The starting question today: Which European head of government had to pay a fine for violating corona rules?

On my own account

So far, dear readers, I, as one of the heads of SPIEGEL's capital city office, have informed you here at regular intervals about the most important topics of the day.

In the future I will write the situation for you in the morning from southern California - I now work for SPIEGEL in the greater Los Angeles area.

Of course, that doesn't mean that I'll lose sight of German domestic politics or other events from home, or that I'll only talk about the US perspective (which doesn't happen in this situation).

But maybe you even have wishes, ideas, suggestions for my new place of work?

Are there any issues playing out in California that interest you, be it politics, society, culture?

Let me know (philipp.wittrock@spiegel.de), maybe there will be an opportunity to pick up on one or the other, here in the location or in your own stories.

Many thanks for your loyalty.

Be supportive of me and of course all other authors of the situation.

The latest news from the night

• Trump demands back documents from the FBI:

  The pressure on Donald Trump is growing after the house search on his property – during which allegedly secret government documents were found.

  But now the ex-US President is going on the offensive.

• According to the Bundeswehr, a possible withdrawal from Mali has not yet been settled:

  The German armed forces want to suspend their deployment in Mali - but what will become of the local helpers in the African country?

  The Bundeswehr warns of a similar chaos as in Afghanistan.

• Angler fishes live hand grenade from Lake Constance:

  Dangerous remnant from the World War: A man used a magnetic rod to get a still live hand grenade from Germany's largest inland water.

  The water police cordoned off the site.

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

• This is how it (quite likely) continues with Corona:

  Eradicate?

  The train has left, we will have to live with Sars-CoV-2.

  Researchers suspect that evolution will produce increasingly harmless variants in the future.

  What speaks for this happy ending - and what against it.

• “He even wore the number twice, once on his chest and once on his arm”:

  Filip Müller had to slave away in the Auschwitz crematoria.

  He survived as one of the few.

  Now his son is reporting on his father's memories - and how they met an SS mass murderer at a rest stop.

• The diplomats' double game:

  When the Taliban took over Kabul again last summer, a privately organized plane was supposed to fly Afghans to Germany.

  First the Foreign Office promises to help.

  But suddenly it boycotts the operation.

• Burned to powder:

  sewn into sacks with wild animals, pinched with red-hot pincers: criminals in the Middle Ages were tortured to death in excessively cruel ways.

  They should not only suffer physically to the maximum, the aim was also their humiliation.

I wish you a good start into the week.

Heartfelt,

Yours Philip Wittrock