Tolo News: Doctors in the Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul said that the number of children affected by malnutrition has recently increased in this hospital. According to the doctors, within the past two weeks, 45 malnourished children have been admitted to the hospital. “The patients who are having health issues, we are hospitalizing them. The patients who are not having health issues but are just malnourished, we don’t hospitalize them. We give them necessary materials and send them to the clinics until they become well,” said Mohammad Sherzad, a doctor. Click here to read more (external link).
Rashid says players being watched now for next year’s T20 World Cup
Rashid Khan
Ariana: Afghanistan skipper Rashid Khan has said that his side has already set their sights on the next T20 World Cup, in 2024, and that the upcoming T20Is against Bangladesh are part of their “process”. Speaking to journalists ahead of Friday’s T20I in Sylhet, Rashid said players are being looked at now with next year’s World Cup in mind. “It’s just not that we are focusing on one series at a time, it’s just about focusing on how we gonna be in the next [T20] World Cup and that has been started now,” Rashid said. Click here to read more (external link).
More Cricket News
‘In cold blood’: Seeking justice for British army war crimes in Afghanistan
The New Arab: Evidence and public pressure is mounting in an inquiry into British special forces accused of torture and unlawful killings in Afghanistan, despite government efforts to cover up any involvement. “According to the BBC report, unarmed Afghans were routinely shot to death ‘in cold blood’ by Special Air Service troops during nighttime raids, and weapons were planted on them to justify the murders”. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – July 13, 2023
Under Taliban Rule, Afghan Musicians Rendered as Fish Out of Water
8am: The Taliban, who took control in August 2021, regularly attack musicians and destroy their instruments, often depriving them and their families of their livelihoods. It is outrageous to see the Taliban rulers silencing the voices of so many talented Afghan artists who simply want to share their music with the world. Jawid Shawqi, once a singer who used to perform on television and at weddings for a living, has seen his life drastically change since August 2021. Due to the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan and their ban on music, Shawqi now spends his days sitting on the side of the road, wearing a handkerchief around his head, polishing boots from morning till evening. Click here to read more (external link).
Kabul Residents Say They Struggle With Lack of Water
Tolo News: Residents of the capital are concerned about the lack of drinking water in Kabul these days. They said that they do not have access to city water supply services and the price of the drinking water from private companies has also increased. “People’s problems are many. If you ring the bell, three days or four days later it will be your turn to get water. Water also comes at a high price,” said Sher Mohammad, a Kabul resident. “We live here, and nobody pays attention to us, and to our challenges, we call on the government to pay attention,” said Shah Wali, a Kabul resident. Click here to read more (external link).
Authorities Confirm Closure of Teacher Training Centers Across Afghanistan
Khaama: According to the letter sent from the Ministry of Education to Khaama Press on Wednesday, higher teacher training institutions have been eliminated from the Ministry of Education’s organizational structure. The Ministry of Education of the Taliban confirmed the authenticity of the letter issued from the Ministry on Wednesday, claiming that the Teacher Training Centers were “Ineffective and Unnecessary” among the departments. According to data, more than 6,000 instructors and government employees are reportedly employed by “Teacher Training centres” nationwide. Click here to read more (external link).
Citizens Criticize Bank Restrictions on Withdrawals
Tolo News: It has been two years since banks imposed restrictions on withdrawing funds and citizens of the country are once again criticizing the restrictions on banks. They said that after Islamic Emirate [Taliban] took over the country, the withdrawal of money faced restrictions and this problem has made them face many challenges and they called on the Islamic Emirate to address them. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghan Women Denounce Taliban Beauty Salon Ban
Afghan women who work in beauty salons in Kabul gathered on July 12 to protest a Taliban decree that would shut down their businesses by July 25. In interviews with RFE/RL, women said the closures would leave their families with no means of subsistence. Taliban officials say such services are forbidden under Shari’a law.
Related
Extension of China-Pakistan Corridor to Afghanistan Presents Challenges
Roshan Noorzai
Nazrana Ghafar Yousufzai
VOA News | July 12, 2023
WASHINGTON — The Taliban may have achieved a diplomatic win in an agreement to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan, analysts said, but implementation of the project still faces challenges.
“The three sides reaffirmed their resolve to fully harness Afghanistan’s potential as a hub for regional connectivity,” said a joint statement released in May following a meeting of officials representing the three countries in Islamabad. The countries restated their commitment “to further the trilateral cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, and to jointly extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan.”
“I think it’s a big diplomatic success for the Taliban. It further legitimizes the regime,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization.
But she added, “I don’t expect any significant new projects. … I think there are serious obstacles” in terms of regional connectivity.
The $62 billion CPEC connectivity project is a flagship of the Belt and Road Initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. The initiative is a series of infrastructure projects and investments that span the globe with the aim of connecting China to foreign trade.
Felbab-Brown said the decision to extend CPEC to Afghanistan “has really much more to do with China’s global posturing and trying to separate itself from the United States.”
She said China continues its narrative “that the West is to blame for the humanitarian crisis [and] that the West should not be holding [the] money of the central bank of Afghanistan.”
Since the withdrawal of the U.S. and NATO forces and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, China has been vocal in criticizing the U.S. for freezing Afghanistan’s assets.
“[B]y seizing Afghanistan’s overseas assets and imposing unilateral sanctions, the U.S., which created the Afghan issue in the first place, is the biggest external factor that hinders substantive improvement in the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in April.
Chinese investment
The ministry’s position paper on Afghanistan stated that China would “do its best” to support Afghanistan’s reconstruction and development.
In recent months, Chinese companies have shown interest in investing in Afghanistan.
Last week, in a meeting with Taliban officials in Kabul, officials of Fan China Afghan Mining Processing and Trading Co. announced an investment of $350 million in various sectors ranging from construction to health to energy in Afghanistan, according to the Bakhtar News Agency, Afghanistan’s state news agency. The company is a joint venture between China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co. (CAPEIC) and Afghanistan’s Watan Group.
In January, the Taliban signed a contract with CAPEIC to extract oil in the north of the country by investing $150 million annually.
China has also shown interest in the development and operation of mines in Afghanistan. A Chinese company, Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC), signed a contract with the then-Afghan government in 2008 to extract copper from Mes Aynak in Logar province.
But that work has not started yet. Last month, the Taliban’s mining and petroleum minister, Shahabuddin Delawar, urged MCC to begin “practical” work on the development and operation of the mine.
Security concerns
“I do think that China continues to have very substantial security interests and frustrations in Afghanistan, and the security agenda is still the dominant one,” Felbab-Brown said.
A U.N. report, published last month, said the Taliban still has ties with al-Qaida and other groups, including the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party.
China considers ETIM, which was founded in Pakistan by a Uyghur religious figure, Hasan Mahsum, in 1997, as a threat to its security. However, the U.S. removed the ETIM from its terror list in 2020.
Hamidullah Farooqi, a former Afghan minister of transport and civil aviation, told VOA that the Taliban tried to reassure China and Pakistan that “they can address their security concerns, and no terrorist groups will be allowed to use Afghan soil.”
“I do not think that Chinese and Pakistani officials are convinced,” said Farooqi, adding that the Taliban have to act on their counterterrorism commitment.
Farooqi said that the extension of CPEC to Afghanistan was “considered years before the Taliban’s takeover,” but, because of security concerns, it was not implemented.
He said that because of a “lack of security in the country and the activities of TTP [Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan] and other terrorist organizations in the region, the project was not implemented.”
Instability
“Though the security situation improved under the Taliban, Afghanistan does not have political stability, and that is the reason for no foreign investments in the country,” Farooqi said.
He added that the Taliban have to make “fundamental changes in their policies.”
“They [the Taliban] have to respect human rights, women’s rights and form an inclusive government. These are the things that would bring stability to Afghanistan,” he said.
“Though the Taliban claim that they have brought stability in Afghanistan, I think it will take some time to have full control of Afghanistan,” Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, a political economist in Islamabad, told VOA.
Geopolitics
He said geopolitics presents another challenge for Afghanistan in getting investments and deals.
“There is a competition going on among the major powers and some big players in the region,” said Ramay, adding that rivalry between powers can “create some hurdles in the implementation of this policy to include Afghanistan in CPEC.”
Citing an example, Azarakhsh Hafizi, former head of the international relations committee at Afghanistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Industries, told VOA that China is interested in investing in Afghan natural resources, but the Taliban are not recognized by any country as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
“This will make it difficult for any country to deal with the Taliban,” Hafizi said.
This story originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.