Tolo News: Youth and cricket fans marched through Khost city, capital of Khost province, on Wednesday, demanding the timely holding of The Million Cup Cricket League in the province. They also accused the Afghan Cricket Board (ACB) of trying to cancel the hosting of the league in Khost province, noting that the grand Paktia zone has legal rights to host the league. Click here to read more (external link).
Other Sports News
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
October 20, 2020
ISLAMABAD – The United States has lost $19 billion in Afghanistan since 2002 due to “waste, fraud and abuse,” the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in a new report released Tuesday.
SIGAR monitors all U.S. spending in the 19-year war in Afghanistan, America’s longest.
The American oversight authority noted that the U.S. Congress has appropriated nearly $134 billion for Afghan reconstruction programs since the ouster of the Taliban in late 2001.
“Of that amount, SIGAR reviewed approximately $63 billion and concluded that a total of approximately $19 billion, or 30% of the amount reviewed, was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse,” the report said.
SIGAR’s audit identified approximately $1.8 billion in waste, fraud and abuse between January 2018 and December 2019.
The oversight office is tasked with reviewing reconstruction funding and presenting recommendations for putting the money to better use for other programs or efforts in the tumultuous South Asian nation.
SIGAR’s latest report comes as President Donald Trump’s administration presses the Afghan government and Taliban insurgents to negotiate a political settlement to permanently end the long conflict. The Afghan rivals are currently engaged in direct peace talks in Doha, Qatar.
The historic dialogue is the product of a peace-building agreement the Trump administration sealed with the Taliban in February to close the war and bring home all U.S. forces by May 2021.
The U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and toppled the Taliban government at the time for harboring the al-Qaida terror network and its chief, Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the attacks.
The war has since cost Washington the lives of more than 2,400 U.S. soldiers and nearly $1 trillion.
SIGAR has routinely criticized the Afghan government’s efforts to curb rampant corruption as inadequate, saying it is a major concern among the frustrated donor community.
In a report released in early 2020, the U.S. agency said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s administration “is more interested in checking off boxes for the international community than in actually uprooting its corruption problem.”
The anti-corruption efforts and reform programs will come under scrutiny next month when Afghan officials and international donors meet in Geneva to consider future aid commitments to Afghanistan.
Hamdullah Mohib
1TV: Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib has warned that the country is facing real threat of civil war as US withdraws its troops. In an interview with BBC, Mohib said that the Afghan government is preparing for both peace and war and it will use all efforts to reduce the threat of a civil war. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Hekmatyar
Tolo News: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hizb-e-Islami party, at an Islamabad press conference on Tuesday said that the United States has been “defeated in Afghanistan,” adding that Washington has “no choice except to leave the country.” Regarding the current peace process between the negotiating sides in Doha, Hekmatyar said that the current talks in Doha are between the team of the Arg (Presidential Palace) and the Taliban, stating that the Doha talks are not intra-Afghan talks. Click here to read more (external link).
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Amrullah Saleh
Tolo News: First Vice President Amrullah Saleh has said that undocumented vehicles are one of the biggest challenges to tracking down criminals. He said that these vehicles should be registered within two months, otherwise the government will seize them as part of a new security plan for Kabul. Military analysts believe that criminals and mafia are behind the undocumented vehicles. Click here to read more (external link).
Rashid Khan
Ariana: Star cricketer Rashid Khan has appealed to cricket bodies to give Afghanistan the chance to play more tournaments against leading cricket teams in order to improve their game. “To become a big player you have to play against the best,” Rashid told the TMS does the IPL podcast on Tuesday. Australia, England, South Africa and New Zealand, the first four members of the Test cricket family, are yet to welcome Afghanistan into the fold in competition. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Saturday reported 82 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 398 samples tested in the last 24 hours. According to the Public Health Ministry’s data, the cumulative number of total cases is now 40,369, the number of total reported deaths is 1,499, and the total number of recoveries is 33,790. Click here to read more (external link).
As the Afghan Taliban tries to negotiate a political settlement with the government, many musicians in the country are worried about the impact a deal will have on their ability to work, as VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem reports from Kabul.