The Afghanistan war was supposed to be over by now

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NEED TO KNOW:

The war in Afghanistan was supposed to be over by now. American troops were supposed to be home. The American-trained Afghan National Army was supposed to take things into its own hands. Instead, thousands of American troops remain in Afghanistan, participating in direct combat against the Taliban. And American jets and drones continue to provide air support.

There is no end in sight. The Taliban has been resurgent in the last year, launching more attacks and gaining territory despite efforts to strike a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban leadership. Things have only gotten worse since Afghanistan confirmed the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, which laid bare divisions within the Taliban over any peace agreement.

Since news of Omar's death last week (he actually died two years earlier, but no one was sure), attacks have spiked in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Over the weekend a wave of violence engulfed the city, killing at least 50 people, mostly civilians. In one attack, a truck bomb detonated in a residential area. In another, a car bomb exploded outside of Kabul's international airport.

The attacks have left Kabul on edge, which is not an easy thing to do in a city that has been surrounded by war for decades. This year is now on track to be the bloodiest yet for civilians, at least since the United States first invaded 13 years ago. The United Nations says more people will likely be killed this year than in 2014, when 3,000 civilians died.

WANT TO KNOW:

A little over a year ago, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge. It was meant to be an offensive against Hamas and some other smaller militant groups in Gaza. But it was punishing for Gaza as a whole. It killed more than 2,000 people, most of them civilians (and many of those civilians children), and wounded 11,000 others. The pummeling lasted seven weeks and absolutely devastated the strip of land.

Whole neighborhoods were leveled, and the war left behind four million tons of rubble. The destruction sparked global condemnation of Israel, and worldwide sympathy for Palestinians. Promises from around the world poured in to help Palestinians living in Gaza rebuild. Billions of dollars were pledged to the effort.

But most of those promised funds never materialized. And all that rubble remains. Less than $1 billion of new funding has been disbursed to Gaza since the 2014 war. So where did all the rest of the money go?

GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Laura Dean explains that some of the promises were simply empty ones. Publicly pledging generous amounts of aid to help Palestinians is nothing new. Neither is failing to deliver the money. Then there are various political and ideological concerns, as well as the very real difficulty of getting anything at all into Gaza. There seems to always be an excuse not to give.

Read all about it in the first of a series of articles investigating why pledges have not been delivered, supported by individual backers through the crowdfunding platform Beacon Reader.

STRANGE BUT TRUE:

Shi Yongxin is the abbot of China's famous Shaolin Monastery, the revered and sacred birthplace of Shaolin kung fu. Shi, however, may not be the devoted spiritualist one might think. He is now caught up in a deepening financial and sexual scandal and has disappeared from public view.

The accusations are decidedly unholy. Shi ran the temple as a profitable enterprise, turning the whole thing into a Shaolin-branded empire since its trademarking in 1997. It now has multiple kung fu schools, traveling martial-arts shows, and — most recently — plans for a $297 million Australian spinoff that would include a temple, hotel and golf course.

Shi is apparently running it all like a mafia, and living the life of a gangster. A whistleblower claims he has embezzled millions and spent it on sex. He's even accused of eating beef, which is against Buddhism's vegetarian lifestyle. But that's probably the least of his worries right now.