Just days after Taliban violently seized control of Afghanistan, the Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum, Notis Mitarakis, has warned of a repeat of the situation in 2015 and announced that Greece will not be the “gateway to Europe for illegal Afghan migrants”.

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in recent days has brought new dimensions of  human suffering and political crisis to what is arguably the most protracted refugee crisis of modern times.

This short sentence is all you need to understand why the German government committed an error of judgment concerning Afghanistan. An error of judgment that kills people every day – and democracy throughout the world as well, by the way.

Turkish President Erdogan, usually a friend of many and often harsh words, needed almost a week before he took a stand on the Taliban takeover in Kabul.

What is needed now is a special programme to resettle people living in danger in Afghanistan and to give Afghan nationals already living in Germany the right to remain and prospects for their futures!

This two-day digital conference, organized by the Humboldt University of Berlin’s Department of Diversity and Social Conflict in cooperation with Brown University and the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation, aims to bring together researchers, activists, and community organizers to discuss how discourses on gender and sexuality have evolved in the Middle East and Europe amid the rise of far-right and authoritarian movements.

As well as in 2008, the very necessary, unavoidable actions of central banks now in the Covid-19 crisis have massive side effects: cheap money is fostering asset price inflation, fueling inequalities. At the same time, central banks are still disregarding climate risk in the way they treat fossil assets as collateral.