Here to stay.

ONE would have thought that with the war against Covid-19 being waged across the world, regional conflicts would have been suspended. A truce, however uneasy, might have prevailed wherever conflicts were simmering. The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hoped so. On March 23 he issued an appeal to warring parties within his jurisdiction (but out of his control) to put aside mistrust and animosity, to 'silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes'. Ten days later, he repeated the appeal: 'There should be only one fight in our world today,' he said, 'our shared battle against Covid-19.'

The secretary general, if he wanted to catch the attention of President Trump, should have tweeted instead of issuing a secular encyclical. In any case, President Trump is oblivious to such advice, even if it is free. His instinctive belligerence remains undiminished. He attacks China for being the reckless epicentre of the coronavirus. He opposes US state governors who dare to contradict him. He has no time and even less money for the World Health Organisation. And in a visceral response to his predecessor's oblique reproof, he made his trade adviser Peter Navarro disparage Barack Obama's administration as a 'kumbaya of incompetence'.

Insults come in various shades. This one had been chosen deliberately for its association with Afro-American spirituals. At its lowest level of meaning, 'kumbaya' is defined as no better than 'naive idealism'.

If Covid-19 had to pick on any country, it could not have found one more vulnerable than Afghanistan. There are 12,000 US troops there still, awaiting repatriation under a deal signed recently between Trump's envoy and the Taliban. Soldiers due to leave are barrack-bound by the virus. Meanwhile in Kabul, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his political nemesis Abdullah Abdullah, after months of haggling like two bald men fighting over a toothless comb, have agreed on a power-sharing formula. They can now administer jointly or severally what is left of their war-devastated country.

Covid-19 could not have found a country more vulnerable than Afghanistan.

A low priority to both of them is the barbaric attack on a maternity ward in Kabul, during which 24 Afghan mothers, their children and newborn infants were murdered by unknown, unfeeling assailants. It was a cold, cruel act of unspeakable brutality. For the families, it was a tragedy of inhuman proportions. For the bullet-riddled infants, it was a mercy...