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UN chief urges action to prevent economic collapse in Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: September 19, 2021)

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Saturday called on the international community to urgently inject some cash into Afghanistan, saying it would be disastrous if the country’s economy collapsed.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Guterres said currently “millions and millions of people (are) on the verge of dying because of hunger”.

Should the economy collapse, “it would be a total disaster; it would be lots of people dying and I believe a massive outflow into the neighboring countries with horrible consequences for the stability of those countries, so I think it’s very important to avoid that collapse.

“I’ve been saying that humanitarian aid is essential but at the same time it’s necessary, and of course there are ways to do so even in respect for international law, it’s essential to inject some cash to allow the Afghan economy to breathe and to avoid the kind of collapse that would have devastating consequences,” he said.

Guterres’ statement comes amid a cash flow crisis in Afghanistan. Essentially a dollarized nation under the former government, weekly shipments of US dollars stopped the day the Islamic Emirate took over Kabul – on August 15.

Since then, severe weekly limits have been imposed by banks on cash withdrawals for individuals, foreign reserves have been frozen, and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank also stopped loans.

Guterres said: “It’s our duty to do everything possible to support the Afghan people and to help create the conditions for those concerns that everybody has about terrorism, about human rights, about inclusivity, to materialize.”

He also stated that the “situation is unpredictable” but added the UN is working with the Islamic Emirate to allow for humanitarian aid to be distributed to the people.

He said that is would be a “disaster if terrorist organizations could operate again from Afghanistan.”

Guterres also noted that it was important for the Islamic Emirate to “understand the importance of an inclusive government that takes into account the diversity of the different groups [in the country]” and to respect basic human rights.

Asked about what he thought went wrong in Afghanistan, Guterres said the first problem was the “idea that the Afghan people can be ruled from outside.”

He said the British and the former Soviet Union had both tried to do this in the past, but both had failed.

The Afghan people are “very proud and they have lots of problems among themselves but they have even more problems with the idea that they can be dominated from the outside”, he said.

He also said he felt there had been too much “military action and not enough support to building institutions.”

According to him, the former Afghan leaders were divided – singling out the two past elections that had both been contested.

He said the election system adopted for Afghanistan “that was a unitary system was not the most adequate for a country that is so decentralized”.

“The truth is that there was a huge dysfunctionality in the government and we have seen it in relations of the president; and the international community looked at it without any capacity to really allow things to improve and so all these fragilities accumulated and in the end what we had, and we had it in a very chaotic way that nobody was forecasting.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen; as I said the situation is unpredictable but i think that there is at least a part of the leadership of the Taliban (Islamic Emirate) that would like to have Afghanistan as a country recognized by the international community and would be ready to pay a price for that,” he said.

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MoI registers over 8,700 criminal cases in the past six months

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Abdul Matin Qani, the Ministry of Interior’s spokesman said on Thursday that in the last six months, 8,747 criminal cases have been recorded across the country.

Addressing a press conference in Kabul, Qani said of these cases, 7,233 have been solved while the remaining 1,525 are still being investigated.

He said 12,540 people have been arrested in connection with these crimes.

In addition, 21 kidnappers have been killed, 18 hostages have been freed and 172 people have been arrested in connection with kidnappings in the same period of time.

Qani also said in the last six months 837,000 passports have been distributed. He said three new passport offices will be established in Kabul in the near future.

“10,000 passports are distributed to citizens daily by the Passport Department,” said Qani.

On the issue of narcotics, he said drug cultivation, production and trafficking has been eradicated. He said drug manufacturing equipment and 377 drug factories have been destroyed across the country.

According to him, the ministry has also made advances in collecting illegal weapons, fighting corruption and improving police skills.

Qani stated that during this period, no security incidents took place in most provinces across the country.

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TAPI gas company CEO satisfied with project’s progress

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

The minister of mines and petroleum, Shahabuddin Delawar met with the executive director of the TAPI project and the ambassador of Turkmenistan in Kabul on Thursday to discuss progress around the key project.

Murad Amanov, head of the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) Gas Pipeline project, expressed his satisfaction with the recent progress of the project and talked about the practical roll out of the project.

Delawar said that the preliminary work of TAPI is progressing quickly and that the pipeline will be put into operation in the near future.

TAPI is a natural gas pipeline being developed by the Galkynysh – TAPI Pipeline Company Limited with participation of the Asian Development Bank.

The pipeline will transport natural gas from the Galkynysh Gas Field in Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India.

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UK’s Mercer faces 10-day deadline in Afghanistan war crimes inquiry

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(Last Updated On: March 27, 2024)

Johnny Mercer, the former UK Minister for Veterans Affairs, has been given 10 days to reveal the source of allegations that British troops engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan, or face a potential prison sentence.

British media reported on Tuesday that Mercer, following his allegations regarding the killing of Afghan civilians by British forces, was ordered to reveal the sources of his information.

The BBC reported that a public inquiry commissioned by the UK government into the actions of its forces in Afghanistan has directed Mercer to disclose the names of individuals who leaked information to him about alleged war crimes and cover-ups by special forces, or he may face imprisonment.

Although separate investigations have sought to verify these claims, the British government has yet to officially confirm them.

Earlier this month, Mercer, who served in military missions in Afghanistan, told the court that despite the information he possesses, he cannot confirm the killing of Afghan civilians by British forces between 2010 and 2013.

In court, he also stated that the claim British soldiers killed unarmed civilians in their sleep does not contradict his findings, but he admitted reluctance to believe it.

According to Mercer, British forces were allegedly instructed to carry an unregistered weapon — one not associated with NATO forces — to place next to the unarmed Afghan individuals they had killed.

The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says the countries that had troops in Afghanistan for 20 years all committed war crimes.

Mujahid stated that if the investigation carries on, it will be a big step and that the crimes committed should be investigated transparently.

“The crimes that have been committed should be investigated transparently because this was not the work of a few soldiers but a plan that was drawn and crimes were committed in Afghanistan,” he added.

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