Facing Omicron, Afghan Hospitals Request Medical Supplies
Tolo News: Facing the threat of the omicron variant of COVID-19, officials at the Afghan-Japan hospital have raised concerns over the lack of testing kits for the omicron variant at the hospital. According to officials, dozens of COVID-19 patients in critical condition are being treated by the hospital each day, and the hospital is not capable of testing and treating all patients due to many shortages of testing kits, oxygen, and other equipment. Officials said the number of COVID-19 patients has grown in recent days. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghanistan’s Vast Lithium Reserves Could Be a Game Changer
Lithium
8am: The Financial Times recently reported that Afghanistan’s lithium reserves could compete with those of other countries. Lithium, like oil, is rapidly becoming a strategic product, said Elif Nuroglu, head of economics at the University of Turkey-Germany (TAU). Click here to read more (external link).
Afghanistan’s Central Bank Moves To Halt Slide In Afghan Currency
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 14, 2021
Afghanistan’s central bank on December 14 took steps to stop a steep drop in the country’s currency after it lost almost 12 percent of its value against the dollar in a matter of hours the day before.
The central bank said it had held a number of meetings with foreign exchange dealers, representatives of commercial banks, and the business sector to halt the fall in the afghani.
“Based on its strategic planning policies, Da Afghanistan Bank has always tried to avoid volatility that could be harmful to the purchasing power of the people,” the central bank said in a statement.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban-led government, said a meeting of the council of ministers also instructed the government’s economic commission to “take urgent steps to ensure the stability of the afghani.”
The afghani on December 13 dropped from 112 to the dollar in the morning at Kabul’s Sarai Shazada money market to 125 by the afternoon. It recovered slightly on December 14 and was quoted at about 114.
The afghani traded at around 77 to the dollar before the fall of Kabul and at 97 a week ago.
The withdrawal of foreign aid after the Taliban seized power in August has left Afghanistan’s economy on the brink of collapse.
The United Nations has warned that nearly 23 million people — about 55 percent of the population — are facing extreme levels of hunger.
A spokesman for the World Food Program (WFP) said in Geneva on December 14 that the economic crisis combined with a drought and ongoing conflict have meant the average family can barely cope.
A WFP surveys showed an estimated 98 percent of Afghans are not eating enough, with seven in 10 families resorting to borrowing food, which pushes them deeper into poverty, the spokesman, Tomson Phiri, told a briefing.
Prices for food, fuel, and other basics have been rising, putting them out of reach for many people, and pressure on the afghani has made the impact worse.
Last week the World Bank said donors had approved the transfer of $280 million from a frozen trust fund to two aid agencies to help Afghanistan respond to its humanitarian crisis.
Also last week, the United States formalized guidance allowing personal remittances to flow to Afghanistan.
With reporting by Reuters
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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Afghan Musicians Look to Recreate Famed School in Portugal
AP: Students and faculty members from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music arrived with their families Monday in Portugal, where they are being granted asylum and where they hope to rebuild their acclaimed school. Click here to read more (external link).
Guantanamo Bay prison has outlasted the War in Afghanistan and it’s not going anywhere
Task and Purpose: Close to 800 people have been held at the prison since it opened in 2002, but hundreds of those prisoners have been transferred to third countries since then. Currently, 39 detainees are being held at Guantanamo Bay, said Army Lt. Col. César Santiago, a Pentagon spokesman. Click here to read more (external link).
No U.S. Troops To Be Punished Over Kabul Strike That Killed Civilians
Kirby
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 13, 2021
No U.S. military personnel will be held accountable for a Kabul drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children, in August, the Pentagon has said.
An investigation by the U.S. Air Force inspector-general last month called the August 29 strike, which took place during the U.S.-led evacuation of tens of thousands of people after the Taliban seized control of the country, “a tragic mistake.”
But the investigation said the strike did not violate any laws and was caused by execution errors, communication breakdowns, and “confirmation bias” — a tendency to make decisions on what one expects to see.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters that senior commanders had made a number of recommendations to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about the incident, none of which included any accountability measures for specific personnel.
Austin accepted the recommendations, Kirby said.
“I do not anticipate there being issues of personal accountability to be had,” he added.
Kirby mentioned the high level of danger facing U.S. forces following a deadly bombing outside the Kabul airport that killed 13 troops as background of the subsequent drone strike.
“In this case, in the context of this particular strike…there was not a strong enough case to be made for personal accountability.”
Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
US Says Evacuation of Americans, Permanent Residents and Afghan Nationals Continues
VOA News
December 13, 2021
The United States continues to evacuate Americans, permanent U.S. residents and Afghan nationals who helped the U.S. from Afghanistan following a chaotic withdrawal in August that left an unknown number of Americans in the country.
According to a press release from the State Department released Monday, the U.S., since August 31, has relocated 479 American citizens and 450 permanent residents and their families.
The State Department says it is in touch with “fewer than a dozen” Americans who “want to leave Afghanistan, are prepared to depart, and have the necessary travel documents.”
The State Department says it has relocated “more than 2,200” Afghan allies and their families.
According to the State Department, the Biden Administration has provided funding to resettle up to 95,000 Afghan nationals in the U.S. Some 74,000 have been resettled already.
Officials say Afghans “undergo a rigorous and multilayered screening and vetting process prior to their arrival in the United States and undergo additional screening at their Port of Entry.”
Earlier this year, Senate Republicans disputed the quality of the vetting in a memo that they said summarized interviews with government officials overseeing the process.
The U.S. completed the withdrawal of its troops after a 20-year involvement in Afghanistan in August, leaving the Taliban in control of the country. The withdrawal led to chaotic scenes at the Kabul airport as Afghans and others attempted to leave the country.
During the chaos, a suicide bomb attack at an airport gate left 13 American service members dead. Hundreds more were wounded.
The United Nations has appealed for $4.4 billion to assist 23 million Afghans next year – to deal with what has become its largest humanitarian crisis.
Iran deports thousands of Afghans who fled the Taliban and poverty
Aamaj: The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran deports thousands of Afghan refugees who have fled the Taliban and poverty. “People are simply being dumped on the border” by Iranian authorities, a United Nations official said. “The percentage of deportations is rising dramatically since the takeover by the Taliban,” the official said to the Wall Street Journal. Click here to read more (external link).
UN Aid Chief: Afghan Economy Needs Restart Before Year-End
Margaret Besheer
VOA News
December 13, 2021
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths says Afghanistan needs flexible and sustained international funding before the end of this year to prevent the further collapse of the economy, and he will press the United States to help during meetings in Washington next week.
“What we have become very painfully aware of in recent weeks is that the freefall of the economy is much more violent, severe and urgent than we feared,” Griffiths told VOA recently. “We thought we would manage to survive the winter with pure humanitarian assistance. We now know it’s not enough. We need more.”
Over the past two decades, Afghanistan’s economy has heavily depended on foreign aid to survive. Some 75% of the former government’s budget was donor-funded, as was 40% of its GDP.
Since the Taliban took over on Aug. 15, the suspension of most international aid has contributed to the breakdown in most basic services, including electricity, health services and education. Inflation is rampant, and the price of ordinary goods is beyond the reach of most Afghans.
Griffiths says there is a solution – a currency swap — but it must be finalized and fast.
“We need to provide a facility to allow dollars outside the country to be exchanged for Afghanis, the local currency inside Afghanistan. We need that to be dependable, sustainable and to scale,” he told VOA.
The aid chief said currently the cash required to run the massive humanitarian operation is not available inside the country. The United Nations has appealed for $4.4 billion to assist 23 million Afghans next year – to deal with what has become its largest humanitarian crisis.
On Dec. 21, Griffiths plans to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington. He said his key message will be that the U.N. needs flexible funding which will not land in the hands of the Taliban.
“We also want to send the same message to Congress: that the people of Afghanistan need support, and that supporting them is not support to the Taliban, it’s support to the people of Afghanistan. These are two different things,” the U.N. humanitarian chief said.
Griffiths emphasized that the Americans have been very active in granting humanitarian exemptions to their sanctions and pushing for them at the U.N. Security Council, which has its own sanctions on Taliban elements. But the exemptions have not been enough to improve the confidence of international banks and businessmen, who fear inadvertently violating them if they do business with Afghanistan.
“So, we need a system which does not breach sanctions, which is approved essentially by U.S. leadership to allow for the economy to restart,” he said.
In one positive step, the World Bank said Friday that donors have agreed to release $280 million from its Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund by the end of this month. The bank had paused disbursements after the Taliban takeover.
The U.N. children’s fund, UNICEF, will receive $100 million of the money for health services, while the rest will go to the World Food Program to assist 2.7 million people with food aid.
In many parts of the world where the United Nations carries out large humanitarian operations, insecurity is often a major obstacle. But since fighting has largely ended since mid-August, except for counter-terror operations against Islamic State Khorasan, access has opened up to areas that were once previously too dangerous to work in and to reach by both road and air.
“Humanitarian space – operational space — has largely prospered under the Taliban,” Griffiths said.
And while the world waits to see if the Taliban will honor commitments to respect human rights, especially those of women and girls, Griffiths says they have “largely” kept pledges to allow humanitarian groups broad access and to carry out their work, including female aid workers, as they see fit.
Griffiths was the most senior international official to visit Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, traveling there in early September to meet with the senior leadership to negotiate terms for the United Nations to continue its massive aid operation.
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