8am: Ghor local sources say an armed group has targeted three members of former uprising members in an ambush that killed two of them and injured another one. The three ex-uprising members have been ambushed in the Maidan Barakhana area in the center of Ghor on Saturday, (October 23), according to the information. Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 25, 2021
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet with Taliban representatives during a visit to Qatar, in their latest high-level talks since the withdrawal of U.S.-led international forces in August.
The visit to Doha, where the Taliban has its political office, is scheduled for October 25-26 to discuss “issues of joint concern,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a daily briefing.
“Since August this year, the situation in Afghanistan has undergone fundamental changes and the Afghan people have a historic opportunity to independently decide the country’s destiny. Meanwhile, however, they still face many difficulties and challenges and are in urgent need of external support,” Wang said.
“As Afghanistan’s traditional friendly neighbor and partner, China has always advocated dialogue and contact to guide the positive development of the situation in Afghanistan,” he added.
China has not recognized the new rulers in Kabul but has kept its embassy open as it seeks to expand its economic and political footprint in the war-torn country with which it shares a 76-kilometer border.
In July, Wang met with a delegation led by a top Taliban figure, Abdul Ghani Baradar, in China, shortly before the group seized power from Afghanistan’s Western-backed government.
The two sides have continued contact, including China’s participation last week in Russian-hosted talks with the Taliban attended by officials from nine other countries.
Taliban officials have repeatedly said they intend to expand ties with China, which has promised humanitarian aid and economic cooperation.
Unlike the West, China is unlikely to make ties contingent on human rights issues, preferring instead hard economic, political, and security interests.
In particular, China is asking the Taliban to control the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, an ethnic Uyghur group Beijing considers a terrorist organization seeking independence in the western region of Xinjiang.
During the Taliban’s visit to China in July, the delegation pledged that the group would “not allow anyone to use the Afghan soil against China.”
Earlier this month, two sources in Tajikistan and Afghanistan told RFE/RL that the Taliban had “removed” ethnic Uyghur fighters from border regions with China to other parts of Afghanistan.
With reporting by AP and Reuters
8am: The trip of the Omid National Team to Bahrain has been canceled. Afghanistan’s Football Federation has said that the team has been deprived of preliminary competition for the Asian championship. Click here to read more (external link).
Other Sports News
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
October 25, 2021
ISLAMABAD — United Nations agencies warned Monday humanitarian needs in Afghanistan have grown to unprecedented levels and more than half of the conflict-torn country’s population, a record 22.8 million people, will “face acute food insecurity” from November.
The Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program said in joint study the combined impacts of drought, conflict, and economic decline have severely affected lives, livelihoods, and Afghans’ access to food.
“Among those at risk are 3.2 million children under-five who are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of the year,” the study said.
The latest U.N. findings come as the looming harsh winter threatens to cut off areas of Afghanistan where families desperately depend on humanitarian assistance to survive the freezing winter months.
“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises – if not the worst – and food security has all but collapsed,” lamented David Beasley, WFP executive director.
“This winter, millions of Afghans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation unless we can step up our life-saving assistance, and unless the economy can be resuscitated,” Beasley said. “We are on a countdown to catastrophe and if we don’t act now, we will have a total disaster on our hands.”
The Islamist Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August after overthrowing the Western-backed government, promising their interim government would restore stability.
But the hardline movement’s return to power has triggered financial sanctions on Kabul by the United States and other Western nations, blocking the Taliban’s access to around $10 billion dollars in Afghan assets parked largely with the U.S. Federal Reserve.
The sanctions have raised prospects of an economic meltdown that critics say will worsen the humanitarian crisis facing millions of people.
Washington and European countries have declined to directly engaged with the Taliban or give their interim government legitimacy, but they have vowed to make arrangements to sustain delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid to Afghans.
Neighboring countries, including China, Pakistan and Iran, have already dispatched relief assistance and promised to send more on a regular basis to help the Taliban government tackle the food crisis.
Thousands of poor families in western Afghanistan have reportedly already sold their flocks and fled in search of shelter and assistance in make-shift camps near major cities.
The U.N. says it will need to mobilize resources at unprecedented levels to meet the scale of needs, lamenting its humanitarian response plan remains only a third funded. Aid agencies warn this year’s drought conditions are likely to extend into 2022.
FAO and WFP say they have been alerting the world to huge funding shortfalls and the need for urgent action by the international community before it is too late.
“Hunger is rising and children are dying. We can’t feed people on promises – funding commitments must turn into hard cash, and the international community must come together to address this crisis, which is fast spinning out of control,” Beasley warned.
Save the Children, which champions the rights and interests of children worldwide, said Monday its analysis of the U.N data concludes almost 14 million children are expected to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity this winter “More than 5 million children are now just one step away from famine,” it added.
The relief agency pointed to this week’s media reports that said that eight children from the same family died of starvation in Kabul after losing both of their parents. The siblings, four boys and four girls, were aged between just 18 months and eight years old.
“It seems there is no end to the agony for Afghan children. After decades of war and suffering, they now face the worst hunger crisis in their country’s history,” said Chris Nyamandi, country director of Save the Children in Afghanistan.
“The situation is already desperate – we see young children in our clinics every day who are wasted from severe malnutrition because they have nothing but scraps of bread to eat,” Nyamandi said
Related
Ashraf Ghani (left) and Zalmay Khalilzad (right)
Tolo News: Talking to CBS News, Khalilzad said the US military tried many times to strengthen its position on the battleground, but it failed. “The negotiation was a result of–based on the judgment that we weren’t winning the war and therefore time was not on our side and better to make a deal sooner than later.” Khalilzad blamed the then-president Ashraf Ghani for the disintegration of Afghanistan’s security sector, saying his escape triggered the chaos in the Afghan capital. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Taliban militants (file photo)
Ariana: “We intend to create a national and independent army under MoD to defend the country with high values. We will attempt to equip the IEA army with modern weapons. The army should have ground and airspace capabilities,” said Mullah Yaqoob. Click here to read more (external link).
Jafar Haand
Roshan Noorzai
VOA News
October 24, 2021
WASHINGTON — Women athletes in Afghanistan say the Taliban’s return to power has put an end to their dreams of playing sports at the national and international levels.
“It is over,” said 21-year-old Homaira Barakzai, the captain of Afghanistan’s national handball team, adding that “Everything has changed with the political change (Taliban’s return). Our only hope right now is to survive. Our future, as athletes, is unknown.”
After seizing power in August, the Taliban rolled back the hard-won women’s rights gained in the past two decades in Afghanistan. They did so by imposing strict restrictions on women, including a ban on women’s sports.
“It was very painful” to see that Afghanistan did not play in the Asian Women’s Handball Championship, said Barakzai. The games were held September 15-25 in Amman, Jordan.
Barakzai added that the Taliban’s takeover of the Afghan capital and the chaos at the Kabul airport after the collapse of the Afghan government prevented them from traveling to Amman for the games.
“It would have been a major achievement not only for us (the team) but for Afghan women and Afghanistan if we participated and won,” said Barakzai, who led the Afghan handball squad for the past four years.
Barakzai said now that the Taliban again control Afghanistan, she will not be able to play for her country. “Our dream came to an end as the Taliban returned to power.”
The Taliban, who took control of Afghanistan in August, barred women from work, secondary education and playing sports.
‘Very disappointing’
A high-ranking Taliban official told the Australian broadcaster SBS last month that Afghan women will not be allowed to play sports if they cannot “get an Islamic dress code.”
“It is obvious that they will get exposed and will not follow the dress code, and Islam does not allow that,” said Ahmadullah Wasiq, the deputy head of the Taliban cultural commission.
Mashhed Barez, a member of Afghanistan’s national handball team, told VOA that the Taliban ban on women’s sports is “very disappointing.”
She said the Taliban have not changed from what she heard about the group’s rule in the late 1990s.
“If someone thinks that the Taliban have changed, they are mistaken. The Taliban want people to live in poverty and misery,” Barez said.
Under Taliban rule in the late 1990s, women were forced to cover themselves from head to foot. They were not allowed to leave their houses without a male companion. The Taliban forbade women from playing sports.
That, however, changed after 2001 when a new Afghan government, supported by U.S.-led forces, adopted new policies encouraging girls to attend school and women to participate in the workforce.
In the past 20 years, millions of girls enrolled in schools, and tens of thousands of women served in the public and private sectors. Afghan women athletes have participated at national and international tournaments, including the Olympic Games.
But with the Taliban returning to power in Afghanistan, circumstances have changed.
Safety concerns
New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Taliban of widespread human rights violations against Afghan women and girls.
In a statement last month, HRW’s associate director of the Women’s Rights Division, Heather Barr, said “women’s rights activists and high-profile women have been harassed and many are afraid and in hiding.”
“Because my parents were worried about my safety, I had to move to a relative’s house,” said Barakzai. “Now I cannot go out. I have to stay at home.”
She added that other members of the Afghan national handball team also live in fear.
Arzo Rahimi, chairperson of the Girls Football Federation in Afghanistan, told VOA that the international sports bodies should not forget about the country’s women athletes.
“They should not be left behind,” said Rahimi.
She added that athletes’ lives “are in danger under the Taliban,” and urged the international community to help with their evacuation to safety.
Evacuation
Last week, the world soccer body, FIFA, evacuated 100 football players and their families from Afghanistan with the help of the Qatari government.
The International Olympic Committee and a number of other sports bodies and countries have helped in the evacuation of dozens of other women athletes.
London-based rights group Amnesty International said in a statement this week that though the international evacuation of at-risk Afghans from Afghanistan ended two months ago, “those left behind face formidable obstacles to seeking safety outside the country.”
Freshta Ahmadzai, a member of the Afghan national basketball team, told VOA that women athletes, being at high risk, are “forced” to leave the country because the Taliban do not give women their rights.
“We live like prisoners at home. We will be forced to leave the country,” she said.
Ahmadzai called on the international community to put pressure on the Taliban to honor their pledges to respect women’s rights.
“If the Taliban allow women to work and play sports, I will not leave my country,” Ahmadzai said.
8am: The Taliban border forces have beaten many journalists in the Torkham passage in Nangarhar province where most people are gathered to go to Pakistan, according to the reports. Sedaqat Ghorzang the Tolo News reporter in eastern provinces who had gone to the Torkham passage to make a report has been beaten by the Taliban border forces, Tolo News reported. Click here to read more (external link).
Child getting polio drops (file photo)
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
October 24, 2021
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan and Afghanistan, the only two countries where polio still paralyzes children, marked World Polio Day (October 24) Sunday amid excitement and hopes that global eradication of the crippling disease is within reach.
The neighboring countries constitute a bloc where the disease has been endemic; but each has detected just one case of wild polio so far this year compared to 53 in Afghanistan and 81 in Pakistan in October 2020. The number of cases so far in 2021 is the lowest in history, according to World Health Organization officials
A polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan has faced challenges in particular over the past two years — due to vaccine hesitancy and the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a five-month pause in polio immunization campaigns starting in March of 2020.
“We have reason to be optimistic,” said Aziz Memon of Rotary International, which coordinates a global polio eradication program.
Memon told VOA the declining trend of reported polio cases and negative environmental samples suggest “a positive outlook” for polio eradication in Pakistan and Afghanistan, stressing the need for capitalizing on what he described as an “unprecedented” opportunity to stop wild polio transmission.
“We are currently in the high season for polio transmission in Afghanistan and Pakistan, so it’s never been more important to ensure that polio immunization and surveillance remain a top priority, particularly as the pandemic continues to threaten immunization programs around the world,” he said.
Memon said restrictions on public movement to prevent COVID-19 from spreading was one of the key contributing factors leading to the recent decline in polio cases in Pakistan.
“Inter-city and intra-city public transportation remained suspended across the country during the pandemic lockdowns, which restricted many nomadic families from traveling to other cities in search of job opportunities,” he said.
Memon said the resumption of mass polio vaccination campaigns and the natural immunity induced by the wild polio outbreaks of previous years have also contributed to the current reduction in cases.
The Pakistani government reported earlier this month that its third vaccination campaign of the year in mid-September succeeded in the administering of polio drops to more than 40 million children across the country.
Afghan house-to-house drive
The United Nations last week announced that a house-to-house polio vaccination drive for all children under 5 in Afghanistan will restart on November 8 for the first time in more than three years, now that the conflict-torn country’s new Taliban government has granted approval.
“Given that Pakistan and Afghanistan are a single epidemiological bloc, this represents a great opportunity for both countries to reach even more children with lifesaving polio vaccines,” said Memon, while welcoming the Taliban’s decision to lift the ban on house-to-house polio vaccination.
Rotary’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative was founded in 1988. The program has since reduced infections by more than 99.9 percent worldwide and immunized nearly 3 billion children against polio, preventing more than 19.4 million cases of paralysis. But Rotary officials predict “hundreds of thousands of children could be paralyzed” if polio is not eradicated within 10 years.
International eradicators warn outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) also pose a major barrier to achieving a polio-free world, calling for increased vigilance in swiftly addressing it.
The outbreak occurs if not enough children in any given community are vaccinated and the weakened live poliovirus contained in the oral polio vaccine starts to circulate, mutating to a form that can cause paralysis.
“Multiple countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, are facing outbreaks of cVDPV type 2, and to address them, a new polio vaccine that carries less risk of changing to a harmful form that could cause paralysis in low-immunity settings has been developed,” Memon said.