Insider: The US-led war in Afghanistan turned 18 in October, and those two decades of fighting and rebuilding appear to have yielded little progress. The counternarcotics effort there, for example, “has just been a total failure,” John F. Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, in November. Click
1TV: Despite 18 years of American and NATO military presence marked by funnelling of billions of dollars, Afghanistan’s economy remains highly dependent on foreign aid. The country’s public expenditure is $11 billion annually while revenues stand at $2.5 billion, according to officials cited by the New York Times. The difference of about 75 percent of expenses
Ariana: The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, on Monday, announced that a new regulation of pension for the employees of private sector and non-governmental organizations has been approved by the Presidential Palace. Labor condition in Afghanistan is said to be one of the poorest in the world. Apart from non employment, adverse working conditions
Tolo News: Almost two and a half years after the United States dropped the “mother of all bombs” onto a Daesh hideout in eastern Afghanistan, locals say they have been afflicted by “many diseases” and agricultural lands are not yielding crops. TOLOnews reporter Abdulhaq Omeri interviewed residents of Mohmand Dara village, in the Achin district in
Tolo News: President Ashraf Ghani ordered the termination of two major mining contracts – for Balkhab copper deposit in Sar-e-Pul province and for a gold deposit in Badakshan — during a High Economic Council meeting last week. The order was confirmed by Abdul Qadir Mutfi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum. Finance Ministry spokesman
LA Times: After decades of conflict across Afghanistan, recycling is not at the top of most people’s agendas. But now, one Kabul woman is declaring war on the Afghan capital’s trash. Zuhal Atmar, 35, has set up a recycling plant where she processes 33 tons of garbage a week. She’s the first woman in Afghanistan
1TV: Afghan government has included a project to build a nuclear laboratory in the draft of 2020 national budget. The project is expected to cost 41 million afghanis and is among 11 large projects in the budget proposal. Afghanistan signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran for cooperation on nuclear energy as a delegation from Afghanistan Atomic
AFP via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Afghanistan has a drug problem from the abundant poppies that get made into opium. A group of Afghan women has found a way out of their addiction through a different crop.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 31, 2019 A total of 403,338 people have returned to Afghanistan from neighboring Iran and Pakistan since the beginning of the year, the UN-affiliated International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a report released on October 31. The report said that some 385,000 Afghans have been repatriated from Iran, with
By Bruce Pannier Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 25, 2019 A new proposal by Pakistani officials could bring much needed energy to people in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan during the frigid winters in a long-planned project that will also see Central Asian energy go to Afghanistan and Pakistan. A chain of hydropower plants strung across Tajikistan