20 Die Due to Snowslide in Kunar
8am: At least 20 people lost their lives due to the snowslide in Kunar province, local sources confirm. The incident took place in the Dangam district of Kunar on Sunday evening, according to the sources. Click here to read more (external link).
21 COVID-19 Centers Closed in Last 6 Months, Infections Rising
Tolo News: At least 21 COVID-19 care centers have been closed across the country within the past six months due to financial issues, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said on Monday. Numbers of patients infected by the new variants of the virus are now on the rise. The MoPH warned of a rapid increase of COVID-19 if the international community did not provide support to overcome the new wave of the virus. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghan U-19 player and Cricket Board employees seek asylum in UK
Ariana: The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) has confirmed that a member of the Under-19 team and three board members have applied for asylum in the UK after taking part in the ICC U-19 World Cup tournament in the West Indies last week. Click here to read more (external link).
China, Pakistan Renew Call to Unfreeze Afghan Cash Reserves
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
February 6, 2022
ISLAMABAD — Chinese President Xi Jinping Sunday held wide-ranging bilateral talks with visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in which they stressed the urgency of providing enhanced international aid to Afghanistan to help it avert a looming humanitarian crisis.
The meeting marked the culmination of a four-day visit to Beijing, where Khan was among foreign leaders invited to witness Friday’s opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games.
A post-meeting joint statement said that China and Pakistan “called upon the international community to provide continued and enhanced assistance and support to Afghanistan including through unfreezing of Afghanistan’s financial assets.”
“The two sides are ready to discuss with Afghanistan the extension of CPEC to Afghanistan,” the statement said, referring to a multi-billion-dollar investment program known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
CPEC is hailed as a flagship of Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative, which builds roads, power plants and other infrastructure projects in Pakistan with Chinese investments.
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last August, wide-ranging international sanctions dating back to the Islamist group’s first time in power from 1996 to 2001 followed.
The Taliban’s return to power prompted the United States and other Western nations to immediately freeze more than $9.5 billion in Afghan central bank’s assets, mostly held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The sanctions have pushed the heavily aid-dependent Afghan economy to the brink of collapse and exacerbated a simmering humanitarian crisis in the conflict-torn South Asian nation, where the United Nations estimates around 24 million people, or more than half of the population, face acute hunger.
The international sanctions and other punitive financial restrictions, say aid agencies, are impeding the flow of much needed humanitarian aid to Afghans.
The Biden administration has acknowledged such concerns but remained noncommittal on possible remedies. Last month, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Washington is looking at options to ease Afghanistan’s cash crunch.
“Ultimately, a functioning Afghan economy will require an independent and technically competent central bank that meets international banking standards,” she said. “While Afghan Central Bank reserves held in the United States are subject to ongoing litigation, we recognize calls to examine making available reserves to help the people of Afghanistan.”
Meanwhile, China and Pakistan have stepped up engagements with the interim Taliban government in Afghanistan in recent months to explore ways to increase humanitarian aid and economic cooperation with the crisis-hit country.
China and Pakistan are among the neighboring countries that fear that the turmoil, unless checked, could trigger a massive exodus of Afghan refugees and encourage transnational terrorists to use Afghan soil for cross-border attacks.
Chinese state media quoted Xi as pledging to work with Khan’s government to jointly build “a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era, so as to bring greater well-being for peoples in both countries and provide more impetus for regional cooperation and stability.”
Xi was quoted as highlighting the significance of bilateral strategic ties, saying that China and Pakistan should further strengthen economic cooperation, regional connectivity and cooperation in fighting terrorism.
“The strategic relationship between China and Pakistan is of prominence in a changing world,” the Chinese president said.
Chinese officials have long said that militants linked to the outlawed East Turkistan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, use Afghan soil for terrorist attacks in China’s western Xinjiang border region. The separatist ETIM claims it is fighting to support the minority Uyghur Muslim community in Xinjiang. China has denied allegations of human rights abuses against the Uyghurs.
Meanwhile, Pakistani leaders say the banned Pakistani Taliban have set up sanctuaries on the Afghan side of the border and orchestrated terrorist attacks against Pakistan.
Both Beijing and Islamabad are pressing the Taliban to prevent such activities from their soil in line with their international pledges not to allow Afghanistan to be used for terrorism against other countries.
In the joint statement issued Sunday, Xi and Khan pledged to discuss with Taliban rulers ways to relaunch the China-Pakistan-Afghanistan trilateral foreign ministers’ dialogue.
Beijing initiated the process with the now-ousted Western-backed Afghan government to help defuse Afghanistan’s simmering tensions with Pakistan and improve security as well as economic cooperation between the two countries.
1TV Afghanistan Dari News – February 6, 2022
Afghan Artist Sends 20 Tonnes of Bagram Garbage Back to US
Aziz Hazara
Tolo News: Aziz Hazara, an artist who currently works in Kabul and Berlin, collected a shipment of 20 tonnes of rubbish from Bagram airbase, once used as the main US military base in Afghanistan, the UAE-based The National reported. Hazara told The National that the garbage’s journey would take up to one year, and was intended to retrace the “supply chain of the global war on terror,” the route through international ports and cities where American soldiers and equipment passed through to get to Afghanistan during the war. Its final destination will be the United States. Hazara called it his “gift to the American people.” Click here to read more (external link).
Afghan Skiers Not in Beijing Due to Passport Issues
Tolo News: The Beijing Winter Olympics kicked off on Friday in China with 2,871 male and female athletes from 91 countries competing in 15 different sports. This year, however, no athletes from Afghanistan attended the games due to the lack of Afghan passports, the athletes and Afghan ski officials said. Two skiers, Sayed Ali Shah Farhang and Sajjad Hosseini, were supposed to represent Afghanistan on the basis of a 2020 formal agreement, but officials from the Afghan Ski Federation said that they could not attend the contests due to the lack of passports. Click here to read more (external link).
Cancer Cases Rising in Afghanistan: MoPH
Tolo News: Officials at the Ministry of Public Health voiced concerns over the surge in cancer cases, saying that an estimated 16,000 to 20,000 Afghans lose their lives to cancer annually. “In Afghanistan, annually, around 40,000 people are infected by cancer. Around 16,000-20,000 people are losing their lives to the disease annually,” said Mohammad Hussien Ghias, deputy minister of Public Health, at a press conference on Sunday in Kabul. Click here to read more (external link).
Other Health News
Five Pakistani Troops Killed in Gunfire from Across Afghan Border
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
February 6, 2022
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s military said Sunday five of its troops were killed when militants from across the Afghan border opened fire on them.
The attack, believed to be one of the deadliest such incidents in recent years, took place in the Pakistani district of Kurram on the border, the military’s media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.
It said Pakistani troops retaliated and inflicted “heavy casualties” on the assailants but gave no further details.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the use of Afghan soil by terrorists for activities against Pakistan and expects that [the] interim Afghan government will not allow conduct of such activities against Pakistan, in future,” the army said.
Pakistan will defend its borders against “the menace of terrorism,” the statement said, adding that the sacrifices of “our brave men further strengthen our resolve.”
Militant attacks have increased in Pakistan since the Islamist Taliban seized power in Afghanistan last August and U.S.-led Western troops ended their two decade-long presence in the neighboring country.
The Pakistani military did not say which group it believed was behind Sunday’s attack. Officials have long maintained that leaders and fighters of the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan TTP, are sheltering in Afghanistan after fleeing security operations against their hideouts in Pakistani border districts, and orchestrating terrorism from there.
It is widely believed that when the Afghan Taliban were waging a deadly insurgency against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul and foreign troops, they took shelter in TTP-controlled Pakistani areas and recruited fighters from the Pakistani Taliban.
U.S. and Afghan officials also consistently accused the Pakistani military of covertly supporting the Afghan insurgency, charges Islamabad rejected.
The Taliban rulers have pledged to prevent transnational groups from using Afghanistan for attacks against other countries, but critics say the Islamist group is not living up to its commitments.
Late last year, Pakistani officials and the TTP said the Afghan Taliban had brokered a temporary cease-fire between the two adversaries to try to lay the foundation for peace talks. The 30-day truce expired in early December and the TTP refused to extend it, saying Islamabad violated its commitments. The government has denied the accusation.
Since then, the TTP, which the United Nations and United States have designated as a global terrorist organization, has intensified attacks against Pakistani security forces, killing dozens.