Khaama: The Afghanistan Taekwondo Federation has announced that Seyed Hassan Rezaee, a former national taekwondo team member, has been appointed as the head coach of the Nepal national team. On Tuesday, June 4, the federation congratulated Rezaee on his new position in Nepal and wished him success. Click here to read more (external link).
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
June 4, 2024
Atel hauls a wooden cart every day around the Afghan capital, Kabul, selling vegetables.
The 70-year-old pensioner retired around five years ago. But since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban has stopped paying pensions.
That has forced thousands of pensioners like Atel back to work, often as street vendors, to feed their families amid a devastating economic and humanitarian crisis in the country.
“It’s been nearly three years since we last received our pensions,” Atel told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. “I don’t have the strength to do manual labor. But I buy onions and potatoes at the market each day and resell them.”
The work is grueling, and he only earns around $1 per day. But Atel, who has a family of eight, said he has no choice but to work.
Mohammad Nasim is another pensioner who has been forced to find a job. He sells notebooks and pens on the street, earning around $1 per day.
“I don’t have the means to do other work,” Nasim, who has a disability, told Radio Azadi. “On the other hand, I’m in pain and I don’t even have money to pay for my prescriptions.”
‘Un-Islamic’
An estimated 150,000 pensioners received a monthly payment of around $100 from the state before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, where the retirement age is 65.
But retirees have not been paid their pensions since then, pushing some families toward starvation. Many of the pensioners served governments that had fought against the Taliban.
In April, the Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, ordered his government to stop deducting retirement contributions from the salaries of civil servants, effectively dismantling the pension system. Akhundzada suggested the system was “un-Islamic.”
The move triggered protests by retirees who said they cannot survive without state assistance.
Scores of retired civil servants and retired members of the armed forces staged a rally in Kabul on April 20. The protest was dispersed by the Taliban.
‘Poorest People’
Mass unemployment and rising poverty as well as the lack of government assistance have forced the elderly and even children to find what work they can. The Taliban’s severe restrictions on female employment has also deprived families of breadwinners.
Not all pensioners are able to work due to illness or their advanced age. And those who can find it difficult to secure even menial jobs.
“We have gray beards, our hands and feet tremble, and no one gives us work,” a pensioner, who attended the April protest and spoke on condition of anonymity, told Radio Azadi.
Aafandi Sangar, head of the Afghan Pensioners Association, said the “poorest people in Afghanistan are pensioners who can no longer work.”
“Some of them are doing hard work but some are sick [and unable to work],” he told Radio Azadi.
Sangar said pensioners will continue to protest and demand their rights from the Taliban government.
“This money is the personal money of the pensioners,” he said. “It’s not government money. Pensions are the inalienable right of every retiree.”
Written by Frud Bezhan based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
By RFE/RL’s Radio Farda
June 3, 2024
A centrist Iranian newspaper has accused a Taliban representative in Iran of “torturing” a photographer, ultimately leading to his expulsion from the country.
The Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper claimed on June 1 that a Taliban representative in the Afghan Consulate in the northeastern city of Mashhad had “dragged” the unnamed Iranian photographer into the consulate and “tortured” him.
The paper said the photographer later filed a complaint against the “diplomat,” identified as “Dr. Salim,” which ultimately resulted in him being expelled from Iran and replaced by another Taliban representative.
The newspaper has been a staunch critic of the Taliban since the group seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 and has questioned Tehran’s willingness to maintain relations with the group.
In its report, Jomhuri-ye Eslami alleged that “Dr. Salim” was one of three “diplomats” who had moved into the consulate prior to receiving Iran’s approval. It described the move as a “sign of disrespect toward Iran.”
In the same piece, the newspaper claimed that the same trio had “kidnapped” Qari Eisa Mohammadi, a prominent Afghan opposition figure based in Germany who had traveled to Mashhad several months ago.
According to Mohammadi, he was held “prisoner” in the consulate for several days until Iranian authorities secured his release.
The authorities in Iran have been criticized for maintaining relations with the Taliban after it took control in Afghanistan. The Islamic republic has kept its embassy in Kabul open and handed over the Afghan Embassy in Tehran to the Taliban.
Nevertheless, Iran has not formally recognized the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan and has called for the formation of an inclusive government.
Since the extremist group seized power in Kabul, Iran and the Taliban have had disputes over water rights and engaged in sporadic border clashes.
Ariana: The presence of a two-time T20 World Cup winner is providing additional help to Afghanistan as they plot their way through the initial stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024. Afghanistan’s statement win in their opening group match shows they have the goods to make a deep impact in this edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. The Asian side’s openers showed solid form, while speedster Fazalhaq Farooqi ran through Uganda’s batting line-up. Such was their impact, that even ace spinner Rashid Khan wasn’t needed to do Rashid Khan things to win it for Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: The risk of penetration of radical ideology from Afghanistan into the member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is increasing, said Rustam Emomali, chairman of Tajikistan’s upper chamber of parliament. Addressing the Council of the Parliament Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Almaty, Emomali said that more than 1,000 religious madrassas have been established in Afghanistan, most of which are located in provinces bordering CSTO countries, Russia’s TASS news agency reported. He claimed that these centers also train suicide bombers. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
By RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service
June 3, 2024
Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev said on June 3 that his country has taken the Taliban off of its terrorist list. Addressing a session of the parliament speakers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Almaty, Toqaev stressed the move was made to develop trade and economic ties with Taliban-led Afghanistan. Toqaev also called on the parliament speakers of Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to support Kazakhstan’s proposal to establish a UN regional center for the stable development of Central Asia and Afghanistan.
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
June 3, 2024
ISLAMABAD — The United Nations said Monday that flash floods in Afghanistan, caused by extreme weather events related to climate change, are impacting tens of thousands of children, especially in northern and western provinces.
The impoverished South Asian country has experienced unusually heavy seasonal rainfall and flash flooding over the past month, affecting more than 100,000 people and resulting in loss and damage to houses, infrastructure, and the livelihoods of people in 32 out of 34 Afghan provinces.
The calamity has killed at least 350 people, including women and children, damaging close to 8,000 homes and displacing more than 5,000 families besides destroying crops and agricultural land, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund, or UNICEF.
“The recent extreme weather in Afghanistan has all the hallmarks of the intensifying climate crisis — some of the affected areas experienced drought last year,” the agency noted in a Monday statement.
It attributed the loss of lives and livelihoods and damage to infrastructure to an increase in the “frequency and ferocity” of extreme weather events in the country.
Aid agencies have cautioned that many flood survivors cannot make a living and have been left with no homes, no land, and no source of livelihood.
Tajudeen Oyewale, the UNICEF representative in Afghanistan, urged the international community to redouble efforts and investments to support communities to alleviate and adapt to the impact of climate change on children.
“The growing number and severity of extreme weather events will require UNICEF and other humanitarian actors to step in with even more rapid and large-scale humanitarian responses,” Oyewale added.
He stressed the need for UNICEF and the humanitarian community to prepare themselves for “a new reality of climate-related disasters in Afghanistan.
The war-ravaged country ranks 15th out of 163 countries in the Children’s Climate Risk Index. “This means that not only are climate and environmental shocks and stresses prominent in the country, but children are particularly vulnerable to their effects compared with elsewhere in the world,” UNICEF said.
The Save the Children charity has warned through a recent statement that about 6.5 million Afghan children are forecast to experience crisis-level hunger this year, citing the impact of floods, prolonged drought, and the return of hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans from neighboring Pakistan.
The World Food Program estimates that 3 million Afghan children are malnourished, and it can only reach one-third of them. The decline in international assistance has led to a rise in children’s admissions to malnutrition clinics in Afghanistan, the agency cautioned.
Afghanistan, one of the countries most at risk of global climate crisis, is among the least responsible for carbon emissions.
Afghan children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate and environmental shocks and stresses compared to elsewhere in the world, the statement said.
The return of the fundamentalist Taliban to power in Kabul in 2021 has led to the immediate termination of financial aid to the country, while international humanitarian assistance has recently also declined. This has worsened humanitarian conditions and pushed Afghanistan’s economy to the brink.
McKenzie (file photo)
Khaama: In a new interview with CBS, the former commander of the United States Central Command stated that the Doha Agreement led to “the destruction of the government in Afghanistan.” The U.S. negotiating team, led by Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban negotiating team, led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, signed the Doha Agreement in February 2020 after months of negotiation. Following the signing of this agreement, the process of withdrawing foreign forces led by the U.S. from Afghanistan, which was part of the Doha Agreement, began and was completed by the end of August 2021, when the Taliban had taken control in Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).