Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Taliban claim they have changed … but all the signs suggest it’s only for show

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As regime talks of tolerance, reports emerge of beatings, house searches and attacks on women

The first time the Taliban took Kabul, 25 years ago they tortured and killed former President Mohammad Najibullah, dragged his body behind a truck through the streets, then hung it from a lamp-post.

Last week, with Kabul surrounded and a second victory almost inevitable, the Taliban ordered their troops to hold back from entering the city, to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. When they did march in, it was to a soundtrack of their commanders offering an “amnesty” for anyone who had opposed them over the last two decades.

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Biden to ‘mobilize every resource’ to get Americans home from Afghanistan

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  • Embattled president promises: ‘We will get you home’
  • Biden endeavors to evacuate Afghans who supported US

Joe Biden, under mounting pressure to evacuate American citizens from Afghanistan, has said the US is considering “every means” to get people to Kabul airport, promising: “We will get you home.”

Related: ‘We will get you home,’ Biden tells Americans in Afghanistan – live

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Afghanistan: chaos and gunshots outside Kabul airport amid evacuations – video report

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Tens of thousands of foreigners and Afghans who collaborated with US and Nato forces remain stranded in Kabul, as governments grappled with an overwhelming backlog of visas and Taliban checkpoints that were preventing people safely reaching the airport. US troops and Taliban fighters have opened fire into the air to disperse crowds held up outside the airport as they attempt to escape the country

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Protests in Pakistan erupt against China’s belt and road plan

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Demonstrations shut down Gwadar, where Chinese are blamed for lack of water and electricity and threat to local fishing

Protests have erupted in Pakistan’s port city Gwadar against a severe shortage of water and electricity and threats to livelihoods, part of a growing backlash against China’s multibillion-dollar belt and road projects in the country.

This week, demonstrators including fishers and other local workers blocked the roads in Gwadar, a coastal town in Balochistan. They burned tyres, chanted slogans and largely shut down the city, to demand water and electricity and a stop to Chinese trawlers illegally fishing in the nearby waters and then taking the fish to China. Two people were injured when the authorities cracked down on the protesters.

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As I walk around Kabul, the streets are empty of women

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A few days ago the capital was full of women going about their business. Now, the few that remain walk fast and full of fear

Four days after the quick and unexpected invasion of Kabul by the Taliban, the streets of the Afghan capital are almost entirely devoid of women.

The few women who are on the streets are wearing the traditional blue burqa, Islamic garb that, while customary in Afghanistan, was not used as widely in Kabul until now. Many women are dressed in the long black clothes commonly worn in the Middle East and Arab nations.

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‘No one comes here any more’: the human cost as Covid wipes out tourism

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From Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca to wildlife tourism in Nepal, we find out how the crisis has affected people in four travel hotspots – and whether or not they want the tourists to return

In March last year, it was predicted that the global travel shutdown would cause international arrivals to plummet by 20 to 30% by the end of 2020.

Six weeks later, the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) revised their warning: international arrivals could fall by up to 80% – equating to a billion fewer tourists and the worst crisis in the history of the industry.

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Delaying US exit a month could have meant peace in Afghanistan, says negotiator

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Biden’s hasty withdrawal removed leverage in talks with Taliban, says first female vice-president of Afghan parliament Fawzia Koofi

Joe Biden delaying the exit of American forces from Afghanistan by just a month could have made a significant difference to the outcome of continuing peace talks with the Taliban leadership, according to one of the negotiators.

Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan politician and women’s rights activist, said the chaotic withdrawal undermined all leverage that the US and the Afghan government had had with the Taliban at the talks in Qatar.

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Born to be wild: India’s first captive-bred endangered vultures are set free

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Numbers of the country’s carrion-loving birds dropped by over 97% in the 1990s. Now, a successful breeding scheme is giving them a boost

In February, the doors of an aviary in West Bengal’s Buxa tiger reserve were flung open. Eight critically endangered captive-bred white-rumped vultures cautiously emerged and within minutes were mingling with wild vultures, devouring the meat of carcasses left out by a team of researchers from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).

The birds were raised in a nearby breeding centre by BNHS, led by assistant director Sachin Ranade, as part of efforts to save India’s Gyps vultures. Gradually, some of the released vultures perched on trees with their wild cousins, while others returned to the wire-mesh aviary where they had spent the previous few months getting acclimatised to their surroundings.

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Taliban face financial crisis without access to foreign reserves

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Analysis: As the US freezes Afghan reserves and Germany halts aid, the new rulers may find they are far short of what is required to govern

Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers are likely to face a rapidly developing financial crisis, with foreign currency reserves largely unreachable and western aid donors – who fund the country’s institutions by about 75% – already cutting off or threatening to cut payments.

While the hardline Islamist group has moved in recent years to become more independent of outside financial supporters including Iran, Pakistan and wealthy donors in the Gulf, its financial flows – amounting to $1.6bn (£1.2bn) last year – are far short of what it will require to govern.

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Boris Johnson struggles to justify Afghanistan stance to hostile MPs

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Analysis: PM fails to make convincing defence of foreign policy amid criticism from across the Commons

Other leaders have had the luxury of being able to deliver an uninterrupted televised address. But Boris Johnson had to justify the ignominious retreat from Afghanistan in front of a testy, and at times hostile, House of Commons – dominated by critics from his own side asking if Britain could have been better prepared and if the collapse of the Kabul government could have been averted.

It was an occasion the UK prime minister struggled to rise to, not helped by the format that Downing Street had opted for: a general debate, which meant MPs were allowed to rise and seek to intervene as Johnson spoke, generating a crescendo of background noise after he had completed a line or two.

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Women’s rights will be respected ‘within the limits of Islam’, say Taliban – video

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The Taliban said they wanted peaceful relations with other countries and would respect the rights of women 'within the limits of Islam', as they held their first press conference since seizing Kabul. During their rule between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban implemented their own strict interpretation of sharia law, preventing women from working and girls from going to school.

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Biden’s speech on Afghanistan was resolute, but lacked contrition or humility

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Analysis: The scenes of mayhem in Kabul have erupted in the public consciousness, and may damage the president’s reputation

It had just started raining at the White House on Monday when a group of reporters, the Guardian included, were summoned and led past a Secret Service agent, along a red carpet in a windowless corridor, up a staircase and into the elegantly appointed East Room.

Related: Afghanistan live news: Taliban say they seek no ‘revenge’ in press conference; vice-president says he is caretaker president

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After 20 years and $2tn spent in Afghanistan, what was it all for?

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Analysis: The stunning US defeat has left Afghans and Americans distraught and confused but some gains may not be easily erased

On 1 October 2001, three weeks after the 9/11 attacks and six days before the bombing of Afghanistan began, there was a small protest march in Washington.

The marchers wore badges saying “Don’t Turn Tragedy into War” and “Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War”, and argued that war was not the inevitable response to the terrorist outrage.

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‘There was never a good time’: was Biden’s Afghanistan speech fair or accurate?

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Analysis: US president’s TV address blamed others for the Taliban takeover and tried to distance himself from past administrations

In a televised speech on Monday, Joe Biden defended his decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan and his handling of a crisis that has seen the Taliban capture the country in a lightning offensive. Blaming Afghan politicians and the country’s security forces for the calamitous collapse, he also sought to distance himself from previous administrations. But how much of it was fair or even accurate?

Biden: We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and make sure al-Qaida could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that. We severely degraded al-Qaida in Afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden and we got him.

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Dominic Raab says no one predicted Taliban takeover of Afghanistan – video

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It was impossible to predict the Taliban would retake Afghanistan so swiftly after the withdrawal of international troops, Dominic Raab has said, arguing: ‘No one saw this coming.’

Speaking to the media following his return from holiday, after chaotic and deadly scenes at Kabul airport on Sunday, the UK foreign secretary said US and British troops had stabilised the airport, allowing evacuations to resume


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Evacuations continue in Afghanistan – in pictures

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Following the Taliban’s military takeover of the country, westerners continue to leave. Afghans hoping to escape Taliban rule have gathered in Kabul, with many making desperate attempts to flee. There was chaos at the airport, where troops used guns and helicopters to clear the runways, and several people died in frantic last-minute attempts to escape by clinging to departing planes

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How is UK planning to help resettle Afghan refugees?

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Ministers are expected to announce a ‘bespoke’ scheme similar to that put in place for Syrians in 2014

Ministers are expected to announce plans for a new settlement scheme in the UK for Afghan nationals following the Taliban takeover of the country. Similar to a scheme put in place for Syrians in 2014 amid the country’s civil war, this would be in addition to existing structures to assist some Afghan nationals.

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‘Chilling reports’: UN chief urges security council to act on Afghanistan – video

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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on the security council to 'use all tools at its disposal to suppress the global terrorist threat in Afghanistan' and guarantee that basic human rights will be respected. Ashraf Ghani left Afghanistan on Sunday as the Taliban took over the country 20 years after they were ousted by a US-led invasion. 'We are receiving chilling reports of severe restrictions on human rights throughout the country,' said Guterres. 'I am particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan'.

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China will tread carefully in navigating the Taliban’s return

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Analysis: Difficult to predict how China will deal with its volatile neighbour, but Uyghur issue could prove contentious

The US’s hasty departure from Afghanistan has provided much material for China’s propaganda agencies to discredit Washington’s foreign policy. But Beijing is also treading a careful line in navigating an increasingly uncertain security situation in one of its most volatile neighbours.

On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, said that while Beijing will “continue developing good-neighbourly, friendly and cooperative relations with Afghanistan”, it also urges the Taliban to “ensure that all kinds of terrorism and crimes can be curbed so that the Afghan people can stay away from war and rebuild their homeland”.

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Cooling consumerism could save the climate | Letters

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Bill Kingdom says the battle against Covid provides lessons in how to cut consumption to ease global warming. Plus letters from Sue Dalley, David Hughes and Dave Hunter

In Adam Tooze’s article (By pushing for more oil production, the US is killing its climate pledges, 13 August), he surmised that economic activity and fossil fuel consumption are hardwired together. It may be more that economic activity and energy consumption are hardwired together – and thus the need to move to renewables or low-carbon energy sources. That must be part of the strategy, along with as yet unavailable technical solutions such as carbon capture.

However, we seem to tiptoe around the consumption part of any strategy. Lower consumption results in lower carbon emissions. The government has managed to exert strong influence over personal actions during the Covid pandemic using a myriad of three-word slogans. We need a similar push linked to consumption and climate change.
Bill Kingdom
Oxford

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