AFP in Dawn, December 30th, 2022LONDON: G7 foreign ministers on Thursday called on the Taliban to “urgently reverse” a ban on women working in Afghanistan’s aid sector. The ban is the latest blow against women’s rights in Afghanistan since the Taliban reclaimed power last year. The hardline Islamists also barred women from attending universities earlier this month, prompting global outrage and protests in some Afghan cities. The G7 ministers along with those of Australia, Denmark,…
Posts tagged as “Taliban”
report in Dawn, December 30th, 2022ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office has said that Pakistan has pursued continuous and practical engagement with the interim Afghan government since the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul on Aug 15, 2021. Addressing a weekly briefing on Thursday, FO Spokesperson Mumtaz Zehra Baloch said that during the outgoing year Pakistan was involved in multilateral diplomacy, both in an individual capacity and as a member of international groupings. Regarding Afghanistan, she expressed disappointment over…
report in The Guardian, Dec 29, 2022The United Nations said that some “time-critical” programs in Afghanistan have temporarily stopped and warned many other activities will also likely need to be paused because of a ban by the Taliban-led administration on women aid workers. UN aid chief Martin Griffiths, the heads of UN agencies and several aid groups said in a joint statement on Wednesday that women’s “participation in aid delivery is not negotiable and must…
By Fatema Adeeb in ToloNews, Dec 28, 2022 at 9:04 PMFormer President Hamid Karzai urged the Islamic Emirate to begin a process of inclusivity by launching a grand Afghan dialogue, saying that it is for the good of the “Taliban themselves and for the good of the country.” The former president, who remained in power from 2001 to 2014, made the remarks in an interview with The Washington Post. When asked about the Islamic Emirate’s…
report in The News, Dec 29, 2022LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan has said his government had been negotiating with the Afghan Taliban government resettlement of some 40,000 Pakistani Taliban, including 5,000 to 10,000, militants, but the new government did not pay much attention to this issue and the country is facing terrorism now, reports Geo News. He said the Pakistani Taliban, who had fought the Americans and were mostly…
The Afghan Taliban regime came into power touting the fact that its rule will be drastically different and softer than during the 1990s. But it would appear that these promises were insincere judging by the clampdown against women of the country. Just days after banning them from attending universities, the Taliban have now also prohibited them from entering the workforce—particularly non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The order was officially given by the Ministry of Economy on December…
AFP in Dawn, Dec 27th, 2022LONDON: Christian Aid and ActionAid on Monday became the latest foreign aid groups to suspend operations in Afghanistan after the country’s Taliban rulers ordered all NGOs to stop women staff from working. Announcements by the two groups take to six the number of bodies who have paused their operations in the country. Christian Aid was “rapidly seeking clarity… and urging the authorities to reverse the ban”, head of global programmes…
Pakistan’s strategy against the outlawed terrorist organisation, Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), heavily depended on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan who now insist that such groups are not operating out of their country. Instead, they insist that this is an internal problem that Pakistan must deal with on its own. At the same time, cross-border attacks have increased exponentially ever since the Ashraf Ghani was ousted. There is an undeniable link here that must be explored and…
by ran Yousaf in The Express Tribune, Dec 25, 2022ISLAMABAD: Amid an upsurge in terrorist attacks, the country’s civil and military leadership is undertaking a major policy review in order to stem the tide of banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), officials familiar with the development told The Express Tribune. The rise in the TTP-sponsored attacks has pushed the authorities concerned to revisit the strategy pursued by the previous government. Official sources say closed door discussions are…
by Aasim Sajjad Akhtar in Dawn, Dec 23rd, 2022The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.IT has been 14 months since Afghanistan was handed over to the Taliban by the most fearsome military force the world has ever known, the US army. For most of this time the narrative has been that the regime in Kabul is markedly different from the one that ruled in the 1990s, willing and able to conform to liberal norms of…
by Baqir Sajjad Syed in Dawn, Dec 23rd, 2022ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Thursday said Afghanistan’s de facto government has renewed its commitment to rein in cross-border terrorism and hoped that the Taliban administration would live up to its pledge. “We have received some assurances and have held some important consultations with the Afghan authorities. We hope that the Afghan interim government will fulfil the commitments that it has made to Pakistan in terms of…