Rising Incidence of Pneumonia and Malnutrition in Nimruz Province
8am: As temperatures drop, pneumonia and malnutrition cases among children under five have risen in Nimruz Province. Families cite insufficient healthcare facilities and food scarcity, blaming long-standing unemployment. They contend that limited job opportunities and low incomes expose their children to illnesses. Doctors in the province emphasize that cold weather, poor nutrition, and economic hardships contribute to the spike in pneumonia and malnutrition cases among children. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban Administer Public Whipping in Sar-e Pul Province
8am: The Taliban’s Supreme Court recently confirmed the administration of a public whipping as punishment for alleged “immorality” in Sar-e Pul Province. In a statement released on Sunday, March 3rd, the Taliban’s Supreme Court disclosed that the aforementioned individual underwent the whipping in the presence of local Taliban officials, relatives of the accused, and select members of the Taliban court in Sar-e Pul Province. Click here to read more (external link).
Two children killed, four injured in explosion in eastern Afghanistan
Khaama: Local officials in Paktia province report the tragic loss of two children and injuries to four others due to an explosion of a landmine in the Hesarak district of Paktia province. According to reports from Paktia province officials, the incident occurred on Sunday, in the Khilzi Khalil area of the district. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – March 2, 2024
China Afghan Dilemma: Looking for Reward Amid Ton of Risk
Michael Hughes: The Western exit from Afghanistan left the country’s neighbors to deal with the fallout from the Taliban’s grooming of and/or inability to contain transnational terrorist activities. Beijing, likely grasping it does not have the capabilities to reach the growing threat of Afghan-based terrorists targeting China, figures it can at least get something from the high-risk scenario.
However, China is unlikely to see much upside by expending cash and effort to exploit Afghanistan’s minerals, allegedly worth some $1 trillion, as many opponents of the U.S. exit have claimed. At the most, China will likely take pieces off the geopolitical chessboard for relatively EV metal-starved Western powers. At the least, they will rule out for the world the endeavors are academic due to security and cultural issues along with difficulties in doing business with the radical movement.
Analysts: Doha Agreement ‘Flawed’ as US, Taliban Accuse One Another of Violating Terms
Roshan Noorzai
Waheed Faizi
VOA News
March 1, 2024
WASHINGTON — Four years after the signing of the Doha agreement, the U.S. and Taliban accuse each other of violating its terms, while analysts say that the agreement was “flawed” and has had “disastrous” outcomes for Afghans.
“The Taliban have not fulfilled their commitments in the Doha agreement,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday in a news briefing in response to a question from VOA’s Afghan Service.
“The Taliban have also not fulfilled their Doha commitment to engage in meaningful dialogue with fellow Afghans leading to a negotiated settlement, an inclusive political system,” she said.
After seizing power in 2021, the Taliban established an all-male Taliban caretaker cabinet and rejected calls to form an inclusive government.
Jean-Pierre added that the U.S. would hold the Taliban to their commitment and work “tirelessly every day to ensure that this set of commitments is fulfilled.”
The Taliban, however, accused the U.S. of “violating” the agreement.
“If you have read the agreement, it is written that the U.S. would normalize its relations with the future government in Afghanistan, remove the sanctions and restrictions, and cooperate, which [the U.S. does] not,” spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Thursday in an interview with state-run TV in Afghanistan.
Mujahid, however, said that the two main objectives — the U.S. withdrawal and not allowing anyone to use Afghan soil against the U.S. and its allies — have been implemented.
The U.S.-Taliban peace deal, signed in Doha, Qatar, on February 29, 2020, paved the way for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
The agreement obliged the Taliban to cut their ties with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups and participate in intra-Afghan peace talks to decide on “the future political map of Afghanistan.”
Retired U.S. General David Petraeus, who served as the commander of U.S. forces in South Asia and then as director of the CIA, told VOA that the Taliban obviously had not complied with the deal.
“If they had, the leader of al-Qaida wouldn’t have been a couple of blocks from the presidential palace, in a building controlled by the Taliban in Kabul, the capital … despite the promise in the agreement not to allow them back on Afghan soil,” he added.
He said that the outcome of the implementation of the agreement was “very tragic, heartbreaking and disastrous,” as since the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan has been facing multiple crises.
The United Nations says that Afghanistan continues to experience one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.
‘Disastrous for Afghan women’
The Taliban imposed repressive measures on women, including barring them from attending high schools and universities, traveling long distances without a male companion, working with public and nongovernmental organizations, and going to gyms and parks.
Shukria Barakzai, a former Afghan diplomat and member of the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the Afghan parliament, told VOA that the Doha agreement was “disastrous for Afghan women, as nothing related to human rights, women’s rights and women’s achievements from 2001 to 2021 were referred to in the agreement.”
She added that the agreement paved the way for the return of repressive rules against women introduced when the Taliban were in power in the late 1990s.
Before the ouster of the Taliban by the U.S. in 2001, women were not allowed to leave their houses without a male chaperone, work outside their homes, or attend school.
The international community has repeatedly called on the Taliban to respect women’s rights and form an inclusive government as conditions for their recognition.
No country has yet officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, although China has accepted the credentials of the Taliban’s ambassador in Beijing.
‘Flawed in almost every way’
Annie Pforzheimer, a former U.S. acting deputy assistant secretary of state for Afghanistan, told VOA that there should have been “some kind of international guarantee” to prevent the Taliban’s return.
“But instead, what happened was a withdrawal that happened before the right circumstances were in place,” she said.
The agreement was “flawed in almost every way, in terms of implementation,” Pforzheimer said, adding that “the only people who complied with it were the international forces, and in fact the United States withdrew its forces and obliged NATO to do the same.”
She added that she was concerned about the future of Afghanistan, especially for Afghan girls and women who are “denied an education and a future.”
“Right now, there’s not much hope, but I think that Afghans working together will understand that they are in greater numbers than the Taliban,” Pforzheimer said.
Noshaba Ashna of the VOA Afghan Service contributed to this report, which originated in the VOA Afghan Service.
Taliban Warns of Ban on Female Media Appearance Without Dress Code Compliance
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
March 1, 2024
ISLAMABAD — Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have reportedly warned of barring female journalists and women at large from media platforms unless they comply with a dress code requiring that only their eyes be visible.
The Afghanistan Journalists Center, or AFJC, a press freedom organization, said the warning was issued Tuesday by Mohammad Khaled Hanafi, head of the Taliban’s Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry, meeting with journalists in Kabul.
In a statement on its website, the AFJC quoted ministry spokesman Abdul Ghaffar Farooq as recommending at the meeting that they “adhere to a modest dress code, showing images of women in black attire and veils with their faces mostly covered, leaving only their eyes visible.”
Farooq also suggested that television news channels avoid interviewing women “who do not adhere to the hijab or fully cover their faces,” the organization said.
“Hanafi warned that failure to comply with these guidelines may lead to a potential prohibition of women working in the media” by Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, the statement said.
Ministry officials have not yet commented on the reported meeting or its details.
The media watchdog said it was “deeply concerned” about the state of Afghan media and “the potential repercussions of banning women from working in the media, who already face significant restrictions in their work.”
It said Hanafi’s warning could ultimately eliminate women from the media in Afghanistan, where the Taliban already have placed sweeping restrictions on most women’s access to education and work or public life at large.
The AFJC said in its statement that local media professionals in the country have dealt with stringent work conditions requiring them to strictly follow a set of media guidelines the Taliban introduced after reclaiming power in 2021.
Some of the existing directives prevent women from working in national radio and television stations, enforce “gender-based segregation” in workplaces, and prohibit broadcasting female voices and phone calls in certain provinces, the center said.
The AFJC moved its office out of Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover but says it has workers on the ground and coordinates with local media outlets.
The Taliban have banned television dramas that include female performers, and female news presenters must wear an officially prescribed “Islamic hijab” on air.
‘Gender Apartheid’
The Taliban have prohibited teenage girls from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade, female aid workers are banned from working for nongovernmental humanitarian groups, including the United Nations, except in the health sector, and females are not allowed to visit public parks, gyms, and bathhouses.
A U.N. expert warned in a report issued Thursday that the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan had “deteriorated immensely” and caused “unacceptable suffering” since the Taliban takeover.
Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur on the situation of Afghan human rights, urged action by the Taliban and the outside world “to halt this downward spiral and give hope” to Afghans.
“Women and girls are being erased from public life, peaceful dissent is not tolerated, violence and the threat of violence are used with impunity to control and instill fear in the population,” Bennett said. He said he is “deeply concerned” about the bans on girls’ education and female aid workers.
He denounced the Taliban-ordered public executions and floggings of Afghans, including women, convicted of crimes, including murder and adultery.
The report found that “the institutionalized, systematic and widespread nature of gender-based discrimination was unparalleled, rising to the level of gender persecution and justifying being characterized as ‘gender apartheid.’”
Just hours before the report was issued Thursday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that Bennett and other Western critics should stop “misusing” the issue of Afghan human rights and instead focus on and stop rights abuses elsewhere in the world.
The Taliban have rejected criticism of their governance, saying it is aligned with the Islamic law of Sharia and Afghan culture.
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Tolo News in Dari – March 1, 2024
US State Dept: Doha Agreement Empowered ‘Taliban’
Tolo News: The United States Department of State says that the Doha Agreement led to the empowerment of the Islamic Emirate and the weakening of America’s partners in Afghanistan. Mathew Miller, the spokesperson for the department, while referring to the interim government’s actions against terrorist groups, also says that the Islamic Emirate has violated the Doha Agreement..”In our view, this agreement empowered the Taliban, weakened our partners in the Afghan government, and committed the United States to withdraw its forces without any clear plan for what should come next. The Taliban have not fulfilled their commitments under the Doha Agreement,” said Mathew Miller, The spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State. Click here to read more (external link).